DESIGN
DESIGN
Thus "design" may be a substantive referring to a categorical abstraction of a created thing or things (the design of something), or a verb for the process of creation as is made clear by grammatical context. It is an act of creativity and innovation
For preparing any Process Note or Presentation I do invest time in it's DESIGN . The idea is to ensure that it can be understood by the reader without the need of being explained and it holds good for a wide audience. Some common ideas to ensure that are :
a ) Draw Flowcharts and break the Flowcharts into smaller Flowcharts for easy Grasping
b) Keep both " PREV " & "NEXT" Links on each page with link to go back to Main Menu etc.
d) Minimum usage of color , bold and underlines so that it is soothing to the eyes
e) Keep it as short and in simple language as possible
f) Leave blank spaces for the user to make notes
g) Give examples using real data of the organization .
My belief is that Content is a given thing that everyone provides but it is the Design which makes the user understand it easily which makes his/her life easy and therefore s/he prefers the content with a user friendly design.
The basic idea when any design is made is to keep yourself in the shoes of the user and try and give him the best and the simplest user experience without any difficulties and cumbersome processes.
So this is the first important attribute of DESIGN which we can call as USER FRIENDLINESS
Another very important attribute is the "AESTHETIC APPEAL" and the product's look no matter whether it is a Sunglass or an Umbrella matters ,
The third important attribute of design is " MINIMALIZATION without making it DYSFUNCTIONAL '
And then the normal ones like Cost , Ease of Making, Durable etc.
If we have to look at one company for which Design is supreme and the products are built around designing it is APPLE .
APPLE IS ONE COMPANY FOR WHICH DESIGN IS MOST SECRETIVE AND A TOP PRIORITY
So let us try to understand how designing is handled in Apple .
Apple’s Product Development Process may be one of the most successful design process ever implemented. With the company verging on becoming the world’s first $1 trillion business organization – there’s a lot that designers can learn from Apple and introduce into their own design environments.
Adam Lashinsky, the author of Inside Apple: How America’s most Admired and Secretive Company Really Works has been given a look at the process of how Apple Design process works . While there are still aspects of the way that Apple works that are shrouded in secrecy – we can get a good idea of the overall high level process.
Apple’s Product Development Process
First of all at Apple Design is at the Forefront and Jony Ive heads as the Chief Design Officer (CDO) at Apple– and his design team lead the company reporting directly to the management.
The Apple New Product Process information is given to a product development team when they begin work. It details every stage of the design process and it goes into elaborate detail. The idea is to define what stages the product creation team will go through, who will be responsible for delivering the final product, who works on which stage and where they work and also when the product is expected to be completed.
The Apple Executive Team holds a regular Monday meeting to examine every single product that the company has in design phase at that point in time. This isn’t as daunting as it may sound; one of the keys to Apple’s success is that they don’t work on hundreds of new products at once. Instead, resources are concentrated on a handful of projects that are expected to bear fruit rather than being diluted over many lesser projects.
If a product cannot be reviewed at one meeting – it’s automatically at the top of the agenda for the next meeting. In practice, this should mean that every single Apple product is inspected by the executive team at least once a fortnight. This keeps delays in decision making to a minimum and enables the company to be very lean with its approach to design.
The EPM and the GSM
The EPM is the engineering program manager and the GSM is the global supply manager. Together they are known within Apple as the “EPM Mafia”. It’s their job to take over when a product moves from design to production.
As you might expect, these people are usually going to be found in China, Apple does very little of its own manufacturing. Instead it relies on contract outsourcing companies like Foxconn (one of the largest employers in the world) to do this for them. This removes much of the headache of manufacturing for Apple whilst keeping production costs as low as possible. There is a significant market advantage to this approach and its one that many other electronics manufacturers are emulating now.
The EPM Mafia job is simply to ensure that products are delivered to market in the right way, at the right time and at the right cost. They may disagree at points but their guiding principle is to act in the interests of the product at all times.
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Like any good design company, the design process at Apple is not over when manufacturing begins. In fact, Apple iterates the design throughout manufacturing. The product is built, it’s tested and reviewed, then the design team improves on it and it’s built all over again. These cycles take 4-6 weeks at a time and may be run many times over a product’s development lifecycle.
When production is complete the EPM will take possession of some or all of the test devices and then take them back to Apple’s headquarters at Cupertino.
This is a very costly approach but it’s one of the reasons that Apple has a reputation for quality. The more you invest in design, the more likely you are to build incredible market changing products. It’s the process that the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad went through.
The Packaging Room
This is a very-high security area in Apple and it’s where prototypes are unboxed. As you might expect, the security is to prevent leaks to the outside world. If you ever do see a leaked prototype for an Apple product – it won’t have come from here. It’s more likely to have vanished from a production line in China.
A Launch Plan
The final step in Apple’s product development is product launch. When the product is considered to be as good as it can be – it enters an action plan known as “the Rules of the Road”. This explains all the responsibilities and actions that must be taken prior to a commercial launch of the product.
It must be a nerve-wracking experience to be privy to the “Rules of the Road” because if you lose it or leak it… you’re immediately fired. This is explained in the document itself.
Apple’s process is complex, expensive and demanding. If you compare it to most business theories – it shouldn’t work. However, to date it has out-performed even the wildest of expectations.
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