The ZURBlog is where we discuss interaction design and strategy.

If your product is a representation of your company, then your UI (user interface) is a reflection of how your business is run.

Building Great Product

Yesterday our post on mission statements took us to a conceptual level higher than ZURB's sweet spot of building great products. We're not a business consulting firm, but defining a "mission statement" is important for communicating the strategic goals in order to build a solid product.

Over the last couple years we've been tweaking our design strategy framework to help businesses build better products. Its been a great tool for keeping things focused, but it's also difficult for many people to immediately understand how it solves product development problems. Let's explore this concept further from an organizational perspective.

Drawing a Picture of the Problem

A few weeks ago Luke Wroblewski gave a ZURB Soapbox lecture on product excellence. A key concept of his talk emphasized that great product development happens from the "outside in." To summarize, great products happen when companies observe and use customer insights to drive product innovation. Most people would agree that this concept makes sense—so why do companies struggle to use customer insights?

Below is a quick sketch diagram to visualize where product development breaks down in a company. We'll state up front that these ideas are broad; there is a myriad of potential problems every company faces when building products. The key takeaway from this post is that a company's product UI can highlight where the business is having organizational issues.

This product development diagram highlights the conversations (arrows) that different business units have within a company. The customers reside on the outside of the circle and the UI is in the inner circle surrounded by business unit conversations.

Two Key Issues in Product Development

In many businesses the interaction between the engineering, marketing, and business teams are unstable or one group's voice is too dominant. Take Google for example. The engineering teams have a dominant voice in the conversation. It's an engineering strategy they've implemented to be data driven—which for free products is fine, but as margins and revenue in specific product categories become more important, then the voice of marketing and business teams must play a larger role to improve the products. In most of their products, the UI lacks refinement and user satisfaction.

Another big challenge businesses face is translating the conversations they are having with customers into meaningful action items to improve product development. Customers have an uncanny ability to give companies a healthy mix of horrible and good ideas (to no fault of their own). This balance is typically weighted in the "horrible" category, but a company with a strong vision will be able to laser in on "good feedback." The opportunity lies in translating and conveying those ideas to the product development team.

What These Problems Expose

In most of our consulting engagements, companies ask us to fix their UI. On a surface level, it's very easy for us to make quick fixes that have a huge impact on a business. Many immediate interface problems are universal and not necessarily tied to the business. However, the challenge most businesses face is iterating on our feedback. The reason? Companies struggle to support continual development because its business units (which may even be just a couple of people!) can't work together to nail opportunities. They get stuck.

Improving your product starts by looking at the interface (UI) and determining what parts are broken in your organization. This will help your company look at your product "outside in."

One of the toughest business problems start-ups have is agreeing to a common goal. In corporate circles we often summarize this exercise as "creating a mission statement". The exercise is meant to provide guidance for employees to empower them to make better decisions for the company.

Don't Let the Wrong Event Sour You on the Mission

The intent is good, but the "mission event" is often stimulated by the loss of a key employee, lack of product focus or a general dissatisfaction with the company. In the end, it's a reaction to something the business should have been doing all along. Most of us have encountered dealing with a corporate mission that doesn't resonate with anyone in the company. And confusion and disenchantment are usually the end result. Remember, your goal is to empower employees to do kick-butt work.

So is a Mission Statement Bad?

No, definitely not. It's critical for success. But it's got to gel with the people in your company before it will ever help you broadcast the right message to customers. Big, long-winded statements that project self-importance or imply market dominance rarely help a company achieve their goals. Left undefined, mission statements can create more chaos than guidance.

Mission statements have to be achievable. They also have to be actionable and embraced by the company culture. Which gets us to our next item: what the heck does "mission statement" mean?

What a Mission Statement Really Is

At some point in your professional life you've probably come across a vision statement, purpose statement, mission statement, mantra or positioning statement. If you're like us, these terms seem a little disconnected from day-to-day business. Most mission statements we've read are not good. Heck, when you see poor results of companies like GM, you wonder what the point of their mission statement is:

G.M. is a multinational corporation engaged in socially responsible operations, worldwide. It is dedicated to provide products and services of such quality that our customers will receive superior value while our employees and business partners will share in our success and our stock-holders will receive a sustained superior return on their investment.

