RETROPEAK by Andreas Sachse

Design for behavior change

March 30th, 2010

In one of my early blog entries (“Small car? Half priced parking!”) I talked about finding the right incentive to change people’s behavior. The case was cheaper parking for smaller cars.
Now, it seems, there’s an emerging field called ‘design for behavior change’. This field touches upon the exact same thing: finding the right incentives as a motivation for a new behavior.
This is very exciting stuff – not only when looking at mass behavior change (like getting kids to wash their hands in kindergartens and schools) but also looking to change the behavior of your customers.

A good example is something that has existed in web sales for a very long time: sites giving away free shipping if your purchases reaches a certain amount. I for one, find myself filling the basket until I reach the free shipping limit, and to me this proves, that it’s possible to work with incentives that motivate certain purchase behavior.
I’m sure this could be exploited in many new ways especially if combined with some of the social media services.

But I think there’s another part of ‘design for behavior change’ that could be equally exiting. It could be a great mission for product design companies to make products that have built in incentives towards the purchase (e.g. the purchase contributes to global causes, or to local community causes like a new playground) and at the same time motivates the customers to a certain new behavior through the design of the products (e.g. doing something great with your kid, getting more exercise, reduce waste or conserve energy). Of course the product should also fill a need and meet a market, but that goes without saying.

Maybe this could be a path to success for some?

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

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Tags: Behavior, Customers, Design
Posted in Business, Design, Industrial Design, Product Design, Product Design Companies, Trends | No Comments »

The importance of gut feeling

January 30th, 2010

six_sigma I was reading this very inspiring article at Harvard Business Review the other day (I actually instantly bought the book as well…one more for the shelf…).
In the article Roberto Verganti talks about user-centered-innovation and how he disagrees with the approach.
After working with six sigma a couple of years in my previous job, I have sort of come to the same conclusion. In the Six Sigma scheme the overall (simplified) goal is to move away from ‘gut feeling’ and towards data based facts and decision making. As we said to our clients: “Gut feeling is evil” :)
In the same manner user-centered-innovation is an attempt by businesses to verify their concepts. By user involvement they hope to create products, services etc. that the users demand.
As much as I acknowledge user involvement in general, it just isn’t the right approach when what you’re creating is genuinely an innovative product – especially if the product fills a yet un-adressed market. In that case you are creating a completely new demand.
And to be honest, I’d rather follow my own gut feeling than asking several other individuals about their opinion about something they haven’t yet thought of.
I thank Roberto Verganti for putting intelligent words on this. Looking forward to read his book.

Rating: 4.7/5 (3 votes cast)

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Posted in Blog, Business, Design, Inventions | 1 Comment »

Ten Tech Predictions 2010

January 21st, 2010

2010_predictions
Here’s ten tech predictions for 2010 which I’m pretty sure is going to be a fantastic year!

Year of the tablets
Once again, Apple will raise the bar for consumer electronics by introducing a functional tablet computer, and once again everybody else will try to catch up.

Android attack
Nokia and SonyEricsson will bite the dust, accept defeat and put Android on most of their phones.

Netbook craze no more
Due to the evolution of processors, the ‘netbook’ term will fade away as most low-end laptops are lightweight, have a long battery life and a processor capable of handling what most full-fledged laptops of last year could.

eReader niche
eReaders will remain a niche product as more and more people want hybrid gadgets that do more than one thing.

Electronic Bicycle Gadgets (EBG)
2010 will bring the introduction of consumer level electronic bicycle equipment; GPS location services and electronic locks will be the first practical implementations.

Free GPS maps
Pushed by Google and Nokia, the largest GPS players will feel forced to give away their map updates for free and will have to quickly find new revenue streams.

Clash of the Titans
Now that Google has launched its own phone, has its own OS (mobile + desktop), has its own browser etc. etc. they are well positioned to gain market shares from Apple, who in turn will respond by accelerating development of Google replica services. The old enemy – Microsoft – will not be the focus of attention (until they start having success with their products during 2011).

Power (control) to the people
We’ll see the introduction of connected power monitors for private households; once households can track their day-to-day power consumption and compare with neighbors and friends it will accelerate the awareness of cutting power consumption an largely contribute to reduced CO2 emission.

Sunny LED bulbs
Finally, LED bulbs that emit natural looking light will come at price points that makes it a worthwhile purchase.

