7 Creative Terms Abused and Misunderstood
Weeks ago while surfing the interweb tidal waves, I came across a video
Don Norman — a pioneer in design thinking and coined “user experience” — posted in regards to the recent use of the word UX or user experience.
Don explains that when the industry began coining this phrase as it relates to our work, it had an entirely different meaning in contrast to today’s messaging. His clarification got me thinking — user experience, among other creative buzz words, are abused and misunderstood everywhere.
The result spoils understanding and affects:
- Alignment
- Decision-making
- Market understanding
- Eager-to-learn individuals
- Product success
Hopefully after reading this the whirlwind of words will cease and we can begin to appropriately apply these terms for our clients, company, or products’ sake.
1. Design Thinking
Definition (IDEO): Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
Interpretations: Aesthetically pleasing forms without need fulfillment, expressionistic endeavors, top-down goals injected into “Innovation Initiatives”.
Impact: The sad state of affairs we see lately are major corporations touting their investment in Design while their products and services do not reflect need.
This type of behavior is even more toxic than those in antiquated business models because it’s a faux-reality. A matrix-like life if you will.
It’s a wholistic detriment. Bad employee habits are made.
Customers are indifferent and business revenue suffers.
Internally one may hear statements like, “But I’m not a designer…I don’t draw…Make it pretty…Interview the stakeholders and C-Suite…We’re creating a BRD…”. Be aware of these red flags.
Moving Forward: I love IDEO’s definition. It encompasses all that we aspire to achieve as designers and businesses alike. However, it could be reduced to an even more succinct frame of mind. Call it “empathetic problem-solving.” Please note I didn’t say definition or action. It’s achievable only when the mind’s eye is open to design-thinking. When one thinks, they do.
Sticky notes and assumptions are one hell of a time. Although, it’s only when spending time with users, seeing the true problem and learning from testing that we both understand and embody Design-Thinking.
2. User Experience
Definition (Norman Nielsen Group): “User experience” encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.
Interpretations: UX is a sexy, hot little term that everyone wants to meet and take home. The common mistake with User Experience is the media’s tendency to break it out into individual parts. Let me explain. Look at the latest UX jobs that are posted. UX can mean interface, development, information architecture, customer service, the list goes on and on in a galaxy far, far away.
Impact: The hiring process is one of the infamously impacted realms.
Ill-defined job roles cry out for someone to fill. Wrongful or trendy hires
lead to company bloat and non-challenging work for the employee once
the fad has passed. Overall, the word causes division and isolation from
the original intention.
Moving Forward: It’s not identifying which one is correct. Listening to Don Norman’s explanation, it’s all of it. The sum of its parts. Now, you may respond, “Yeah but, all I focus on in my UX role is my company’s app.” Well hey, that’s fantastic! But don’t limit yourself. Stretch outside of just the app. You may even find the app isn’t a solution at all. That’s the beauty of User Experience. It touches every aspect of how we experience our world. Look at the full picture. Be curious! Read more about the role of a user experience designer here.
3. Brand
Definition (Seth Godin): A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.
Interpretations: This is an interesting one. Too many times I hear companies proposing, “If we push out an app or refresh our digital appearance, it will bolster the brand and make a dent in the market.”
This is not only wrong but extremely dangerous.
Impact: Focusing on your brand as something you inherently control is risky. Don’t let your brand get caught up in trendy looks, false identities and shifty voice. Falling into such traps smells of desperation and disorientation.
Moving Forward: Therefore, as Bill George states, find your company’s True North. The funny thing is, experience is inherent to brand. Remember we as designers and business people can only architect the best possible thing for the people using it, how they experience and perceive the brand is up to them. As Kate Meyer for Norman Nielsen Group writes,
Branding can be critically important when consumers decide whether to interact with organizations — make a purchase, use a service, apply for employment, or even sign up for a newsletter. While the perception of a brand cannot be strictly controlled, it can certainly be influenced.
4. Engagement
Definition (Merriam-Webster): “the state of being engaged: to get and keep (someone’s attention, interest, etc.), to begin and carry on an enterprise or activity
Interpretations: If we look at the definition, to be engaged is to not only
get someone’s attention but to keep it through reciprocated interaction. Engagement does not mean views or number of unique log ins.
It is not a cause but an effect.
Buzz Feed’s CEO Jonah Peretti and colleagues were recently interviewed in Fast Company about data. They spoke about the fallacy of views, engagement, and other vanity metrics that distract startups from potential success.
