At least that’s what I had thought too, maybe a bit naively, until I read the following critical articles for which I am providing links hereafter. Afterthoughts include questions such as “why wasn’t this shopping cart deployed after the show and why can’t we find it in shops?” and also “is the exercise real or is it artificial, namely at the beginning of the process when they start investigating the problem with cameras, are they doing it for real?”.
I was also pondering - whereas I have just started reading Rosenzweig’s latest opus - whether this wasn’t a case for a halo effect, i.e. “a tendency to make inferences about specific traits on the basis of a general impression” (The Halo Effect, p50). Yes, the video looks nice, and the people look brilliant and the process really seems to work fine. In just two days a new (supposedly) superior shopping cart was created but the real question is: what is really good design? Is it design that looks nice, or is it also about practicality for instance? (what about all these boxes on the cart, are they really so convenient? where do you store them? how do you pile the trolleys on one another etc.). Is it design (only) aimed at the end user or is it also design aimed at shop-owners too? that’s an important part. In the video the onus is on the team to develop a shopping-cart that would be more convenient. But more convenient to whom? Can we assume that shop-owners aren’t worried about the cost of their trolleys, the way that they are stored, their lifespan? Besides, is the trolley issue the main issue, even for end-users? For instance, would clients rather pay more for food stored conveniently in a designer trolley or pay less for food piled up in a chicken-wire box on wheels?
These are open questions, but chances are that the answer lies in the fact that one cannot find these trolleys in our shops.
But mind you, don’t jump to the conclusion that the Ideo process doesn’t work either. Judging on just one example would simply be not enough. It would just be another halo effect.
- Jim from Humanbeingcurious on an article of praise on the IDEO process
- Gene Smith on Ideo shopping cart: what has happened to the Ideo shopping cart?
- Steve Portigal on the ‘infamous’ ideo shopping cart example
- Wikipedia entry on Ideo
- The Ideo grocery cart report (pdf)
- Purchase the IDEO shopping cart Video from ABC ($39)
- The online patent description
- The IDEO shopping cart photo on Flickr
IDEO CLIENT!
Is your product looking for a face lift? Fascinated with product design? Remember that beauty is only skin deep - and expensive - plastic surgery is only part of the consumer experience solution. It is just one dimension. I can show you 100 others that are more important. Don't forget that beauty is taken for granted. (Of course you look good. When you look good we look good - Vidal Sasoon!) For example, if you redesign a refrigerator, that's not innovation - making the old look new never was - it's just what you are supposed to do.
Only the young marketer working his or her first lifetime to gain one career's worth of experience will be swayed to work with you. Today, brands have to run very hard just to stay in the same place. If they want to get ahead, as their marketers become more seasoned, they'll have to run at least twice as fast. That's where I come in.
Success is not only driven by a product's extraordinary good looks - There are an infinite number of additional TOUCHPOINTS or DIMENSIONS to show you. Most marketers don't look at them however. If they did, McKinsey & Company's analysis of the consumer products industry would not conclude "that despite solid bottom lines, revenues are flat and executives are wondering where new growth will come from.
Obviously the answer lies beyond design. Reliance on design and extraordinary good looks reminds me of a common blonde joke. One blonde asked the other blonde which she thought was closer, the moon or London. The other blonde said, "well duh, you can see the moon."