You’re on your way to pick up some fast food because you’re so amazingly hungry for a new quadruple-decker bacon angus cheeseburger. Your mind is just telling you to go out and get this new meat wad delight, which sits precariously between two deep-fried grilled cheese sandwiches. Hard to imagine, I know, since you’ve been using a mobile app to count your calories, but you’ve got a serious hankering (and no one needs to know about your caloric careen off course now anyway, right?).

However, instead of ordering at the counter or over the loud speaker at the local drive-thru window, you decide to check the “My Locations” folder on your mobile phone–or better yet, the iPad mounted to your dashboard. Once you come to a stop at the restaurant, an icon with the unmistakable red pigtails of a certain girl appears. You click on it. She starts talking to you by name and tells you what’s new on the menu. With a few swipes of your finger, you glance over the succulent selections and tap on the value meal that’s going to soon spark a conversation between you and your family physician (we’ll save the details of that encounter for another daydream).

At the end of your order, you’re asked to repeat their fast food slogan, or some other perfunctory gibberish thought up by the marketing hacks. This allows you to pass the voice recognition process, which instantly purchases the order using your pre-saved payment information. You feel so good about the experience that you somehow forget that a factually correct account of the caloric intake you’re about to consume was just instantly uploaded to a data-cloud. Guess you’ll come to terms with the slowly declining line graph that represents your ever-diminishing dietary goals the next time you’re faced with your personal apps at home.

For not only does the future mean that mobile applications will be served to you at the moment you need them without downloading apps or typing in web addresses (this was served to you when you came in proximity of the restaurant), it also means that your information will be sent to other applications and services uninterrupted by device or network specific barriers. Think of the possibilities of using the same premise at retail stores, hospitals, airports, or classrooms.

So, while you once downloaded applications to your mobile devices anticipating to use them with the world at large, the experiences of the future will most likely be finding you instead–and with that, changing the way you interact with the world.

In fact, this is all quite possible now and could certainly be used for more worthwhile things than ordering cheeseburgers.

Or maybe I’ve just got my head in the clouds.

In truth, it’s more of a construct than a theory, and it’s not at all original at that–all the parts are derived from the well-established principles of design management. I just applied different components of that application into a visual model that made sense with the way I’ve been seeing and working with design every day for the past couple of years.

The shape, like a lot of theoretical models, is composed of three equal circles that converge at the center. What’s important to know about this model, though, is that it starts broadly at the top and funnels its way down to a more narrowly focused endpoint. This purposely suggests that design problems in need of a solution, regardless of individual design practices and organizational structures, optimally start with a large overall strategic objective, which eventually or simultaneously merges with operational practicalities, and becomes something real through iterative tactical execution.

All of the relevant parts are equal and overlap at multiple points, suggesting that each are far from estranged from one another, but rather remain integral to a higher working order which requires constant communication and coordination throughout a design life cycle. At its core, I believe, lies the heart of real design thinking, which independently can be used to develop the mythical “shared brain” among design practitioners and business thinkers alike.

While this model certainly needs a lot more substantial examination, if not explanation, I’ve found that it’s been adequate enough to allow me to organize where disciplines, people, and ideas fit into a given design context. I think it also sets my expectations for what design is, and where I think it needs to go–for the time being anyways.

I’ll be interested to see how it holds up, myself, in the future.

In his goodbye post, he offers a glimpse of the design culture at the now monolithic corporate giant — a rant which has so far caught a lot of traction on the blogosphere.

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.

This statement, assuming again it’s true, reminded me of the analogy that Bill Moggridge, co-founder of IDEO and author of Designing Interactions, came up with for design, comparing it to an iceberg. Basically, if we can imagine that the smaller, exposed part of the iceberg, contains the quantitative, the objective, and the analytical, it only goes to follow that the much larger underwater part contains the qualitative, the subjective, and the aesthetic.

The bottom part, Moggridge argues, is the playground for unconscious, intuitive design.

Clearly, Google is a company that only wants to operate at the top of the iceberg. I wonder, though, how long it can continue to thrive when so much unmined territory goes waiting for others to explore.

Good luck to you, Douglas.

Somebody recently shared with me an article from Fast Company magazine about a winery that’s replaced their traditional glass bottles with more forward-thinking recyclable carton packages. The resultant environmental affect claims to produce a carbon footprint ten times smaller than traditional glass bottles once the savings for weight, shipping, and disposal are all tallied in (the cartons can be placed in ordinary recycle bins). Additionally, the new solution offers 33% more wine, making it the smart choice for the ever-demanding train-hitching vagrant segment.

