Vogel and Cagan state in their popular textbook on product development, “high style” is one of the necessary determinants for achieving marketably successful breakthrough innovations, like OXO’s Good Grips line or the iPod. Examples:
• The iPhone exudes a clean, sexy industrial design, with richly luminous graphics in its visual UI.
• A Lamborghini features an aggressively sporty styling of the exterior that commands spectator attention, down to the details of its wheel spokes and air-intake grills.
• Google’s products famously showcase a “nonstyle” of mini-malism: blue text links and faded colors, with minimal graphics, airing a low-frills aesthetic character focused on engineering skill.
2. Performance (Does it work?)
The technical functionality of the product, for the intended user base and its primary usage scenarios. Industrial-strength engineering, anytime/anywhere accessibility, 99.9999 percent uptime, rapid updates, and on-the-fly responsiveness all indicate the notion of performance. Examples:
• The original iPhone’s novel touch screen and gyroscope sensors function smoothly to allow nimble gestural interactivity; however, AT&T EDGE network’s abysmal performance rendered its Internet ability null.
• Exotic supercars feature highly tuned engines for rapid acceleration and exceptional cornering, braking, and overall body stability for exhilarating driving.
• BlackBerry devices perform nearly flawlessly (when the network isn’t down!) with always-on
email, for quick messaging needed by their super-busy corporate users.
3. Utility (Can I use it?)
The combined usability and utility of the product’s features for the targeted audience and context. Is it ergonomic, culturally appropriate, psychologically meaningful? Are the affordances easily conveyed? Is it accessible and standards compliant? These issues make up the notion of utility here. Examples:
• The iPhone has clear typography, concise symbolism, and interaction cues for navigation, all consistent with Apple’s legendary “ease of use.”
• The Toyota Prius has a visually animated fuel-efficiency diagram to clearly show (and motivate) the green-conscious driver, complete with voice-based GPS navigation and hands-free phone calls.
• Flickr made community photo-sharing hip, popular, and useful via multiple devices, platforms, browsers, etc. Anyone with a digital camera or cell phone can join the phenomenon, get images for a book report, or see the latest party pics.
A narrative that tells the scenario of use for the product and outlines the benefits for the targeted consumer/context. How does this product or feature fit within the company’s portfolio? What is “the story” that describes how this offering fits the user’s needs and goals? Examples:
• The iPhone fits perfectly within Apple’s consumer-lifestyle lineup, with a nicely connected flow from purchase to unboxing, to syncing media via i Tunes. There is a complete branded eco-
system in every sense.
• The original Palm Pilot was built around a focused story of “personal digital assistance,” expressed as four clearly marked buttons, thus making it approachable and useful for many users.
• Adobe Lightroom has a clearly articulated workflow model for the UI that maps to the flow of professional photographers and is free from the muddying of unnecessary features.
So there you have it—the model of an integrative aesthetic experience, composed of elements found in every product experience in varying levels, digital or otherwise. The elements are inescapable; however, not all products carry these elements in balance.
Often there is a deficit in one (or many) elements, or some elements overpower the others with excessive emphasis, mismatching the consumer’s needs and values. This can result in terrible headaches for unlucky users. Here are some notable examples:
• E-Business (or enterprise) software
• Microsoft Office suite
• Motorola RAZR interface
• Comcast DVR interface • Cisco IP Phone ecosystem
Shared qualities: A confusing navigational structure, poor workflow, too many buttons, interruptive and presumptuous messaging, lack of obvious functionality, doesn’t do what the user wants, obscure (or needless) features, heavy loading with slow performance, primitive visual style, confusing mental models.
Very few products effectively
September + October 2008
References:
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