When we have a new product idea (and are lucky enough to have the skills and tools to execute on it), it’s often more than tempting to jump in with two feet and start building the thing. Before we know it, we’re pitching the hows before whys and problem solving becomes a battlefield of miscommunication. As a result, our product concept becomes more complex and less focused.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been investing a lot of time and energy into a product design process that we’ll be using for an upcoming project.

I insisted we made investments in our process and put this case to the team:

We’ll Make a Better Product

The main reason for using a product design process is ‘to make a better product’. To query our definition of a better product: a product which outperforms its competition by solving its customers’ problems in a more simple and effective way.

We’ll See Where Value Can Be Added

Distilling the big problem that our product is solving into situations will help us visualise all the moving parts and figure out where value can be added.

Ryan Singer writes a brilliant piece on situation value:

Suppose a team is building a “file versions” feature. Two situations define the value differently and lead to different designs.

In one situation, a person catches an embarrassing mistake in a proposal and wants to know who to blame. In order to do this, they need to see information about intermediate versions. They value the product telling them who made what changes and when.

On the other hand, consider a situation where they want to send the latest version of the proposal to the client. They don’t care how it got to its current state. They just want to send the correct file. In this case intermediate versions have no value. The user just wants to know where the latest version is.

Different situations = different values.

Defining situations will align us as team and conversation will be more constructive and focused on the task at hand; getting users from A to B.

In the absence of code we can quickly iterate through our best ideas, fitting all of the moving parts together. This will maximise our potential of designing a product concept which is simple, useable and more effective in its approach.

We’ll Sing from the Same Hymn Sheet

We’ll waste less time and energy mis-communicating and voicing logical speculation. Instead, we’ll be solving real problems based on real situations.

We’ll know the right time to discuss problems and when it’s right to discuss solutions. Better still, we’ll be contributing ideas from our respective areas of expertise, which will open up new opportunities and unblock us.

We’ll Think Conceptually

Freeing ourselves from code will help us to problem solve in a more abstract way. Code is high fidelity; like cemented bricks. Better to think solely about the product in its conceptual form with something low fidelity, like paper mockups.

The beauty of problem solving on paper is that it’s quick and easy. We don’t need to be artists to present our ideas to each other. What’s more; we can quickly hash-out numerous iterations of a design pattern or technique and pitch them against our view of a better product.

We’ll Build a Better MVP

Once we’ve formulated our product concept, we can outline features that we want to exclude for 1.0; this will form our minimum viable product (MVP).

We’ll know that the MVP we’re building, is in fact, the foundations to our product concept. We’ll waste less time as everything we build will count towards the whole. We’ll loop through less iterations as the UX will have a solid direction, cemented on real world problems.

So far…

The process has already helped us in the areas above. We’re still learning though and adapting to a new workflow is always daunting. We’ll put the process through its paces a little more and I’ll share it on here once we have something to show how effective it is.

In the meantime if you’re working on software projects and care about what you ship, I’d suggest you checkout Rick Hickey’s talk on design, composition and performance as well as Ryan Singer’s post on the Vital Elements of a Product Design Process. Both have been central to designing our product design process.’

Had a wonderful time in the Algarve, Portugal. We hired a car for most of our stay and travelled right along the south coast. Check out the full Flickr Set ›

If you ever visit, make sure you check out Silves Castle. It was - by far - the most ethereal place I’ve been.

Bijan Sabet on Steve Jobs:

His relationship with friends deteriorated for the most part. His relationship with family wasn’t great either.

Obviously none of us know the real story but the book reflects conventional wisdom: Steve was focused on Apple and Steve. And in that order.

The question which comes to mind (for me) then is: what if Steve was happy and had a balanced life?

1. Could he have fixed Apple?
2. Could he have led Pixar and Apple to greatness?
3. Could he have it all?

Sabet draws a line, pointing out people fall into two camps for the most part:

• stressed out of their minds, loving their work but wiped out. Relationships strained or worse.
• relationships stronger than ever but the work isn’t what it used to be.

Interesting observation. Brings to mind Paul Graham’s article on good and bad procrastination:

The most impressive people I know are all procrastinators. They’re type-C procrastinators: They put off working on small stuff to work on big stuff.

What’s “small stuff?” Roughly, work that has zero chance of being mentioned in your obituary.

Question is, do your family and friends qualify as small stuff?

When we hit the bottom of your web page, what do you want us to do? Where should we go next? What are other people saying about this service? Should we get in touch with your team or look at the tech specs for this ground-breaking new product?

Too many websites fail to answer these simple questions.

Think about it: It’s a bit like visiting a supermarket with aisles that lead to dead ends. You either walk all the way back up the aisle, or you loose interest altogether and are forced to use the fire exit.

When we reach the end of your web page, show us where to go next. Better still, you know where we are, so show us other things that might be of interest. You’ll be amazed at how much longer we stay and how much more we’ll learn about you, your story and your products.

I spent most of Wednesday helping out at Liverpool’s Cardinal Heenan School for an Enterprise Day.

Apart from having great fun and a school dinner, I worked with the students on a proper roll your sleeves-up day of taking a product from idea through to pitching a concept.

I think my quote wraps-up the day nicely:

“First things first; taking a product from idea through to concept is more than difficult. Add to that a time constraint of a school day, product pitches, adverting campaigns and financial planning and we’re really talking.

That, apparently, was not enough to faze the boys from Cardinal Heenan. I think I speak for all of the panelists when I say we were left amazed and open-mouthed by the quality of their product concepts, marketing ideas, financial planning, cultural awareness and above all, their confident and engaging product pitches.”

If I had a hat, I’d take it off a thousand times for those boys.

A few months ago I was asked by Sage to be one of their business experts. Thinking that sounded a bit like something from The Office, I asked what the role would involve.

The team explained that I’d be rolling my sleeves up and helping the business community by sharing my understanding of the web, design, marketing and business in general. I welcomed the opportunity.

Last week they published my first post:

“How Barry raised investment, risked everything and faced bankruptcy before turning his company into a multi-million pound operation…”

The ubiquity of these headlines makes us tempted to think that we need big investments to start our next project or company. It’s even more tempting to use this as an excuse not to start work on our exciting ideas.

Full article →

Together with Matt Richards, I’m organising an event in Liverpool on June 20th 2013.

With the hope of bringing together those working on tech products and ideas, Demo asks a simple question; what are you working on?

Hosted at DoES Liverpool, the event will be made up of a maximum of 6 demos with a short midway interval.

Loosely Held…

As far as demoing is concerned, we welcome those at varying stages of development. From early ideas, right through to well established products. Extracted from the Demo FAQs:

A demo is a short, 5 minute talk about a product or idea. That might include a loosely-held concept, a new feature, a simple website or a game-changing internet of things product.

To make the sessions as constructive as possible, we’re encouraging a setting whereby the listeners have as much responsibility as the speakers. Feedback placards will be given to attendees with the view of encouraging a lively Q & A session after each demo.

From the handful of events I’ve attended, it would appear that there’s some pretty interesting stuff going on in Liverpool. Let’s hope Demo goes some way in unearthing and applauding that.

For more info head over to the event’s landing page: letsdemo.it

If you have any questions drop us an email or a quick tweet.

In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.

This made me laugh and think a bit. Here’s the original full commencement address.