Dieter Rams Ten Principles for Good Design

Dieter Rams Ten Principles for Good Design

Defining design is a hugely complicated task. Today design covers everything from graphic design, industrial design, interaction design, user interface, experience design, and even high art. In theory, design is an approach or technique to solve problems, be they visual or physical, spanning these different disciplines.

Apple have shown that design in a business context is no longer a nice to have, but a competitive advantage. This has trickled down to a number of new startups that are disrupting existing categories and "eating the world" - organisations like Uber, Airbnb, Square, GitHub and Dropbox have made design a core of their business, which has led them to grow faster than their existing or emerging competition.

Defining "good design" then becomes hugely important, however this definition is also hard to break down as design always remains subjective.

In the 1970's, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned about the state of the world around him, an "impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises". As design cannot be measured in a finite way, he created ten principles for good design, often referred to in the design community as the 'ten commandments'.

These principles are even more valid today with the growing complexity around digital, and should be remembered when starting any project.

Sway: Procedural Justice, Monetary Motivation and Group Conformity

Sway: Procedural Justice, Monetary Motivation and Group Conformity

In my previous posts around some of the concepts outlined in Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour we covered the powerful forces of Loss Aversion and the Power of Commitment as well as Value Attribution, and Diagnosis Bias. In the final post on this book we will cover two new concepts, the undercurrents of Procedural Justice, Monetary Motivation and Group Commitment.

Procedural Justice

This concept covers our expectations around fairness. Game Theory has done a great job of revealing this in various experiments, and this concept also has deeper cultural implications.

One particular experiment has shown this very simply, run out of Germany. Called the Splitter experiment, two people are placed in separate rooms, not being allowed to speak to each other (so remaining anonymous). One person is given ten dollars, and is allowed to divvy this money up as they see fit between themselves and the other person, the catch being the other person can either choose to accept it, or reject it so both parties get nothing. The game is only played once.

The data revealed something interesting - 50/50 splits almost always resulted in acceptance, but a split such as 80/20 resulted in rejection by the other party the majority of the time.

From a purely rational perspective, the person receiving the money should take whatever is offered to them - after all any money is better than no money. However, the game exposed our deep rooted belief in fairness, and the lengths we go to defend it. 

Sway: Value Attribution and Diagnosis Bias

Sway: Value Attribution and Diagnosis Bias

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour outlines the fact that humans are often prone to some very irrational behaviour that can cloud decision making. My previous post touched on Loss Aversion and the Power of Commitment. This post covers the undercurrents of Value Attribution, and Diagnosis Bias.

Value Attribution

Put simply, Value Attribution describes our tendency to imbue people or objects with certain qualities based on perceived value, rather than on objective data.

A great example of this is the experiment run by the Washington Post featuring violinist Joshua Bell.

Sway: Loss Aversion and the Power of Commitment

Sway: Loss Aversion and the Power of Commitment

While most of us think of ourselves as rational human beings, we are much more prone to irrational behaviour than we actually realise.

Our behaviour and our decision making are influenced by an array of psychological undercurrents that are powerful and persuasive. Even more startling, when they converge, they become even more powerful, and can have far reaching impacts on the decisions we make.

Ori Brafman and Ron Brafman outline a number of these undercurrents in their excellent book 'Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour'.

This post explores the first two undercurrents, Loss Aversion and the Power of Commitment.

The Tanning of America

The Tanning of America

I have just finished Steve Stoute's book "The Tanning of America; How Hip-hop Created a Culture that Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy". 

If you don't know Steve Stoute, he is a former music artist manager and record executive responsible for launching the careers of a huge number of famous hip-hop and R&B artists, who went on to create Translation, a brand and marketing firm that prides itself on having its finger on the pulse of culture. Translation has gone on to developed a lot of iconic campaigns - think the Justin Timberlake / McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It" partnership.

In essence, the book outlines a history of the rise of hip-hop, and how it has achieved a global connection unlike any other force in a process dubbed "tanning". From Steve:

"But the tale I'm here to tell is less about the music itself and more about the atomic reaction it created, a catalytic force majeure that went beyond musical boundaries and into the psyche of young America - blurring cultural and demographic lines so permanently that it laid the foundation for  transformation I have dubbed "tanning". Hip-hop had come in a time, in places, and through multiple, innovative means that enabled it to level the playing field like no other movement of pop culture, allowing for a cultural exchange between all comers, groups of kids who were black, white, Hispanic, Asian, you name it. Somehow the homegrown music resonated across racial and socioeconomic lines and provided a cultural connection based on common experiences and values, and in turn revealed a generationally shared mental complexion."

The Duel: Robot vs Human Ping Pong

The Duel: Robot vs Human Ping Pong

If you are a German robotics company looking to expand into China, how do you promote your organisation in this new market?

First, you sponsor a table tennis champion to represent your company (due to the huge interest in Ping Pong in China, this makes perfect sense). Then you create a great piece of content by pitting said champion against one of your own robots in an epic duel to see if man or machine can be crowned king of the table.

KUKA Robotics have done a great job with this video. While it is highly stylised and takes a lot of liberties in the editing process, it is enough to get your heart pumping and raises some great awareness of the brand.

The RIBS Test

The RIBS Test

The RIBS test is a simple framework designed to help make a message that resonates (in short, "stick to your ribs"). From startups to traditional brands, creating a compelling message is critical to getting press, finding customers, raising funding or hiring the best people, so you need to ensure the message is as compelling as possible.

(Credit to this framework goes to Caryn Maroony, Vice President Technology Communications Facebook).

Let's break it down.

Working Backwards Press Release : A Product Development Framework

Working Backwards Press Release : A Product Development Framework

Amazon are by far one of the strongest leaders in product development, which is why any advice or frameworks they speak about are worth paying attention to. I really liked the following model outlined by General Manager Ian McAllister on how they achieve success in their own product development.

"Working Backwards" is a product management approach designed to aid in the process of making new products, features or product decisions, but can basically be applied to any sort of plan to introduce new functionality into  project.

At it's heart, "Working Backwards" does just what it sounds like; it requires you to work backwards from the customer, as opposed to releasing a feature and trying to bolt on new customers to it. This is expressed through creating a fake internal press release announcing the finished product.

Farmed and Dangerous: A Content Case Study

Farmed and Dangerous: A Content Case Study

As far as businesses dipping their toes into branded content, Chipotle have made some serious strides with some short form examples recently (think Back to the Start and the Scarecrow).

Their latest efforts are a lot more ambitious, with the release of a new unbranded long form series called 'Farmed and Dangerous'.

The show (which streams on Hulu) is a four part satirical look at a fictitious industrial farming giant 'Animoil', and the PR agency hired to cover up some unfortunate instances of exploding cows. Check out the trailer:

Digital Adaptation: The Organizational Strategy Framework

Digital Adaptation: The Organizational Strategy Framework

I want to kick off this post by stating that coming up with an organizational marketing strategy is extremely hard. It requires deep insight into the nature of a business, and a strong alignment internally between stakeholders (see my post of the Golden Circle for further insight). Coming up with a digital marketing strategy adds further pressures by introducing new and evolving technologies, tools and practices, which can complicate the matter further.

Forming a digital marketing strategy however is a fundamental must have - not only does it provide a framework for the organization itself, it also helps when briefing in advertising agencies and partners to ensure executions remain pointy.

The problem agencies often face in getting a clear and defined digital marketing strategy from the marketing team. It is amazing the amount of times this is as low level as "we want to increase sales online" (side note - every business deep down wants to increase sales).