And – completely off-topic – here’s a bonus non-tech prediction for you…

Bicycle revolution
A new, revolutionary product will be introduced on the market and will greatly improve everyday life for male bicyclist all over the world, making a bicycle ride more safe and more enjoyable. ;)

Rating: 4.8/5 (5 votes cast)

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Posted in Gadgets, Trends | 6 Comments »

How to be (a bit more) professional

October 12th, 2009

Cash flow graph

If you’re the type, like me, who likes numbers and plans (*), here are some tips from the top of my head…

Guide to creating good business cases:

do proper market research
find realistic market numbers
be specific about your assumptions
build a proper model that can be reused for future products
build various business cases based on the model

Now, insert your business case numbers into your overall business plan:

be specific about your different cost elements
create a profit & loss (P&L) model
build a cash flow model in order to track your financial situation
create a sales model with input from your business cases

…go sell!

:)

*) and even if you’re not, you should seriously consider reading into these things if you’re a start-up company – feel free to ask me questions using the comments feature!

Rating: 5.0/5 (2 votes cast)

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Tags: business case, business plan
Posted in Blog, Business, Product Design Companies | No Comments »

Design for Designers?

September 10th, 2009

It’s always interesting being introduced to a work domain that you haven’t been in previously. Trying to understand how people think, work and interact in the product design community makes me see a lot of weird things going on. One of my first realisations was that a great deal of product designers are designing stuff that never reach the public. Maybe they see their design as an art form more than a practical tool in the development of a product…maybe they just like to show their design to other designers which in turn will acknowledge their designs.
It’s not entirely unlike the open source computer programming community: people share code pieces that are so far from being a proper program, that you really have to live within the community to appreciate it. It’s essentially raw pieces of code, just like raw pieces of design is just that: an unfinished part of a greater whole.

For me, the design is just one of many important steps in a product development process. I understand and acknowledge the importance of design … but at the same time you have to acknowledge the equal importance of e.g. production, sales and distribution as parts of a product development process.

And I shrivel each time I hear someone say “great design” when seeing some crappy 3D design sketch rendering and when that design sketch is being promoted as the next big thing. C’mon let’s focus instead on the successful designers – let’s find the designers that have successfully managed to make great product designs that resulted in great products that you can buy. After all…the product is the goal, not the design, right?

Rating: 3.5/5 (4 votes cast)

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Tags: community, Design, development, product design, products
Posted in Blog, Design, Product Design | No Comments »

Improve or don’t

September 1st, 2009

When making industrial design products you’re very likely also trying to innovate or even invent new concepts (unless you’re solely into ’styling’). And while that is certainly the goal for many, and although ocassionally you stumble upon some true innovative concepts, in my opinion you’re most likely looking at “micro innovation” or – more plainly – improvement.

Improvement in products is important, because when you, as a consumer, are replacing a product with a new one, you expect added features – you’re looking for that piece of innovation that justifies the purchase. The case is clear when you’re replacing something that is a commodity: replacing a bicycle is much more fun if the new bicycle has some added feature that the old one didn’t (e.g. drive belt instead of chain).

And it’s also why it sucks so much replacing your old laptop with a new one: it’s fun to feel the added speed when you open your favorite apps to begin with, but very soon you start feeling sorry you spent €2.000 on something that’s essentially identical to what you had before. Unless it comes with some innovative feature (Apple did it right when they introduced the magnetically attached power cord “MagSafe”).

I really don’t believe in new products that just look better and don’t bring any improvement to what the product needs to do and to the people using it (unless what you’re replacing is fugly). So basically: Improve your products or don’t sell any!

Rating: 2.8/5 (6 votes cast)

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Posted in Blog, Industrial Design, Inventions, Product Design | No Comments »

Microsoft bashing

August 26th, 2009

powerpoint_table

I’m really trying to convince myself into NOT writing this post – it’s against my aim to be zen and not become angry at the world.
But being a daily user of Microsoft software (currently Windows 7 + Office 2007) I just HAVE to lift these things off my chest. So please…just ignore this post.
Ok, here we go…

Why the HELL is Microsoft always making almost-there-but-not-quite products?!? They did a GREAT job updating Office 2003 to Office 2007, but why didn’t they fix these things:

