Systematic thinking: products are not just products

Statement】
This article is translated from Don Norman's article on his personal website, "Bae Thinking:a product is more Than the product", with the consent of the original author, translated and published. Original url:http://jnd.org/dn.mss/systems_thinking_a_product_is_more_than_the_product.html

Note: This article is published in my ACM CHI magazine "Interactions" column. I recommend you subscribe to this magazine because it is an important source of information in the field of design. The magazine website is interactions.acm.org. ACM is a professional social organization of computer science. CHI = Computer-human Consortium, that is, human-computer interaction. It is more appropriate to understand the ACM CHI as an interactive design community. )

Products are actually services. Although products are products for designers, manufacturers, distributors and sellers, products provide valuable services to buyers. The most obvious example is the ATM machine, which many people call the machine. For ATM manufacturers and banks that buy ATMs, that's just a product. But for consumers, ATM provides services. Similarly, while a camera is considered a product, its real value lies in the service it provides to the owner-the camera provides valuable memories. Music players, for example, serve as a service, providing the pleasure of listening to music, and mobile phones provide communication, communication and other pleasing services.

In reality, the product is in the experience. It's about discovering, buying, expecting, unpacking and first-time experiences, or about continuing to use, learn, help, upgrade, maintain, supply, discard, and replace experiences with old ones. Most companies regard each of these states as an independent process in which the company's respective departments are responsible: R&D, manufacturing, packaging, sales, and afterwards after-sale service. Thus, everything is not only a system, but there are contradictions everywhere. If you look at a product as a service, then these separate pieces are not a service--the product is a product, it is to provide a wonderful experience for its owners, in other words, to provide services. This kind of experience, this kind of service, is the organic Union of each part to form. The true value of a product is far greater than the value of its components.

Successful products and services must span a range of barriers and constraints, overcome a range of technical challenges, and grasp a range of opportunities. This involves a variety of marketing strategies, fundamental needs, competitive strategies, core competencies and market acceptance, and so on. At the same time, products to be able to fulfill their commitments, not only to operate well, but also to provide a sense of pleasure to use. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I deliberately put aside a lot of things about the product of the key factors, of course, certainly missed more considerations.

Many books and seminars are discussing this complex series of questions. Not all companies can handle these problems well, even if the companies that can handle them occasionally fail. In my opinion, the most important factor in providing an organic and consistent experience is systematic thinking. Surprisingly, few companies understand systematic thinking and put it into practice. Let me give you a few examples.

Now there are a lot of great digital cameras, most of them are very attractive, and can take good photos, and some even have relatively high ease of use. However, many camera manufacturers mistakenly believe that their products are just the camera itself. Products are not just products. In my opinion, the initial enthusiasm for the beautiful camera was eventually extinguished by the difficulties encountered in the first use. The beautiful camera was sealed in a fancy box. Even opening a box can be a hammer and a saw (sometimes really used), in the process of opening the occasional injury or damage to the product. I still have blood on the brochure of one of my digital products. After the product is taken out of the box with the nervous installation disc, legal notices and manuals, it will take a long charge to get the actual use. Lengthy manuals written in n languages do not have a pleasing preface, but are full of lengthy warnings about danger and misoperation. The initial excitement was shattered. Such companies have a surprisingly careless attitude in their bones.

Not all companies are so unreliable. There are many success stories. Products, there are BMW Mini Cooper, ubiquitous ipod, Amazon's Kindle and so on. There are more examples of Web sites where the best services are perfectly matched with the smooth, efficient operation behind them, ready to meet expectations and satisfying services, including Amazon, EBay, FedEx, Kayak, UPS, Netflix, and so on. Pure services, luxury hotels, low-end business hotels, and Ikea and other stores. Domino's Pizza is also good-ordering pizza over the phone and tracking the distribution process on its website. You can see not only the estimated delivery time, but also the people who make the pizza and the distribution. "I find it more enjoyable to track distribution dynamics than pizza," wrote one blogger. The result of systematic thinking makes boring waiting a pleasant, personalized experience. All of these successful companies take into account the overall experience and ensure that the parts of their products and services are coordinated, unified and enjoyable.

