Greetings from Steve

Thanks again to Todd for the great idea to transform the EDJ into a blogging dialogue.

Some thoughts to share from yesterday's lecture and discussion. Your blogs will become more and more valuable as you grow more and more courageous in your explorations of new ideas about design, and your willingness to ask questions that might seem a bit off the beaten path and challenge your own opinions and assumptions about the way the world of mediated experience works.

For example: We talked in class about an online book rental service similar to Netflix. Some of you had legitimate objections or questions about how such a service could possibly be as useful or user-friendly as a good-old-fashioned trup to the book store.

Many of these same concerns were also expressed 10 years ago when Netflix first began to market its service. Back then, at the company I was working for (Thomson), people were considering actually buying Netflix. I sat in meetings where some people expressed a sense of caution, with concerns such as: "People would much rather go to the video store where they can browse in a casual way and maybe even come across a title they weren't looking for, but which now seems very interesting." Call it the "serendipity factor." Others said, "People won't like Netflix because it isn't immediate enough. The urge to go rent a movie is very spur of the moment, and when you feel like a movie, you want to drive over to Blockbuster, see what's out, and get home to watch. No one wants to wait 3-5 days for that movie to show up in the mail."

These people were wrong.

So, when you think that an online book rental service is a stupid idea, you have a responsibility to go out and find some information to back up your opinion, or perhaps evolve or re-focus your opinion. A quick Google search for the exact phrase "online book rental" produces 163,000 hits. Somewhere in these results there is bound to be a great idea of two that will either change your mind, reinforce your opinion, or a little of both. Now, you might be right, and chances are that if you immediately have an objection, others will, as well.

But....

If you were a book publisher or book store owner, watching the declining revenue figures for the entire industry, you would have a great incentive to figure out how to DESIGN a service that overcame those legitimate objections and thus might offer some hope of maintaining your business.

Having a prettier Web site might be part of that, but only a part. As designers in the 21st century, you will be asked to think beyond graphics to encompass the entire mediated experience.

Maybe somewhere in those 163,000 Web pages there might be a good idea to help overcome your concerns. Let me suggest a site like www.whichbook.net. Is there anything there that might prove useful?

Just a thought --
Steve