If I were to peg the purpose of this concept on my design chart, I’d say it fits squarely in between desire and utility. In hindsight, these relationships do seem to flow into one another without much conflict. Then again, I’m beginning to think that desire is the herald for all other design purposes, so maybe it shouldn’t be such a surprise. The greatest undrelying tension I can see, and the one that I would venture to say can significantly affect adoption on a wide scale, seems to be a matter of well-known convention. The practice of using glass cylinders to hold wine spans throughout time for, oh… a millennium. So why the packaging doesn’t incorporate more natural “winey” gold and red colors or nudge to the time-honored affordance factor of a more crafted container is beyond me. It’s possible this was a conscious design decision borne out of feedback from customers or the product of some other synthetic analysis of environmental factors. At first blush (pardon the pun), it really does read more like a carton of O.J. then a fine French wine.

Regardless of my two-cent visceral reaction to a couple of screenshots for a product I’ve never used, volumes of discussion could yet be had concerning the practical long-term benefits of re-thinking wasteful, yet culturally entrenched design conventions like the glass bottle. The part design will play in revealing these shortcomings, and in conjuring entirely new solutions, will surely be significant.

Eventually, I would like to share with you the design theory I’m working on (I may even have settled on a name for it), but for now allow me to explain a small part of it which at one point served as the theory’s main catalyst.

During my work as a user experience designer, I’ve become increasingly convinced that an interesting parallel exists between the two cerebral hemispheres of the human brain and two common deliverables associated with interaction design practices–specifically the development of low-fidelity wireframes into highly detailed visual designs (sometimes also referred to as visual comps or mock-ups).

This observation pronounces a fact that is usually assumed as a common goal among practitioners looking to build a strong user experience design team; find candidates who are well-rounded and possess strengths in analytical know-how and creative conceptualization.

It could be argued, as I’ll start doing now, that the need for this specialization is never more apparent during the life cycle of a design then at the transition point from wireframe (when the design is defined by boxes and mostly black and white text) to visual design (when the design is alive with color, graphics, and seductively shiny buttons, or other aesthetic elements). At this critical turning point, while the fundamental design goals still underly similar tensions, the designer(s) involved in defining and resolving these different artifacts often–although not always–derive their solutions from opposite ends of the cognitive playing field.

So, presumably then, if one is to design user experiences (or any product, such as cars, clothing, or computer animations, for that matter) by focusing wireframes into some other creatively articulated end result, it makes sense to be cognizant of how different operations get started within the brain.

Consider the widely known and somewhat diametrically opposed functions of the left and right brain hemispheres.

While these attributes may not have a one-to-one relationship with each deliverable on any design project, there should be enough cause to consider a somewhat clinical hypothesis–sensitivity to and explicit focus on left and right brain functions during the design process can serve to optimize certain aspects, if not design decisions, in a predictable fashion. After all, these elements are digested by a consumer in the same cognitive way once the design has become a product.

As best I can tell from my own experience and from working with others in the design industry, specific attributes which determine the ultimate success or failure of these deliverables fall along similarly opposite sides of the fence.

There are, of course, many other deliverables such as storyboards, as well as offshoots of other design methodologies that muddy the water of this split. Adaptive Path’s advocation of sketchboards is a good recent example. I’m not suggesting practitioners follow a rigid form of design by any means. I think communication formed in any artifact which tries to engage both sides of the brain simultaneously is a good practice and probably very necessary for certain kinds of problem solving or even within the confines of a given project.

I’m only observing that certain results are highly predictable and can serve to enhance design decision-making or touchpoints, if you will, within their optimal spaces because the very nature of human brain chemistry supports it.

By isolating functions performed almost exclusively within each of these deliverables a more relevant definition of design becomes apparent. It first takes on a rational form, which is adapted and synthesized into a final product. Examining this structure overall can amplify design decisions and help further delineate touchpoints within that assumed structure.

Lately, I’ve noticed some anecdotal evidence which suggests that brand marketers and product designers have been moving the time-honored practice of user personas away from their normal confines on the product designer’s cubicle wall for occasional reference and elevating them to a place where they’re least expected–smack dab on the final product.

Case in point, the new New Denim campaign over at Old Navy. The idea is simple enough. Three different cuts of ladies denim jeans are given new vigor with names that personify different personalities, all of whom could have been derived from the subtitles of an actual Cooper style research activity.

