Point of View

I was drawn recently to a story on Walter Reed Military Hospital describing the engineers and doctors working on prosthetics for returning amputees from Afghanistan. The story focused on the advances in field medicine leading to greater survival rates. One uncomfortable but common question the article addressed was, “How do you decide if an injury is too horrible to keep a victim alive?” The response was, “It’s not my place to judge quality of life. We save everyone.” The result is a population of amputees many of whom have a continued zest for life and a push for engineers to make them specialized tools to perform the activities they love (tennis, cooking, etc.).

There is something powerful in designing for an individual. First, the needs aren’t generalized and the features aren’t optimized (read: averaged) for a population of users. Second, cost and manufacturing constraints don’t exist – if multiple iterations are needed, all are “prototypes” never to be mass produced. Third, judgment is quick and clear – you can see the emotional response and you can see the results in use. All of these elements create in a satisfying process of meeting a need and measuring the success in a person’s gratitude or enjoyment.

Some of our most successful projects are inspired by the “design for one” (or a few). I am reminded of Project Runway’s Tim Gunn asking contestants, “who is your customer?” The answer is often, “a busy executive who moves from work to an art opening.” Way too vague, right? “Francine is my customer” is a much better answer. Sadra Medical has designed a revolutionary catheter based heart valve replacement device. Their first patient was identified and used as a beacon during the clinical trial development push and continues to be a representation of the “people they hope to help” after a successful trial. Designers and engineers can picture what she needs. She needs a quick recovery to avoid hospital induced sickness. She needs a flexible, small catheter to traverse her vasculature. She needs to survive – she has a very clear success rate: it’s either 100% or 0%.

On the other hand, projects have suffered for lack of the “one.” Often ideas looking for users wander aimlessly based on where competition or opinion leads.

Can we risk letting one person stand in for a population when designing a product used by many? Probably not. Most products are intended to be used in varied environments by users separated in age, gender, education, size, dexterity, etc. What “design for one” provides, though, is a North Star, a tough critic, a Francine that we can’t disappoint. If we satisfy Francine, we’ve done our job well.

Has your employer ever sent you to a conference and you were:

1. Not really sure what you were there to learn or do.
2. Sick at the thought of awkwardly talking to strangers during “networking time.”
3. Guilt-ridden about the recap you were supposed to write of the event—but didn’t.
4. All of the above, and more.

 Yes, we’ve all been there. Conferences can be incredibly stimulating, but they can also be tough on the brain, the ego and, if the chairs are hard, the backside.

 I had an experience last week that will revolutionize the way I participate in conferences.

It seems counter-intuitive that a tool for connecting virtually can exponentially enhance the experience of connecting in person, but social media can. And it did.

At the Fast Company Innovation Uncensored Conference in San Francisco, I experienced the power of social media firsthand. Let me tell you what I saw. 

By my estimation, over half of the audience was using Twitter during the conference to comment on the speaker’s presentation in real time.  The conference organizers (who set up the hashtag #UI11) and the speakers and moderators waiting in the wings were Tweeting too.  This did two big things for those of us in attendance.

One, it allowed all of us to participate in a singular, robust “side conversation” if we so chose. The sessions became interactive and we all benefitted from the insights and opinions of the thought-leaders in the audience as well as those on stage.   Those who weren’t participating in social media were simply on the receiving end of what was presented.

Was it distracting? Not for me. In fact, I’d say it made me pay better attention as I was seeking out key insights to Tweet.

 Two, social media actually facilitated face-to-face networking. After following the conversation all day, it was much easier to approach people during the networking time and pick up where the conversation left off, so to speak. Also, because most everyone has a headshot associated with his or her twitter handle, I could recognize by sight, and comfortably approach, people I’d never actually met.  Social awkwardness practically eliminated.

Of secondary importance, social media allowed attendees to give feedback to the conference organizers in real time. “Can you move the podium? Those of us on the right can’t see” was the most productive tweet. “My ass is mad”—about the hard wooden chairs—gets the humor award.

Lastly, post-conference, a review of the Twitter stream provides a great crowd-sourced recap of the event.  All the key takeaways are right there!

