Part I Conclusion

“We’re tired of talking about strategy,” is a comment we hear with increasing frequency. “We know what the competition is doing; we know the trends. Can you please just show us the designs?” This frequent request confirms the growing importance of design in corporate strategy and the changing nature of competition. Today, competition is no longer just about creating insight to guide strategy; it is also about demonstrating that insight in superior designs.

Great companies have always been in the design business, whether they say so explicitly. Creating new products, services, and experiences—and emotional connections in the process—is key to the growth of companies and brands. These connections are not a matter of a single aesthetic but a way of understanding the needs and aspirations of consumers. Design today must carry through from a corporate philosophy about consumer experience to inform strategy and implementation.

As Plato once said, “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” The starting points of the design process have a powerful impact on the final outcome. Understanding the emotional triggers for different consumers should be an explicit goal of stakeholders from the outset. Otherwise, the dynamics within companies and in the marketplace can make adoption elusive regardless of the merits of a new concept. Therefore, the challenge of adopting a new concept is not only to overcome trained behavior but also to motivate new behavior. Design isn’t the biggest part of what designers do; it’s simply their tool to create cause and effect. And it isn’t about how the consumers feel about the design; it is all about how the design makes them feel about themselves. Design strategy succeeds when it can address the emotional needs—and hurdles—of consumers as it delivers on quality, function, and price. That said, companies can radically reduce time to market and mitigate risk by focusing on just a few priorities:

• Reduce complexity. Few companies can innovate by collecting more demographic data, financial projections, or anecdotal information. To be clear, we are not suggesting that data should be ignored; however, in the absence of a consumer context, the data can provide distraction without direction.

• Establish the consumer experience as the basis of collaboration. Framing the design process in the context of the consumer breaks down organizational silos and allows everyone the opportunity to participate. Everyone is a consumer and can contribute insight about how the user experience can be improved. Understanding how empowerment varies among personas and evolves over time can help to create priorities and inform design and investment decisions.

• Use maps to guide the way. Mapping products and personas in terms of needs, desires, and aspirations fuels the design process with clarity and empathy from the outset. This is not only a powerful tool for understanding how to appeal to consumers, but it can also shape the debate about trade-offs that are an inherent part of implementation. Deep consumer insight can reveal whether what is being eliminated is the equivalent of trimming a toenail or removing a vital organ. The visual understanding provided by Psycho-Aesthetics^® mapping can provide a reality check and a benchmark throughout the design and innovation process.

There is no ideal location on the map that companies must drive toward. The direction should be determined by the needs of consumers and the particular company’s strategy. There are cases of highly profitable and well-loved companies in every quadrant. What they have in common is an ability to see where there is a disconnect between the offerings in the market and the desires of consumers are and create winning designs to bridge the gap.

• Aim for a compass, not a GPS. Identifying the Opportunity Zone can increase the chances of success by focusing a team’s attention on a finite number of priorities. These form the basis for experimentation during the design process. The idea is to provide a clear direction but allow freedom to all parties to generate different approaches.

Reflecting on the cases that we’ve covered thus far, we can reflect on the role that the design played in moving each company toward its strategic objectives. All the efforts helped the companies connect (or reconnect) with consumers as they delivered financial results. Psycho-Aesthetics enables companies to understand how markets and consumers are evolving, but it can also be a valuable forensic tool. The Opportunity Zone can be anywhere on the map—depending on industry dynamics.

Amana

Here, Psycho-Aesthetics was focused on aesthetic changes to enhance consumer experience. It was also done under cost and time constraints. Amana had fallen into the commodity trap in consumers’ eyes despite high quality, largely due to its poor design (see Figure A). By selecting designs that enhanced consumer experience and reflected important changes in lifestyles, Amana separated from the pack by moving from a commodity to an enriched offering. The shift enabled Amana to reconnect with women, who often drove purchase decisions, and the image of the brand was raised to the standard of the quality inside. The new line made people feel like better nurturers and caretakers. At the time, Maytag was the industry leader, and acquired Amana soon after its brand revival.

© RKS Design

Figure A Psycho-Aesthetics map of Amana industry positioning

Flip Cam

The Flip camcorder was not designed by our firm, but it stands out as a great example of changing the industry by re-imagining the consumer experience (see Figure B). Here, the idea of transforming the consumer experience inspired the development process from concept to execution. The company knew the benefits that they wanted to deliver and focused their design efforts accordingly. Although most of the offerings in the category were adding features (many of them were in the Versatile quadrant) and growth was tapering off, Flip Video expanded the market by simplifying the operation and adding style. Women, college students, and those intimidated by traditional video cameras could enter the market, and a significant number of consumers purchased a Flip cam as a second device when they didn’t want to do an elaborate setup. The new design made people feel confident about taking video and made sharing it easy and fun.

© RKS Design

Figure B Psycho-Aesthetics map of Flip Video industry positioning

JBL Professional

JBL Professional’s story with the EON line of speakers is a classic case of an innovation whose value eroded over time and had to be refreshed. The original EON was far ahead of its competitors, but the gap between offerings had narrowed. JBL had to create a design that conveyed its superior quality and its lightweight technology (see Figure C). The company regained its market position and connected with a wide range of people who made their living from music.

© RKS Design

Figure C Psycho-Aesthetics map of JBL Professional industry positioning

Vestalife

Vestalife entered a crowded category by being the first to create an iPod speaker dock specifically for young girls who were identified as a group of consumers with unmet needs. Vestalife’s initial design was artistic. As a result of its use of a Psycho-Aesthetics fueled design, it a) created a product proliferation strategy, b) expanded the opportunity zone to include more personas and c) gained entry into a coveted sales channel. The offerings allowed people to express their individuality as they enjoyed the function and aesthetics of the iPod (see Figure D).

© RKS Design

Figure D Psycho-Aesthetics map of Vestalife industry positioning

Aligning stakeholders around a design strategy is critical for success. Many of the poor designs we see are a result of poor collaboration, not a lack of design expertise. A designer’s sketch and a manager’s pro forma spreadsheet essentially serve the same purpose: to provide a vision of what the future may look like. Until the results are in, it’s hard to judge who has the right idea. And the disparate lenses of managers and designers can make it hard to achieve understanding and consensus in the design process. Although marketing and accounting departments can share their numbers and understand each other, with designers and managers the transparency must be created with tools and interaction. And that transparency is essential for giving companies the confidence to make bold decisions and enter new markets. Design is not the strategic risk; on the contrary, it can be the strategic insurance—a way to make sure that investments are rewarded in the marketplace.

Part II, “Implementation and Consumer Experience,” covers how the design strategy can be executed effectively. The actual prototyping and feedback process, calibration, and consumer testing are explored in depth. We illustrate with various case studies how the emotional insight can be manifested in actual designs. Carrying through on the philosophy that market success is about how design makes consumers feel about themselves, we illustrate how to draw inspiration from Joseph Campbell and use the “hero’s journey” to frame the purchase decision and create the “moment of truth” for the consumer. Putting it all together creates “predictable magic”— market success for companies and empowerment for consumers.