Impact: The word is broad in nature. It could mean a number of different things to different individuals. Unclear understanding impacts communication and goal setting. For startups, vanity metrics like viewership and engagement may mislead and hinder product guidance.
Moving Forward: Be sure to clearly define what engagement is to the team — views, shares, likes, retweets? Ultimately, having a clearly defined problem and goal will drive engagement and other metrics. But always be aware that data and engagement metrics will never tell you WHY.
5. MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
Definition (Eric Ries): [the] version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort”
Interpretations: MVP has been bastardized, spit on and thrown away in so many ways. The biggest atrocity is what I like to call the “MVP and dash.” This is when a company creates a MVP then moves onto something new.
It’s done and no longer needs attention.
The second but no less barbaric is the all-too-common “Easy-Peasy” method or what ever is the easiest to release. In this approach the MVP is stripped to bones depriving all those who interact with the product no meat and nourishment.
Impact: I’ve seen the repercussions of the “MVP and dash” first-hand. It’s released into the wild like a mother bird with offspring. It flies from the nest never to be revisited or improved. This quasi-waterfall mindset will abandon the app’s growth and prosperity.
An “Easy-Peasy” method strips the users of any value, solidifying a long-lasting negative impression. Reacquiring alienated customers is twice as hard as the first time.
Moving Forward: Agile and Lean methodologies are a mindset at the core, not an action. MVPs should be in a continuous state of improvement.
Learn and pivot where needed or the product will be stunted.
Let us be reminded that an MVP is related to what Dieter Rams says about Design Principle #10:
Good design is as little design as possible.
Great MVPs and design focus on the essentials, not just the least amount
of effort. Offer the perfect proportions not an empty plate.
6. Innovation
Definition (Business Dictionary): Radical or discontinuous innovations; risk-taking that creates revolutionary products or technologies which bear new markets.
Interpretations: Founders of startups can be heard in press coverages announcing ideas that are coined as innovative when in reality they’re no more than a new feature within an existing market. This is continuous innovation.
Impact: Bloated news channels, jaded ears and an odd sense of denial are a direct result of misunderstanding. Media outlets have become saturated and loosely promote “revolutionary products” leading to our sense of monotony, and lack-luster responses. Blatant and/or blind denial sets in for startups leading to false hopes of monolithic success.
Moving Forward: Self-landing rockets, The Hyperloop, iTunes + iPod, autonomous and electric vehicles — these are radical departures that bear new markets. Continuous innovation (or incremental improvement) is well-founded and not to be discredited. But innovation, radical innovation, is few and far between. It is an extraordinary feat and extremely risky. It challenges the status quo and the result is a direct exit from the norm. Emma Green points out in her brief historical reveal:
But the irony behind the king of buzzwords is that, originally, “innovation” wasn’t a compliment. It was an accusation. In fact, shouts of “Innovator!” used to be akin to charges of heresy.
Thanks to the rise of consumerism it’s no longer considered heresy but positive advancement. And as Tyler Cowen is highlighted Ms. Green’s article,
Have a little humility, Cowen says. “We’re going to do it anyways, so we should try to do it right.
7. Disrupt
Definition: drastically alter or destroy the structure of (something)
Interpretations: Notice the definition did not say alter and create new markets. At times, businesses touting disruption feels similar to a child screaming for his parent during an adult conversation. “Not now startup! Dad is busy can’t you see that?”
This unnerved sense usually stems from an egotistical claim at something novel but the reality is commonplace.
Innovation and disruption are often confused as well. Disruption does not bear new markets on a macro scale like innovation. To disrupt does not necessarily mean a new feature set in an existing system either.
Impact: Similar to innovation, this false disruption leads to hype and click bait more so than meaningful attention. Companies and investors focus their efforts on disrupting rather than true needs and solutions — which may in fact disrupt as a result.
Moving Forward: Uber is a prime example of business that disrupted an existing model. Their new direction changed the way the industry had been, thus disrupting the system. However, they did not create a new vertical but created a ripple in driving-services.
The only way these terms can be misunderstood is neglect. Be the champion. It’ll constitute collaboration and help yourself for the future.
I hear these poor little terms used and abused from small agencies to large corporations on a daily basis. But if understood and cited properly, could be the light that guides everyone to a common understanding and success.
As the Animals famously made known:
I’m just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood
I’d love to see this as an ongoing discussion. Feel free to comment or reach out to me directly. Thanks for reading. Cheers!