Doesn't GM make cars?!

Let's Make This Real

Because these business "statements" seem vague, we thought it would be helpful to break down the concepts into easy to understand definitions. If employees can't understand the concepts, what's the point of the statements?

Using ZURB as an Example

To make the exercise more valuable we took a stab at outlining ZURB's mission. Below you'll find a concrete example of how ZURB looks at it's business. You could call this a draft, but it should be a working document that is updated as our business grows or changes.

Creating a Metaphor

Lists and definitions are helpful, but they rarely create excitement about ideas. We decided to take these ideas a step further by creating a visual brainstorm of the concepts. After some exploration we used the metaphor of a soapbox car to help us tell a story through each statement. When you map out the terms, you'll see how each one plays off the other.

A close-up shot of the mission statement brainstorm. In this detail we explore the concept of a soapbox metaphor.

After a few passes of telling the story to guys in the office, the flow seemed to resonate even more. Here is a capture of the entire board.

A whiteboard capture of a mission statement brainstorm session. Click on the image to see a full size image.

A Winning Mission Statement

The process of creating a mission statement can seem daunting and a bit prickly if you focus on everything except just getting the ideas down. Getting your team to buy into the mission statement requires some simple language, understanding of the tool, a grounded view of your business and a little bit of politicking. But we bet the need for extensive persuasion disappears when you get people excited about the real company goal. People will rally!

My wife and I recently signed up for Netflix (I know, I know...welcome to three years ago) and so far we've been pretty pleased with the service. Between the DVDs and their Watch Instantly (read: streaming) service, we have a hard time getting bored. What's really impressed me though has been the way Netflix manages to keep me invested, even when I'm not watching anything.

Setting Expectations

We talk a lot at ZURB about setting expectations—insuring our clients are prepared for what we're going to need and deliver. Customers are happier with clear expectations, and doubly happy when you meet or beat them. Netflix manages this really well by always keeping me up to date on what I've returned to them and when I'll be getting the next disc.

Netflix emailed me about my next delivery with the subject, "For Tuesday: The West Wing Season 3." Awesome.

So far Netflix has not once let me down when they've set up the expectation that I'll receive something. In a few cases they beat their own estimate – testament to their much-touted distribution system. By keeping me in the loop and being incredibly transparent about what's happening with my account, I'm not only excited to get emails from them, I trust the emails.

Discovery

Watch instantly is a great feature (even if it does use Silverlight rather than Flash). The experience isn't quite as polished as Hulu, but then there are no ads on Netflix. Courtesy of Watch Instantly I've enjoyed a very thorough introduction to Doctor Who, and that was worth the money right there. What's really hooked me though is the discovery process of Watch Instantly. Not only does Netflix add new content frequently (giving me more to browse through), but they present things I might also enjoy very well. Their targeted recommendations have exposed me to Primer—a film I would not have seen otherwise—and I have quite a few more things queued up.

Targeted recommendations are nothing new, but Netflix does it well and combined with the instant availability they've hooked me pretty well.

Getting My Feedback

The last great move Netflix uses to keep me invested is getting my feedback. Feedback in a lot of businesses is key, but getting that feedback can often be an onerous process. As a user I don't mind giving feedback—if it's easy. Very, very easy. Netflix nails this. Check it out:

Super simple and targeted right at me. How was the quality of something I watched last night? Well it was very good. Done. Netflix got something they wanted from me, I spent a grand total of...maybe 15 seconds on it, and I'm thinking about Netflix again, and what I could watch later.

Netflix does a lot of things well, and because of it they're raking in money while their competitors spiral into oblivion. The beauty of Netflix's notifications is that they don't bother me the way some companies' emails do. They're always something I either wanted to know anyways or something very short and with a clear benefit.

Is your business staying on your user's minds? Don't just harass them because you have their email address. Consider what they want to know and tell them. Provide a service. If you can't do that, be up front with what you want and get out of their way. Surveys aren't necessarily evil—they just tend to be annoying and long. Netflix nails surveys: one question, no need to visit some site, or give any information.

Useful notifications, simple surveys, new content to explore...yeah, Netflix stays on my brain. Get your company on user's minds as effectively as they do and you're well on your way to the same kind of success.