They created great new menus, but why did they remove the option to customize them? Don’t they like expert users?
Adjusting table column widths in Powerpoint is a living hell
Rendering of said tables is way off in certain resolutions/zooming levels, which is annoying (see picture)
If a dialogue box is open in Powerpoint (e.g. the custom color dialogue) then for some reason the Windows show desktop shortcut (Windows button+D) doesn’t work…WTF is up with that??? And if same dialogue is open, you can’t open another Powerpoint file (you even receive a nice message saying this…see picture). This is freaking me out!
If a dialogue box is open in Outlook, then all hell breaks loose…e.g. try double clicking an e-mail address in a received e-mail (as if to see more data on that sender): if the sender is NOT in the exchange address book, a dialogue showing the e-mail address (again) appears, and all other Outlook windows (open mails, calendar etc.) become locked – and they’re not even visible using the ALT-TAB shortcut! Come on…!!!
Now try right-clicking any file in your Windows Explorer, choose “Send to” and “Mail recipient”…three amazing things happen:
1. A new mail is created with the file attached, but somehow Outlook refuses to insert your default signature…instead it adds some stupid text stating that you should check the security of the file as well as adding the redundant information that is the name of the file. This is done, I should add, in plain text format regardless of your setting to use HTML in new e-mails. If you want the e-mail to look normal, you have to format it and insert the signature yourself.
2. All other Outlook windows become locked, so if you wanted to attach another file that was sent to you in an e-mail, you can forget about it.
3. If you realize the above point and decide to save the new e-mail (with the attachment, in plain text, and without the signature) in order to access the rest of your Outlook, then forget about finding the saved e-mail in your Draft folder as is normally the case. No, instead Outlook chooses to save it as an unread message in the Inbox folder which makes absolutely no sense at all. OMFG!

And the list just goes on and on and on.

As much as I acknowledge the impact that the Microsoft Office suite has had upon today’s way of doing business, I wish that the people at Microsoft would stop assigning interns to the Office development and start paying attention to the details. It’s all in the details, guys…one day you’ll get it.

Rating: 1.5/5 (4 votes cast)

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Tags: Microsoft, Office
Posted in Blog, Software | 1 Comment »

Leverage the potential of your ideas

June 12th, 2009

It’s a well known fact that ideas that are kept in the drawer never reach their potential. Ideas need to be brought out into the open, discussed, elaborated upon, shown to people, tossed and turned etc. etc. until the idea transforms into a business opportunity, a product, a concept or whatever.
This proces of refining the raw idea into something usefull is being optimised in a variety of ways. A common buzz concept is crowdsourcing which intend to reduce the risk of creating products that people don’t really like. Another concept is userdriven innovation which is similar and by no means a new invention – except maybe in the product design world where designers traditionally have been sitting behind closed doors crafting their designs without any interaction with the end consumer.

One startup that builds on these new concepts is quirky which call themselves a ’social product development company’.

The idea is brilliant and also very simple: a) submit your idea, b) pay a small fee, and c) let the community (i.e. registered users) decide which product to take into production (they are currently rallying votes for product # 5).
If your idea is chosen, quirky and the rest of the community will help develop, build, and sell the product and part of the revenue goes back to you and other users that influenced the product.
There’s a lot more to the concept, so go check it out!

It’s all about sharing your idea, and making money. Excellent concept – and perhaps one for you to transform to the European market?
Or maybe just submit your 4-year-old-idea-in-the-drawer and make tons of money?

Rating: 4.0/5 (4 votes cast)

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Posted in Blog, Industrial Design, Inventions, Product Design, Product Design Companies | 2 Comments »

The Bug Factor

June 4th, 2009

The Bug Factor

So, you bought that painting half a year ago and you were quick to decide where to hang it; then why is it still standing on the floor leaning towards the wall?
And those new wooden panels you installed over a year ago, why haven’t they been painted yet?
And why didn’t you fix the gears on your bike? Or the creaky door hinge that bothers you so much?

These are examples of something that bugs you on a daily basis, but it doesn’t bug you enough to actually make you do something about it. Even though the amount of time and work you would have to invest is fairly small, you still don’t do it.

Then at some point – out of the blue – you overcome the obstacle and you fix ‘the bug’. It only takes you a couple of minutes, and then you’re done. Bug fixed.
This point is called ‘The Bug Factor’:

[WORK/TIME] << [IRRITATION/BUG] x [THE BUG FACTOR]

It is – in other words – a point in space and time where the irritation (or ‘bugginess’) is so much bigger than the work and time you have to invest (by the factor of ‘bug’) that it seems reasonable to fix the bug. Since irritation builds over time, the bug factor also tells you how long you can expect a bug to remain unfixed.