The success story of Apple's ipod has been told countless times, but most people are not talking about the point. Let me stress that the ipod is the quintessential success story of systematic thinking-it's not really about the ipod, it's about the system. Apple is the first company to implement a licensed music download, offering a simple and understandable pricing solution, as well as easy-to-use, fun, and design-class sites for use. The purchase and download of music to the computer, the purchase of music into the ipod and so on a series of operations are easy, designed in place. The ipod is therefore a well-designed and thoughtful product that brings pleasure, whether it looks, feels, or uses it in its hands. In addition, there are digital rights management (Digital Rights Management) systems that are not visible to users, which comply with the legal constraints on copyright and create a lifelong reliance on Apple (the system, of course, is controversial and evolving). In addition, a large number of third-party add-ons have further enhanced the functionality and attractiveness of the entire platform, enabling Apple to gain high profits through licensing and billing mechanisms. Finally, Apple's Genius Bar offers a variety of services such as free consultation for customers at Apple's retail stores, and a delightful exploration and learning experience with the otherwise unpleasant service process. There are a lot of good music players, but those manufacturers don't seem to understand that it is systematic thinking that has made Apple so successful, not just the product itself.

Amazon E-book reader Kindle is also an excellent example of systematic thinking. There are already many more powerful competing products on the market, but Amazon's systematic thinking about the Kindle makes it still dominant in the market. Most tasks do not need to be done by computer. When the Kindle is delivered to the hand, it has already loaded the previously ordered ebook and can start using it immediately. More importantly, Amazon has been careful about the whole system, looking at the entire process from finding books to importing Kindle reading. Users can simply order e-books from the Kindle in just a few minutes. Each Kindle is identified with a unique e-mail address, so files of all formats can be e-mailed to the Kindle. As the precedent, the Kindle's true charm is that it is not only an e-book reader, but also a complete system of services. Like the ipod, the Kindle itself has excellent design, lightweight, easy to use, and attractive. In the Kindle's interactive design, I can only think of a few areas that deserve improvement.

In the "Note 1" of De Souza and Leitão, the authors explain how "symbolic engineering (semiotic UB)" communicates in a way that facilitates consistency and coordination [1]. They gave a comment on the work of the HCI community, including my past work, to optimize individual components only at the expense of overall consideration. They are right. Systematic analysis is far more than the design of a single picture or operation. Systematic analysis should examine the whole experience process from beginning to end, and consider the whole behavior process from the perspective of introspection. To bring together parts of a system to provide a holistic, a seamless, coordinated experience requires that we consider every action, every response, every message transmitted as a part of a whole system, whether visually or auditory, sound or silent, or not, and Instinctive or behavioral. Ensure that each message is communicated in a manner consistent with the overall tone, tone, position, and theme. Every link needs to be ready for the system to prepare for the various actions that users may make. System is the system, it is to consider the whole system.

It has been said that systematic thinking is useful for leisure products and services, but it is too expensive for everyday products--ipod, Mini Cooper and Kindle things are OK, but it is unrealistic to think of Low-cost, low-margin products for systematic thinking! This view is wrong, because the product is successful, not because of the provision of expensive services, but because of a consistent, coordinated service experience in-depth analysis and implementation. Whether it's on a special flight (southwest Air), cheap food (McDonald's), Special car Rental (Enterprise), or a special hotel (Tata's Ginger Hotel in India), the key to its success is to analyze it from the right perspective, For systematic thinking.

No product is an island. Product is not only the product itself, or a series of coordinated, organic combination of service experience. From initial intent to final evaluation, from initial use to troubleshooting, maintenance, and after-sale service-we need to fully consider all aspects of the product or service to make it seamless and organically integrated. This is the systematic thinking.

About the author
Don Norman a lot of titles. He is Nielsen Norman Group co-founder, South Korea kaist Visiting professor, or writer, the latest works is "Living with complexity". His website is jnd.org.

"Note 1" De Souza, C.s., and Leitão, C.f. (2009). "Semiotic UB Methods for scientific the" in HCI. " http://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00173ED1V01Y200901HCI002

This article is translated from Don Norman's article on his personal website, "Bae Thinking:a product is more Than the product", with the consent of the original author, translated and published. Original url:http://jnd.org/dn.mss/systems_thinking_a_product_is_more_than_the_product.html