Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 186 pages
- Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc. March 26, 2008
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0596516835
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596516833
-
Book Dimensions:
8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
- Weighs: 12.6 ounces
Product Review
"Short, but powerful. Easy to read, yet profound. Ive been searching for just this book: the one perfect book that summarizes the essence of modern product design. This is it. The lessons are as powerful as they are simple: The product is NOT the goal. Successful products are systems. Focus on the experience. This requires empathy, agile product management, real understanding of the target audience. This book practices what it preaches. I will use it in my courses for MBA students. You should use it for, well, for everyone. Short, simple, persuasive, and powerful."
Don Norman Author of
Emotional Design and
Design of Future Things Co-Founder Nielsen Norman group
"Customers dont care about how innovative you are. They just want to be happy and satisfied. Learn from Adaptive Path a passion for finding and solving the problems that will matter to customers no matter what the future brings."
Scott Berkun Author,
The Myths of Innovation "Wake up. The future of business isnt about flying cars and robot butlers. Creating the future is really about changing the way your company connects with its customers. Use this book as your guide."
Jeffrey Veen Design Manager, Google
"
Subject to Change presents complex, challenging ideas in simple, compelling language, with illuminating examples and no shortage of memorable phrases. At once authoritative and nimble, the book itself is an example of the kind of experience the authors admire. No matter who you are, it will change the way you think about design."
Michael Bierut Partner, Pentagram
Author,
79 Short Essays on Design "The principles set out in
Subject to Change are essential for the design of any product, but especially relevant for the fast-moving world of web software. It used to be the case that a
software product was designed once, and refreshed every couple of years.
software is no longer a product. It is a process, a dynamic service that evolves as it responds to constant interaction with its users. The essence of Web 2.0 design is to create a dynamic framework that harnesses the collective intelligence of customers in such a way that the
software becomes almost alive. This terrific book teaches the mindset required for this new kind of design."
Tim OReilly Founder and Publisher, OReilly Media
Product Description
To achieve success in today's ever-changing and unpredictable markets, competitive businesses need to rethink and reframe their strategies across the board. Instead of approaching new product development from the inside out, companies have to begin by looking at the process from the outside in, beginning with the customer experience. It's a new way of thinking-and working-that can transform companies struggling to adapt to today's environment into innovative, agile, and commercially successful organizations.
Companies must develop a new set of organizational competencies: qualitative customer research to better understand customer behaviors and motivations; an open design process to reframe possibilities and translate new ideas into great customer experiences; and agile technological implementation to quickly prototype ideas, getting them from the whiteboard out into the world where people can respond to them.
In "Subject to Change: Creating Great Products and Services for an Uncertain World," Adaptive Path, a leading experience strategy and design company, demonstrates how successful businesses can-and should-use customer experiences to inform and shape the product development process, from start to finish.
Reader ReviewsHaving read the classic The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web by the President of Adaptive Path, Jesse James Garrett, I was naturally excited to learn that four members of his team had worked on "Subject To Change." I was not dissapointed. Adaptive Path is a firm that has established itself as proponent of experience design as the basis to success. Their approach had never been more valid than today, as we face constantly shifting times and market conditions, making the design of products and services that can adapt to change critical for a company's success. The book introduces the experience that a customer has while using your product/service as THE product itself and, even more so, as the strategic path to winning in the marketplace. They define experience in ways that are easy to grasp: "[it] comes from the outside in; an appreciation of customer's motivations, behaviors, and context leads to the development of a product, service, or system that can satisfy them." By offering a plethora of examples, they get the point across very clearly. A good example of this is the case of Kodak and how they got it right by making it easy for people to take pictures and not have to bother with the technicalities involved in developing film, etc. Another approach they advocate is agility and leanness as an efficient and cost-effective means of developing the right solutions. This process involves multiple iterations, i.e. the admission that we don't always (even typically) get things right the first time; involving customers in the development process; not letting the obsession with documentation get in the way of getting things right. With its explanation of the importance of customer research (and customer focus), experience design and agile development as keys to success in today's shifting world, the book constitutes a must-read for leaders and all those directly or indirectly involved with product and service development today.
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