Right, so how is this tranferred to product design? Not in any way particularly. But it’s strikingly often that you find yourself using a product that bugs you A LOT. Whether it’s a wine opener, a stereo, a printer, a hair dryer etc. you’re often never quite happy. Something bugs you. But – and this is the important part – it doesn’t bug you so much that you go out and replace the product! The product is, in other words, kept below ‘the bug factor’.

Now, a lot of companies actually meassure their products by this: they know they haven’t created a great product, in fact it’s barely good enough, but it’s below ‘the bug factor’ so they know that the consumers wont go out and replace it after they’ve bought it (and they will buy it thanks to all the marketing they’ve sacrificed on the product).

This is a consequence of rushed design processes and rushed go-to-market strategies – all of which is believed by a lot of people to be neccessary in order to make money and be succesfull.
Luckily not all companies think like this, and this is why it’s possible to find and buy bug free products.
More product design companies should make products that don’t bug us at all. They should make honest products that don’t pretend to be something they aren’t, that are easy to interpret and are easy to use. And they should make sure that this was the company backbone.

Rating: 2.7/5 (3 votes cast)

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Tags: bug factor, Product Design Companies, strategy
Posted in Blog, Product Design, Product Design Companies | 1 Comment »

Everyday improvements

May 12th, 2009

I read an interesting article this weekend. Supposedly Danes are very good at coming up with ideas to solving everyday problems, like the invention of the induction bicycle light Reelight that solves the problem of replacing batteries.
I guess the reason for Danes being good at this, comes from our profound ability to grumble about almost everything. We love the opportunity to tell how much we hate when this-and-this happens, or how annoying it is when he/she does this etc. etc. It’s an integrated part of our culture…

Luckily this can actually be turned around to something positive. In product design a well known tool is the ‘bug list’: every time something annoys (or ‘bugs’) you, you write it down on the bug list. Whether you have the list on you or your just taking a mental note and writing it down later is not important (as long as you don’t forget it). The important thing is the reflection itself, and the effect it has: a) it makes you feel good to delve in the fact that you are annoyed and are able to pinpoint exactly what annoys you :), and b) it gives you a list of ideas that each could develop into an invention or a new product.

And since we are very good at being annoyed, it is quite easy to come up with a long list of things that need improvements – from door knobs to bicycle locks.

Who knows, maybe one of your ‘bugs’ might actually be something worth exploring further (if you live in Denmark there is a lot of help to find at www.opfind.nu on how to take your ideas a bit further).

Rating: 4.0/5 (4 votes cast)

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Tags: bug list, ideas
Posted in Blog, Inventions, Product Design | No Comments »

Small car? Half priced parking!

May 4th, 2009

Parking

I read about this concept on Springwise and I was intrigued by the simplicity in the message: if you don’t take up as much parking space as the big ass SUVs, then you don’t have to pay as much for parking.

It’s taking a product (parking) that we’ve known for decades as a fixed price product, and turning it into a consumption rated product. Not something you would expect to see in the parking business, but definitely something that makes a lot of sense to the consumer.

Imagine what other business areas could adopt the same reasoning…I’m thinking airplane tickets/travel: you pay for your weight! It might be controversial (although recently an American airline began charging double seats for heavily overweighted people) but again it would make a lot of sense. Also, what’s with the 20 kilos luggage limit on most European flights? Why not per kilo price paid at the check-in? Just jump on the scale, you, your suitcases and hand luggage, and pay for your total weight!

Rating: 2.7/5 (3 votes cast)

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Posted in Blog, Trends | 1 Comment »

About me

Meet me online...

Design for behavior change

March 30th, 2010

The importance of gut feeling

January 30th, 2010

Ten Tech Predictions 2010

January 21st, 2010

How to be (a bit more) professional

October 12th, 2009

Design for Designers?

September 10th, 2009

Improve or don’t

September 1st, 2009

Microsoft bashing

August 26th, 2009

Leverage the potential of your ideas

June 12th, 2009

The Bug Factor

June 4th, 2009

Everyday improvements

May 12th, 2009

Small car? Half priced parking!

May 4th, 2009

About me

Meet me online...

March 30th, 2010

February 22nd, 2010

January 30th, 2010

January 21st, 2010

October 12th, 2009

September 10th, 2009

September 1st, 2009

August 26th, 2009

June 12th, 2009

June 4th, 2009

May 12th, 2009

May 4th, 2009