For my interface class, I’m having my students design an adaptive product. I made the mistake the other day of giving my students an example of an adaptive product. Off the top of my head, I used an example of an adaptive kitchen, one that changes its behavior and even physical appearance based on the observed behavior of its users. Guess what half my students are now doing for their project?

I’ve seen this before with clients and even teammates. You mention a half-thought, thinking outloud, and this somehow becomes the solution, at least in their minds. And it is extremely difficult to dislodge once it is latched onto. “Where’s X?” they’ll ask at a review. “X? You mean that thing I mentioned in the brainstorming session?” “Yeah, I thought we were building that.” “Huh?” etc.

I’m not sure what the solution to this problem is, to be honest, except to watch what you say and around whom. Or to just downplay every idea until you are ready and willing to start making those sorts of choices. Always say the three magic words after everything: “Just an idea,” followed by a shrug and a “who knows?” face.

We’re all prone to jumping to a solution. Especially men. But design is a feminine art; we need to resist absolutism and stay as flexible as possible for as long as possible.

Somehow, I’ve gotten sucked into watching the third season of The Apprentice. For those of you lucky enough to not know of this show, it goes something like this: 18 people vie Survivor-style to become the head of one of Donald Trump‘s companies. They do so by competing in business tasks, usually creating a new store or product, like a new pizza for Dominos.

Amazingly, although these are supposed to be some of today’s smartest and most savvy business minds (although some of them clearly weren’t chosen for brains alone), when they get these tasks, it’s amazing that, although most of the tasks are design or design-esque (marketing campaigns), how little design thinking the wannabe Donalds actually do. Last week’s episode, when the teams had to design a line of clothing, was the first time ever on the show that I ever saw anyone actually talk to a potential customer! And this only after the urging of The Donald to do so (although Trump called it “market research”).

Naturally, the team that bothered spending a few hours asking teens (the target customers) what they wanted won the challenge. Because (duh!) they actually knew what the teens wanted (or said they wanted). It’s eye-opening, really, how little these basic (to designers anyway) things are taught and practiced in the business world. Half the time, the contestants don’t bother meeting with the company and finding out anything about it, its brand, its competitors, etc. (Granted, The Apprentice is probably to business what the L.A. Lakers are to lakes.)

This proves the Dick Buchanan’s dictum that the main thing designers bring to the table is a dose of common sense. And I suppose in theory, business people not thinking like designers is good for designers, since we’re often called in to be the problem solvers and product makers. But until there’s a designer in every business (ie never) it’s probably bad for everyone else.

Probably the phrase in design circles I’m hearing the most these days is “design thinking.” As in, “We need to bring some design thinking to this project.” Or “What sets designers apart is their design thinking.” It’s even on the main image of Stanford’s new d school website. Interestingly, I haven’t seen much about what “design thinking” really is though.

I’ve heard it used in any number of ways, some of which are vague enough and/or general enough so that they are insulting to other professions. Are we saying other disciplines aren’t creative or aren’t problem-solvers? I didn’t really become a designer until I was 30 years old: does this mean I was thinking differently before then?

Certainly, design thinking is creative, innovative, and focused on problem-solving. But so is the thinking of many different types of professions: lawyers, engineers, and contractors, to name only a few. So lets remove those as differentiators right away. No, if there is such a thing as design thinking, it’s probably shorthand for these things:

• A Focus on Customers/Users. It’s not about the company and how your business is structured. The customer doesn’t care about that. They are care about doing their tasks and achieving their goals within their limits. Design thinking begins with those.
• Finding Alternatives. Designing isn’t about choosing between multiple options, it’s about creating those options. Brenda Laurel speaks of her love of James T. Kirk’s “third option” instead of two undesirable choices. It’s this finding of multiple solutions to problems that sets designers apart.
• Ideation and Prototyping. The way we find those solutions is through brainstorming and then, importantly, building models to test the solutions out. Now, I know that scientists and architects and even accountants model things, and possibly in a similar way, but there’s a significant difference: our prototypes aren’t fixed. One doesn’t necessarily represent the solution, only a solution. It’s not uncommon for several prototypes to be combined into a single product.
• Wicked Problems. The problems designers are used to taking on are those without a clear solution, with multiple stakeholders, fuzzy boundaries, and where the outcome is never known and usually unexpected. Being able to deal with the complexity of these “wicked” problems is one of the hallmarks of design thinking.
• A Wide Range of Influences. Because design touches on so many subject areas (psychology, ergonomics, economics, engineering, architecture, art, etc.), designers should bring to the table a broad, multi-disciplinary spectrum of ideas from which to draw inspiration and solutions.
• Emotion. In analytical thinking, emotion is seen as an impediment to logic and making the right choices. In design, decisions without an emotional component are lifeless and do not connect with people.