If you think Twitter is about broadcasting to the world what kind of sandwich you made for lunch, let me share with you a few actual tweets from the event.  You’ll see they are thoughtful and each is crafted as a conversation starter, which is what social media is all about.

•  “Big ideas stem from small ideas. You must have the courage to swim against the current” – Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco #iu11
• 20th Century was about hyper consumption; 21st Century about collaborative consumption (via @socialadvoc8) #IU11
• RT @VegasGalB: If you have a smartphone, you have every tool needed to create a revolution #iu11
• Livestrong was founded by VCs so they are not interested in incremental improvements. – Doug Ulman, CEO, Livestrong #IU11

There were three hundred attendees at this conference. If each of us Tweeting has, say, 125 followers, that means that content from this conference reached 18,750 people who weren’t physically there. Not only were the ideas for the event disseminated, Tweets invite engagement, which means the conversation became even that much longer and richer.

This is significant. And I bet not a one of those 18,750 people got the sore bum I did.

We hear it all the time in our industry. Good design relies on empathy. Being able to understand, perceive or feel another person’s feelings facilitates having an insight that generates an innovation.  But why isn’t sympathy part of the design approach?

Sympathy:  the tendency to help others in order to prevent or alleviate their suffering.

An example:  The baby is crying. I don’t know why she is crying, because she can’t tell me. But I’m going to try every trick I know to get her to stop.

So for comparison, empathy is like walking a mile in someone else’s shoes and then, based on that experience, redesigning the shoes.  Sympathy is like calling the guy a taxi so he doesn’t have to walk in the first place.

Sympathy helps fix an immediate problem. Empathy helps provide a permanent solution.

And now for what prompted this post in the first place.

Earlier this week I heard an interview with Maurice Sendak, whom most of us know as the author of Where the Wild Things Are, on Fresh Air. While I am a big fan of NPR, I’m not always into what Fresh Air serves up. But this interview, at various points, stopped me in my tracks.

Terry Gross is interviewing Sendak, now age 83, about the publication of his new book, Bumble-ardy. But the interview takes an interesting and moving turn as Sendak contemplates the recent loss of his partner and, basically, life from the perspective of a guy at the tail end of it.  

Here’s a snippet:

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them.

They leave me and I love them more. … What I dread is the isolation. … There are so many beautiful things in the world which

I will have to leave when I die, but I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready.” 

Upon hearing this, I had a never-before-felt flash of insight into an elderly person’s perspective. The bittersweet joy of aging—or rather, having aged– was so poignant. I knew I was feeling empathy, not sympathy, because in a wee way I felt jealous.  How brilliantly painful a life lived must seem.  I came into work wiping away tears.

Perhaps you have to hear the interview to really understand what was so moving about it.

Here is the whole thing, if you have 20 minutes to spare.

If not, start at 15:30 and listen for a mere one minute and 15 seconds and let me know how or if you are moved.

Do you feel like you’ve walked a bit in his shoes?

Or are you compelled to save him from the “deepest pain and the wondrous feeling of coming into [his] own”?

If you don’t make it all the way to the end of the interview, I’ll tell you the last thing Maurice Sendak says, “Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.”

And if that doesn’t make you well up, let me know if I can ever call you a taxi.

We’ve been fortunate again this year to have a fantastic group of interns at Design Concepts! And this week, we’ll say goodbye to two members of the team – Chris Westphal and Josh Dryden. It’s been wonderful having them here!

Josh will return to the Cleveland Institute of Art for his senior year in the industrial design program. Chris will continue his doctorate in mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

They have both been invaluable additions to our design teams. In addition to their work on a variety of projects, both Chris and Josh were among those who worked on the “noisy box” project – a sensory stimulation device for children with visual and other impairments.

Thank you, Josh and Chris, for spending your summer with us!

We’ve been fortunate to have lots of visitors this summer. We’ve welcomed two groups from the University of Wisconsin’s College of Engineering Camp Badger outreach program, as well as high school students from around the country participating in the College’s Engineering Summer Program.

While they’re here we introduce them to the kind of work we do, lead them on a tour of the shop, and set them loose on a brainstorming session. These incredibly bright, curious and creative students are excited about design and never cease to amaze us with their fresh take on traditional problems.

Thanks everybody, for taking time to visit!