Here’s the simple model that I use to explain the design approach: Understand, Solve, and Evaluate (U.S.E.). This model generalizes to all kinds of framing and problem solving situations, not just product design. If you’d like to use the diagram yourself, I’m releasing it under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. Here’s a Slideshare link […]

So, a lot of our early work with clients and stakeholders involves creating artifacts that symbolize the system, rather than the literal representation of a prototype or sketch. That includes things like stories, or design the box and other design games. I see this in a lot of the generative methods that Liz Sanders shares […]

Two days ago I suggested that Bruce Nussbaum’s Davos panel was too focused on product, and didn’t recognize service and ecosystem innovation enough, particularly financial innovations that have led to our subprime woes.
With that in mind, I thought it was excellent that Bruce shared his observation yesterday that the biggest innovations discussed at Davos are […]

Most of the gushing coverage about Google’s open source mobile OS talks about short-term competitive positioning against entrenched mobile players: Microsoft, RIM, Nokia (Symbian), and new kid on the block Apple. But Android means so much more than that…in some early k-12 scenario work I’m getting into, we’re looking at OLPC and other technology in […]

Last week at the lake was great, and a couple cool things happened in my absence:
» My article on using design games to help build consensus is finally up on Boxes and Arrows. The article shares and expands on ideas from my 2006 talk Game Changing: How you can transform client mindsets through play. The […]

Kes and Sue Sampanthar have launched ThinkCube - an innovation tool that is both simple and playful, and at the same time powerful and leads to profound insights. ThinkCube is the successor to the amazingly funny and useful Metamemes card game (you can see our team playing a lunchtime round of metamemes […]

Folks, it’s been public for a while but I haven’t talked about it here on bplusd - I’m speaking at one of the best user experience conferences around: Adaptive Path’s User Experience Week. When I was invited to join the program, I was thrilled - UX Week not only gathers together solid fundamentals, but pushes […]

Over at our work blog I’ve put up a brief introduction to our conversational sketching approach. This approach uses sketches not to define the solution—instead it defines the problem by surfacing different viewpoints, priorities, and agendas from stakeholders.
Sketching helps people articulate their frames, and sharing those perspectives as a group helps people reframe their thinking. […]

Stephen Anderson has a great post on experience modeling that is well worth reading. Experience modeling is an ethnographic analysis technique pioneered by E-lab, and it’s an interesting toolkit for thinking about how to translate research into insight, strategy, and action.

In the design and innovation conversation, we’re obsessed with looking backwards (witness the endless dissections of the ipod’s genesis) and looking forwards (what’s the next big thing?). I think that innovation and design benefit even more from looking sideways.
Looking sideways means looking to other disciplines and industries to find mature solutions and frames that we can adjust […]