Other disciplines, I’m sure, do one or more of these at any given time. But I think it’s the combination of these that people mean–or should mean–when using the phrase “design thinking.”

I’m back from the IA Summit, where I presented The Role of Metaphor in Interaction Design (2.5 mb pdf), which was a longer version of the presentation I gave on it, my thesis topic, back in January. I’m not sure if it will make any sense without my commentary, but some of the images are funny.

I’m headed to Montreal, to give a presentation at the IA Summit. If you are going and want to get a drink (spiked hot chocolate seems appropriate, given the freezing weather. Conferences in the winter should always be down south!), shoot me an email.

I’ve been playing with SmarterChild for a couple of weeks now, and it’s really an interesting hybrid interface of a type we’ll see a lot more of in the future. For those of you not in the know, SmarterChild is a bot that you add to your IM buddy list that you can ask questions or do tasks by simply opening up a chat window with it. This is, well, smart on a number of levels.

For one thing, you don’t have to install another program; it’s part of something you already know and use. Thus, installation is pretty minimal, as is de-installation and learning how to use it. Getting started is as simple as typing “Hi” into a chat window. And most of the commands for it are pretty straightforward sentences or words. “Movies” brings up a list of movies playing in my area. And it knows my area because I’ve asked for “movies 15217” (my zip code) in the past, so it remembers that and just assumes I want that zip code.

The “menu” is pretty flat. It’s like an automated phone system, but with the benefit that you can see your choices instead of only hear them. It also fixes some of the holes in IM: you can leave IM messages for offline buddies (or yourself!). You can have SmarterChild remind you of appointments too.

SmarterChild also has a veneer of a personality: not enough to be obnoxious (a la Clippy) but a bit more than a command line. You can “chat” with it if you so desire, or you can just get your raw information quickly. The personality doesn’t stand in the way of your tasks.

The really brilliant thing about SmarterChild really is its use of IM as its context. Lately, I’ve found myself using SmarterChild more than Google or Yahoo for certain tasks (weather, definitions, translations, movies) and the reason is simple: the one item on my desktop that is nearly always on and visible is my IM buddy list and there, “sitting” in the buddy list, is SmarterChild. I don’t have to launch or find my browser to use it; it’s nearly “always on” because my buddy list is always on. It’s much easier to double-click on SmarterChild and type “forecast” than it is to open a browser window/tab, bring up Yahoo, go to weather, type in my zip code, and then scroll past ads to find the forecast. SmarterChild is almost like a personalized RSS feed in its use and simplicity. The speed that you can type questions and get a response reminds me that there are times when a command-line mixed with natural language can be useful.

SmarterChild certainly isn’t the first of these sorts of bots, but it is really the most useful of them I’ve encountered. And you can get a sense of what these sorts of smart agents could be like in the future, if say, a SmarterChild was woven into an operating system. I’m looking forward to it, and will hopefully get to design one.

It’s become almost a design cliché to talk about making things that are useful, usable, and desirable. Indeed, if I hear those three words together in a phrase once more, I might scream. There has to be other adjectives, perhaps sub-adjectives of usef–ah, I almost did it!–that can describe the types of designs that we strive to make. And maybe even describe the type of designer we want to be.

I stumbled onto one of these adjectives a few months ago. The word: clever. I don’t take credit for affiliating the adjective with design. That goes to Scott Henderson, former Director of Industrial Design at Smart Design, now one of the principals at Mint. A while back, he gave a talk about his design philosophy at a Design Unplugged evening in Manhattan. In it, he said that

A successful design not only shows the bright wit of its creator but is smart itself, instantly nimble and dexterous in its functionality.

That is, not only is the product clever, but so is its creator. I really like the word clever. It implies intelligence without smugness or condescension. It suggests humor and slyness without being obnoxious. And it also implies another of my favorite design words: delight. Using something clever, especially the first time, leads to moments of delight when you discover how clever, how thoughtful, it is. And delight is one of the most sublime emotions that one can experience, leading to long-lasting good feelings about something.

Thus, I think we should add cleverness to the pantheon of concepts to strive for and design for. It would be clever to do so.

With Airbus unveiling its Titanic-esque A380 today, I wanted to note that I think this is probably the exactly wrong direction for the airlines to head. While other industries are looking for ways to make their businesses more personalized and designed for individuals, monster planes like this one dehumanize us further, cramming 555 people onto one cramped space.

