Product Behavior

We like to talk about “the brief” as those instructions we get from a client that tell us what we’re designing: its value to the consumer, what features it needs to be successful, whatever regulatory constraints we’ll be working under, etc. But the reality is we rarely, if ever, get anything so neatly packaged, and more often than not, we don’t really get any real direction at all beyond a generic description of the product.

Yes, I love bacon. I’m a firm subscriber to the “Anything is better with bacon” rule. Here are a couple of bacon-related products that tell different stories about themselves.

“The Story of the Product” is a simple tool I use to get a feel for how well my clients know what their product or service is supposed to be. It’s a simple fill-in-the-blank that describes key aspects. I bring something like this to project kick-off meetings, or even sales meetings, and try to fill it in as we discuss the project.

Let’s say you are the manufacturer of a product that’s been around for years, does its job well, and is pretty popular – except for the fact that it’s responsible for a few thousand deaths among children every year. You might want to come up with a way to counter bad press and bad feeling by extending your brand in a direction that softens and broadens your image.

I’ve been on a quest for the simplest model that describes design and what it’s for. I mean, the model that I can scribble up on the board, and everyone gets it. Over the years, my models have gotten smaller, with fewer parts and less to explain. Here’s my current model of the world.