home : hartbeat : 2005-11-17

11.17.2005

“HartBeat” is The Hartman Group's FREE online newsletter, providing insight, analysis, information and strategy to give business leaders the knowledge and vision to build sustainable brands.

For more Hartman Group articles on ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN, click here...

11.03.2005 "Organizational Design"

10.27.2005 "Retail Experience at the Front Lines"

06.04.2004 "Harnessing the Power of Organization"

Archives »
Click here for an archive of past HartBeat articles

digg
del.icio.us

reddit
twitter

friendfeed

StumbleUpon

2 Consumer-centric Principles Of Design

Flying from Seattle to Dallas last month, I watched as the passenger next to me opened his sport coat, removed a narrow, cylindrical bottle from the coat's inside pocket and downed several swigs of water. At first I wasn't sure why I was even aware of this action. Drinking water on an airplane is surely not an uncommon event. But as I sat there thinking, it dawned on me. This fellow was drinking water stored in his pocket - pocket water if you will.

"That's cool," I remarked, eyeing the bottle's unique design and shape (think small, clear, shampoo bottle), "you can carry water around in your front pocket."

"Yeah, that's what I thought when I bought it," my neighbor responded. "Just be sure not to drink the water that comes inside the bottle..unless you like to drink mouthwash."

As we chatted further, I discovered that the water in question, MetroMint, was actually a mint-flavored bottled water that just happened to be offered in this interesting little package. My neighbor went on to explain that, much like myself, he too was initially attracted to the neat packaging but was subsequently disappointed with the product's taste. So now he's taken to buying a bottle of MetroMint, emptying the contents down the drain and refilling it with whatever water he can find. The convenient packaging, as it happens, is worth far more to him than the stuff inside.

Okay, so package design and labeling matter, tell me something I don't know. Fair enough. But as the case of MetroMint illustrates, it's not just that design matters. Indeed, for many consumers the proposition is increasingly all about design. And as I will suggest in this chapter, product and package design - and design in general - have evolved to a point that design now drives, and threatens to dominate, the consumer marketplace.

Whenever dialogues among marketers, analysts and branders head in the direction of design, I find that many become uncharacteristically silent. Design seems to be one of those esoteric arenas that many of us nervously pretend to know something about, but which in reality we've never really felt like we understood. We may feel like we appreciate the funky bathroom fixtures at the sleek, boutique hotel, we may listen as the design team presents their work, but heck if we have any idea what separates the good from the bad, the real from the fake.

And yet, design has become mission critical to the world of consumer products. The advent of fully realized flexible production systems, when combined with other technological achievements such as just-in-time manufacturing and our now ubiquitous global shipping infrastructure have combined to place design in the forefront of the consumer products world.

Design principles to remember:

1) Anyone can be a designer. At it's root, design is all about ways of doing (or ways of using, ways of packaging, ways of presenting, ways of being, etc.) and there is no ultimate arbitrator of those ways. Despite protestations from the design community, all that really matters is that the given designer's "way of doing" becomes adopted by enough people to become culturally relevant. The designer's talent lies not within the designer's head, hands or heart but within the designer's relationship to larger networks of cooperative actors.

2) Your consumer may be your best designer. That's right. Don't forget that in many instances consumers may yield better design opportunities than high-priced design firms. The trick lies in understanding how to effectively harness the power of your consumer, and often the answer requires an skillful understanding of how organizations work - as in how to realign your organization to harness consumer input without causing complete chaos.

Successful design frequently has less to do with official designers per se and much more to do with ordinary consumers seeking to satisfy their desires. In fact, it is our belief that often the best design achievements occur among consumers or other non-interested parties striving for something better.

With that, we leave you with a few design questions and design ideas recently submitted by our Hartman Interactive consumer panel:

A easier way to open up individual saltine crackers, and other things. I get frustrated and use my teeth! - S.D., Pittsburgh, PA
Make ziplock bags with a separation liner, 1/2 sandwich and 1/2 snack. - G.C., Saskatchewan, Canada
Window wipers on eyeglasses. - R.J., United Kingdom
I'd like to see breakfast cereal in separate packages. Like dried raisins in one, dried bananas in one, corn flakes in one, oats in one...etc. so that anyone could customize it at the table. R.A., Phillipines
Maybe we can have handles attached to bottle drinks for easy carrying. - T.A., Singapore
Putting peanut butter into wrapped solid stick form. No more scrapping the jar and getting sticky. - K.H., Port Orchard, WA
Hand wipes attached to juice boxes. - M.P., Boston, MA
Moisture packs. My hands get so dry in winter, sometimes my skin cracks. I dont carry a purse large enough to hold a tube of lotion. I have wished there were small packets the size of a tea bag, inside would be a cloth soaked in a soothing lanolin-type lotion. I could rub it all over my hands and throw it away. Maybe it could even be biodegradable! - K.G., Bethel, CT
A top bed sheet that is fitted on the bottom. - E.L., Quebec, Canada
Put grips on the knees of babies pajamas so when they start crawling it's easier for them. - A.C., Appleton, WI

Be sure to check out Part I of this series on Design,
Organizational Design: The Future of Effective Brand Strategies

I Don't Drink It...

Comment »