Sure, they claim that some of the plane’s extra space could be used for stores, nurseries, and other sorts of recreational spaces, the makers also note that

how the plane’s extra space is used will be left up to airlines, whose A380 cabin designs have remained closely guarded. In the future, low-cost carriers could operate the A380 with a single economy-class configuration accommodating as many as 800 passengers.

Gee, how far in the future do you think that will be?

Airports like London’s Heathrow are preparing for the new superjumbos by installing double-decker passenger ramps and enlarged baggage conveyers. But…but…did anyone–a designer–think these things through? The experience of airplane travel and of airports in general is currently terrible. Getting on and off planes is particularly odious. It’s going to be great when 800 people try to get in and out through two small doors. How long will it take to load and unload not only people but also baggage? All I can envision are more missed connections, more waiting, and less personalized service.

In short, these superjumbos are built for the airlines, not for their customers. Airlines should have learned from their first-class service (and if they haven’t, they should learn from Apple or Starbucks) that people will pay more for a better experience. Virgin gets this, I think, but every other airline is intent on playing a losing game with bargain-basement outfits like Southwest. There is another way: distinguish yourself with your experience design. Make the experience user-centric. One of the many beleaguered airlines should take note and hire a designer. Or ten.

I’m a big fan of having something happening in the background while I’m focused on something else. Like having the tea kettle on while I unload the dishwasher. Even better is doing two things at once, one of which I might only vaguely be aware of. Like when I clean up my desk (and thus remove stuff from around the wireless antenna) and in doing so improve my wireless signal. We don’t design for this enough. We’re used to focusing on the task at hand. Perhaps overly focused.

We’ve been designing the equivalent of digital hammers–really nice hammers–that do the task at hand (hammering digital nails) but not much else. They don’t recognize us or adapt to us at all, they just do the task when they could be multitasking: collecting data about how it’s being used and by whom, adjusting itself to make it more personal and more useful. For most digital things, there’s no sense of history and this is something that can be easily gathered. If every time I visit a web site, I go to the same page, chances are, I want to go to that page and the site or the browser should somehow acknowledge that, either by simply taking me there or in some way making it easier for me to get there.

Computers and other digital devices register (and often record) our behaviors like nothing else ever has, except perhaps for royal manservants. And yet, for the most part, they are dumb to the use of this data. Sure, the occasional site welcomes me back, but this is pretty rudimentary. Amazon got this right back in 1996, and despite its current cluttered pages, still gets some things right, like showing me where I’ve been recently. A couple of years ago, BBCi did that brilliant thing where as you returned to the site repeatedly, you “made a path” through the site.

An important point to make is that the onus wasn’t on the user to do these things; the technology was what was smart and remembered. Both of these sites went the extra mile and did something more with the input they were getting in addition to just completing the task. They made completing the task in the future better, and that’s something worth designing.

My favorite holiday movie of all time is Miracle on 34th Street. If you haven’t seen it, stop reading this and do so. It’s a Christmas movie that’s got some great performances, is light on the treacle and very smart. What’s smart about it is that it shows why people, businesses, and governments do the right thing: because it’s good for them. Mr. Macy starts encouraging people to go to other stores to find exactly what they want because it’ll improve his store’s sales. As does his rival Mr. Gimble. The judge rules there is a Santa Claus because otherwise his re-election chances are nil. And, of course, mother and daughter realists Doris and Susan learn to believe in the spirit of Christmas, bringing some magic in their lives.

Miracle demonstrates something designers should remember when selling their services: it’s not enough to discuss the goodness of something (like design). It has to make something better, affect it in a positive way. It has to be personal. Few organizations do things because they want to; they do things because they have to, because it would be bad for them to do otherwise.

Designers get too bogged down in talking about process and deliverables and the other minutia of the trade. With my wireframe fetish, I’m as guilty as anyone of this. What we need to focus on is the effect of design on the organization. The results, in other words. Thankfully, we’ve got some examples now: Apple, Samsung, Nissan, and OXO to name a few.

And, lest we forget, like the holidays, design is also about the intangibles: joy and happiness and especially, delight. What we do and the things we create should delight. Design should be about that little something extra: the way a well-crafted product fits in the hand, the beauty of the correct response to an action, the pleasure of use. It’s not only about being usable and useful. In the words of Miracle‘s Fred Gailey, “…don’t overlook those lovely intangibles. You’ll discover those are the only things that are worthwhile.”

Happy Holidays, everyone.