I went out for a cup of coffee at my local Starbucks today (I might make a few too many trips as a father to a newborn). Service was fantastic, the coffee was stimulating, and all was right with the world.

Until I handed over my card to pay.

What I saw unfold was something of pure silliness. What made it even more absurd, is that no one seemed to even notice what was going on.

When my card was swiped, the point-of-sale system spit out a receipt (or something of record of transaction, I didn't see what was printed). This was promptly thrown away by the cashier, into a trash can that was placed next to her, brimming with receipts. The second copy was for me to sign, and while I was signing this, two more receipts were printed by the machine, and promptly thrown away.

That means for every transaction, there are 3 receipts thrown away for every 1 that is kept for records. To me, this is something that's broken.

Seth Godin did a fantastic talk back in 2006, about recognizing broken things, and I'll post the video below. When you see someone throw away 3 pieces of paper, and save 1, and that's just my cup of coffee, the math adds up fast of all the Starbucks around the world and the massive waste that's accumulated.

How would this get fixed? Could a strategic partnership with something like Square be right? I won't make any assumptions on their financial motivations, but this did get me thinking of how we observe things, and so often miss things that are right in front of us.

When you go around your day today, what do you see as broken? Enjoy the talk below!



Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo    

With my line of work in social media marketing, communications, etc. I've noticed something very alarming in the discussions and processes that happen: we forget about the one person that this all matters to. The end user.

The end user is a marketing term to refer to you and me. The person on the other end who will see your posts, watch your video, click on your ad, buy your product, use that product, and hopefully become a customer for life.

What happens in all the meetings and design iterations, and talks, where the product/ad post/tweet campaign flops? Why did this happen? I think we forget how someone would interact on the other side. We stare at these words for hours on end, scrutinizing every phrase and punctuation, and forget that it's just another email in someone's inbox that will probably be deleted before being opened.

If we took some time thinking about it from the end user perspective, it could help make our brand and product even that much better. Good design, and good products, truly speak for themselves, and will get recognized. But to get someone to even look at them first, we need to understand how our work is perceived.

One thing I like to do is pull someone who has had no discussion and no knowledge of something that I am working on, and show them a design that I am working on, or watch a video that I created, and get their reaction. What did you think? What was the message you took away from it? Did it make sense? Did it seem relevant?

Taking this one step has helped out tremendously in avoiding some gaffs; but you can't avoid every person's perspective and interaction. Learning the art of persona building helps too, where you build a "person" or a group of "people" who are your target audience, and filter things through this character. What kind of work do they do, what's their day like, interests, hobbies, favorite foods?

In the end, though, the greatest tool you can use, in my opinion, are your ears. Listen. What are people saying? How are they responding to what you are doing? Taking the time to listening can help shape your work to be effective.

I want to leave you with a great talk by Seth Godin, called "It's Broken" from 2006. An oldie but a goodie on how people interact with things, and how it affects people's perspective. Enjoy!

My wife and I recently purchased a used car in preparation for our first child (our current vehicle is not too car seat friendly). Within a few days, we noticed small spots of oil on our driveway. We called the dealership we purchased the car from, and received an extremely poor response: "Well, if it's part of the drive train it's covered under warranty, but if not, it would be a service fee."

Now I don't want to come across as entitled with this post, but we had had the car for less than a week, and noticed it leaking oil. It was a fantastic opportunity for the dealership to do the right thing and say something like: "We're so sorry, bring it in right away and we'll take a look at what could be happening."

Instead, after getting nowhere after a couple emails and calls, we took the car to a local authorized dealer, and they did an oil change which fixed the issue (apparently there's a gasket that needs to be replaced every time there's an oil change performed on these cars).

We let the first dealership know that was the issue, so that they didn't make the same mistake on the next sale, and a gain the opportunity to do the right thing was lost.

This is an event where the dealership that sold us the car could have created raving fans for their business, and potential referrals. Instead, if people ask us about our experience, we'll share our story about how they were unhelpful.

What does this all mean? We're in a time where we can no longer run businesses that are just "good enough." We're connected through our technology, and a bad customer experience can spread faster than ever. My thought is that we need to hold ourselves to better experience standards as businesses, not out of fear of backlash online, but because it's the right thing to do.

Dieter Rams was born 20 May 1932 in Wiesbaden, Hessen and is a German industrial designer associated with the consumer products company Braun. His design is instantly recognized for it's minimalistic and functional focus, and he is a key source of inspiration for Johnny Ive from Apple. 

Dieter Rams put together his 10 Principles of "Good Design" that are so amazing to me, and universal to everything we do, it's adaptive to nearly any job or situation you find yourself in. Check them out below:

Rams’s 10 Principles of “Good Design”

1. Is innovative – The possibilities for progression are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for original designs. But imaginative design always develops in tandem with improving technology, and can never be an end in itself.
2. Makes a product useful – A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic criteria. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could detract from it.
3. Is aesthetic – The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.
4. Makes a product understandable – It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user’s intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.
5. Is unobtrusive – Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.
6. Is honest – It does not make a product appear more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.
7. Is long-lasting – It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.
8. Is thorough down to the last detail – Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.
9. Is environmentally friendly – Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.
10. Is as little design as possible – Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.