Being a detective and telling a detective story are two different things. Here is how you can tie problem-solving and presentation together to produce great results that excite people.

Whodunits

Everybody is familiar with 'whodunit' mysteries like Columbo, crime dramas like Law & Order, or even a cartoon like Scooby-Doo. It's a simple formula that starts with a crime and builds suspense by following our heroes as they piece together clues until the perpetrator is revealed in the story's climax. Not knowing who is what keeps us engaged.

It's a great storytelling device that maps well to the up front research phases of a design project where we poke around asking lots of questions, but it's the opposite of what we often want when presenting those ideas.

Howcatchems

Scene from the trailer for Dial 'M' for Murder by Alfred Hitchcock.

The 'howcatchem' turns the detective story on its head by first revealing not only the murder, but the identity of the murderer and the entire cast of characters. The joy is in watching the characters fill in the blanks to explain why and how. Will the murderer get away with it? Can our heroes notice the right clues and solve the mystery?

The howcatchem format maps to the way real crime investigations are conducted out in the wild. It's also a good example of the way we present our design 'detective work.'

Conclusion First at ZURB

A storyboard sketch of a client pitch.

This storyboard sketch shows us working through how we lead with the conclusion in a client pitch. Just like the howcatchem murder mystery, we begin by revealing the cast of characters (what you said and what we found) and deliver the conclusion (e.g. your registration process is driving visitors away and hurting your business) before getting to the details that show how this happened.

By cutting-to-the-chase like this everybody at the table can benefit in three ways:

1. Focuses Us On Our Goal

Thinking 'conclusion first' forces us to invert the way we solve problems by visualizing the end result before we take that first step. What are we trying to do here? How will it be received? We get to live with our conclusion longer and anticipate our audience's response better.

2. Saves Us Both Time

We avoid beating around the bush because we're prepared to say what we mean right away. This lets us make quick decisions together on clearly stated intentions. Is this idea worth pursuing? If not, we move on to focus on the next one.

3. Our Ideas Become More Memorable

By leading with our conclusion, we give ourselves the chance to reenforce that conclusion with each point throughout the conversation and then restate it again at the end. This repetition helps everybody involved remember what was decided and why.

That's conclusion first in action for us. What about you?

How many designers, when faced with opposing views of a market, are willing to stick their neck out to make tough decisions? How many fight for their customers and their companies in rough times? Designers have to want to make money. They must desire to influence their business' bottom line— or else they'll find themselves sitting on the outside of big decisions. Designers must learn to carry the burden of difficult business decisions by creating more than just good feelings— they need to create profits! Greed is not only good, it's necessary for building awesome products and services that people use.

Steve Jobs is a Designer. He's also greedy. Whether you agree with me or not, he has masterminded a company comeback that includes creating some of the most successful products in the history of the world. He's built a hit factory— not by constructing a manufacturing empire— but building a complete organization around design and marketing. Apple products proudly bear the words, "Designed in California." He's also sitting on 22 billion in cash, no debt and a loyal customer following ready to pay a premium for his goods. He's everything you want in a Design Manager— passionate, a savvy businessman and knowledgeable about what the customer wants. And he's proudly taking your money by the truck load.

My post last week, User Experience Doesn't Exist, highlights where designers get stuck. Designing for user experiences is a dead end— trying to influence organizations through experiences is not likely to create the same impact a 'Steve Jobs' can make on a company. Have you ever heard of User Experience Accounting or User Experience Sales? How about User Experience Customer Service? Of course not. These roles are responsible for getting things done and helping customers achieve their goals. It's just assumed that their actions are focused on the customer. And like most organizations, these groups are paid for their performance— not for their empathy for the customer.

Do designers have the stomach to take financial responsibility for their actions and work?

Browsing the business section of the San Jose Mercury News highlights the disparity between traditional roles and designers. In the business section yesterday it listed the stocks sales and purchases of the Valley big wigs. While I don't know most of the executives on the list, I did notice that more of them were buying their company stocks rather than selling them. Millions of dollars were being thrown back into the market. That's what I call believing in your company&mdash and in the face of one of the largest recessions of my lifetime, that caught my eye. Buy low, sell high. Money talks. Do designers have the guts?

If designers want what's best for the user, they're going to have to learn to be greedy. They're also going to have to invest in their decisions.