The Diva. The Flirt. And the Sweetheart.

The fact that each jean has a different cut and fit reinforces the fact that each are also stating different intents. One doesn’t have to read a detailed research findings report to presume that the diva wants undivided attention from everybody in the room, while the flirt wants attention for sure, but on her own terms. Of course, the sweetheart wants only the right kind of attention from the person for whom she’s most fond.

Closer inspection of the jeans (to my distracted eye, anyway) brings no real substance to this kind of thinking. They’re all fairly similar, but the products as they’re positioned in the mind of a potential customer do seem to provoke an internal dialogue.

Which user am I? Given my life situation, my unique behaviors and attitudes, which one of these jeans steps beyond just making my ass look flawlessly delicious and gives me a truer reflection of myself, my goals, and my needs.

Of course, I suspect that in the end the connection to user persona is only accomplished through smoke and mirrors (if any ethnographic research was done at all). But it is interesting to see the suggestion of it tried on such a grand scale and in such a different context (the personas I look at all day have to do with people’s finances).

It’s interesting to see this kind of work coming out from the basement of methodology. I suspect, as the years pass by and user experience design becomes more accepted, consumers will be seeing more of this trend.

My knee-jerk reaction to it was probably very similar to the reaction of a lot of other people.

Yuck.

But, I have to admit, having investigated the designers’ intent and observing the public’s caustic reactions to it daily, my interest has been intellectually peaked. This happened in spite of the fact that in just about every visual sense, I’m appalled–particularly by the garish disorder of it all (I’ll also admit that it took me a full day to register that it reads “2012″).

In fact, the four fragmented planes may very well represent the four different ways I read the design.

• The design nerd in me calls it as he sees it. Garbage. A total trainwreck of geometry. No fluidity or elegance.
• The usability nerd in me has no appreciation for it, and for all intents and purposes, never will. Ick. Aesthetics. But he does wonder at what level it was developed to speak to a certain “persona” and if he (meaning me) is in fact a “statistical anomoly” outside of that segment. If only he and the brand nerd were on speaking terms.
• The brand nerd in me may know a few more things than the others. Then again, maybe not. He knows it’s a risk, but a risk with a potentially good payoff. Yes, he knows that it was designed to appeal to a younger audience. And what could appeal to youth culture more than pissing off mom and dad? In any event, this is the first time in many years that brand nerd has paid any attention to an Olympic logo.
• The art nerd in me remembers that people don’t always appreciate new ideas and new forms of expression. When someone tells him, “That can’t be art. I could do that!” he knows it’s a total tell for pedestrian thinking. And it makes him sad for a second, until he remembers that he can still create whatever the fuck he wants and elevate it to the level of art.

Wait a second… Nope. I just looked up. Still garbage.

Truthfully, I think there’s more to this argument. But I should probably wait and see if anybody else in there still has an opinion.

The latest edition of Communication Arts (offline only) lays out pretty thoroughly the how’s and why’s of design and branding over at everyone’s favorite retail store, Target. It’s clear that the company conciously chose to rise above the fold by speaking clearly and consistently about design. Just take a look at the thought that went into their prescription bottles. Their television spots also uniformly show a deep understanding of co-branding like no one else on the planet. It’s as if their intimate knowledge of the products they sell make you want to experience them the same way on your own.

No doubt, there’s a ton of stuff any designer, or any company wanting to communicate with design for that matter, could learn from the red and white people over in Minneapolis. They are making waves in the design world by demonstrating how good design creates a good customer experience, not to mention good revenue, in a creative class economy.

Some of my favorite quotes from the article include:

- If Target is a good experience for shoppers, it’s even better for designers: for the 300 employees who work in the advertising department and on the design of store-branded and co-branded merchandise, and for the 40 or so design firms and agencies that work with Target.

- Design for All means that the kind of stuff that was once exclusive in the purview of the rich and design-educated is now available to ordinary folk who aren’t yet patrons of the Museum of Modern Art or owners of a Case Study house.

- Design is part of Target’s DNA.

- The message is simple: With Target, my life will be easier, smarter, better. I can look fabulous, ahead of the curve, without spending a fortune. And maybe I should be organizing my closet. Maybe I should have a toothbrush with a better handle.

- Target’s approach is more European. Americans rarely get to experience good design at low price points, [...] but now they are ready for it.

- They really think about design as a verb.

- We did a style guide used by 60 manufacturers around the world. There were 50 different patterns, a color palette, templates for labels and packaging. It was beyond design. It was mission control.