In response to an article by Bruce Nussbaum on Design posted on Business Week's Innovation forum, Apple and Amazon Do Platform Innovation, I posted the following comment. It is an endorsement of the post I made back in June on this site around the value of systems design in creating remarkable consumer experiences.
Integrating the end to end system for discovering, acquiring and consuming content is the thread with these companies. People are CONSUMERS and they do it more often when it's easy, convenient and works like expected. Consumers will never walk into a store and ask for a "platform". But they love products that simplify complex tasks, allow instant gratification, and provide reward for little effort. Product designs that encompass a system of interactions will often enable remarkable customer experiences because things appear to happen "auto-magically" for the user. Like Amazon and Apple, Tivo simplified the system for discovering, recording and consuming televised and VOD entertainment Now all cable providers offer the DVR capability as standard, mainstreaming one of the great disruptive innovations of our time.
Connect the dots on behalf of your customer; reduce the number of activities they must engage before they can enjoy your product. Simplify the connection between the value you create and the benefit your customers will receive. Read more over in Experience Design.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 2:45PM