Minute paper 20081030

I do agree with Bondaroff’s idea of turing his life style and statement into a brand, or say, into business.

When most of those huge corporations started their brand, they mainly depended on mainstream method for branding, such as television, magazine and radio commercials. Those methods are great, but they are expensive. Bondaroff wouldn’t even get a chance to let people out of his neighborhood know about his “aNYthing” if he was born in that era.

Bondarodd is lucky. With the technology nowadays, there are cheap or even free channels for him to promote his business. Internet could be his most helpful friend. By the website and reputation spread out thru blogs and online communities, he can easily get customers from anywhere.

Today’s guest speaker represented a good example – Starbucks. People spend 4 dollars for a cup of cappuccino is not because it really tastes better, it is because Starbucks builds this elite ambience for its customers. It delivers a statement, for those who recognize or trying to pursue the modern, bourgeoisie lifestyle, and those lifestyle could easily be achieved by 4 dollars. Nowadays, branding doesn’t have to be a mainstream practice, like what Bondaroff is doing, it could be emotional, effective, and meanwhile, it could be a statement of a lifestyle.

Journal Entry #4 – IKEA’s magic

The IKEA Group, a Swedish company founded in 1943, is a multinational operator of a chain of stores for home furnishing and house-wares. It is the world largest furniture retailer, specializing in stylish  but inexpensive Scandinavian designed furniture. It has been hugely successful since then.

Everybody loves IKEA, their stores are bright and big, no pushy sales guys chasing people around, their products are good-looking, functional, and most of all, they are affordable. Every time I’ve put together an IKEA product, I got curious as I sifted through the bolts, screws, and the IKEA-only wrenches: how do they create these things?

The design process of a cushion, “FAMNIG”, is a classic IKEA story. Basically, it is a recycled product. The original materials were made for children’s toys. For safety concerns, this product had to be ceased. While still in production, recalling this line would cause a closure of its Indian facory and 600 emplyees would lose their jobs. After looking at the factory and materials on hand, IKEA’s designer, Anna Evferlund redesigned the product by turning it into a lovely cushion with arms. It immediately became a hit in IKEA stores.

This is a great example of how to change a bad situation into something good and innovative when it comes to design. It’s not easy combining good design and good function with the right quality, at an affordable price. Being creative is supposed to be significant for a designer, but when trying to create, keeping the budget in mind is also crucial. According to one of IKEA’s design principles – no waste. (A Scandinavian thought behavior?) It matches today’s call for environmentally friendly measures in its manufacturing process as well, which can even be another marketing emphasis for the products.

Something smart about IKEA’s design team is they know how to focus on the price reducing but not losing the quality and the modern looking of the products. They don’t do thing unnecessary, because that costs money, and IKEA customer don’t want to waste money,either, or they wouldn’t go to IKEA.  If I needed a stylish, European designed chair, but it might  cost me six thousand dollars from the high-end furniture stores, as a regular income customer, I’d rather go for a IKEA’s chair instead.

IKEA’s FAMNIG cushion design process reminds me what our guest speaker said in the class last week: Design depends largely on constraints, without constraints, it shall be called “art” , not “design”.The designer Anna is clever and bold, when she visited that factory in India, she did not see a almost-closed production line and almost-garbage toy parts. Oppositely, she saw raw materials could be re-design and made into new products. That is called “creative”.

The constraints for IKEA’s design teams are low-budget, stylish looking and functional, if there were no such limits, then IKEA would never get a chance to stand out as it is today, it would just be another furniture store where people can find products they can see everywhere else. Being simple and creative is IKEA’s solution for its contraints. It also reflect’s Maeda’s “simple” rules. To get more from less, that is IKEA’s magic.

Reference:

IKEA Group Corporate. (2004), IKEA design philosophy. Retrived October 27, 2008, from http://www.fanpop.com/external/7071

Proposal – A Chocolate Cake Bakery in Seattle

Com597
Theories & Practices of Interactivity

Team members:

Chao-Wei Wu & Yu-Lan H. Loken

Subject:

A website structure and business plan for a chocolate specific bakery located in Seattle.

Significance:

Seattle is a city with a great diversity of restaurants and food stores, but being one of the major American cities, it is surprisingly to know that there isn’t any Chocolate specific cake bakery in Seattle. We can find cheesecake stores, smoke salmon stores, Russian bread bakeries, Chinese and Greek restaurants, but there is no such a place where chocolate frenzies can find all kinds of Chocolate cakes. Usually they go to regular bakeries to buy chocolate cakes, but for serious chocolate goers where they can order heavy-chocolate-pudding-cake, or chocolate cappuccino cake, they either bake the cakes themselves or maybe just forget about it.

It could be a good chance to open a bakery that is only focus on Chocolate cakes. For a new business starter, starting an online store first would be a budget-saving solution. The website would have pictures and descriptions of every flavor, customers can review, order and even custom-make their cakes online.

For building up the reputation, this Chocolate cake bakery could bundle with local restaurants and coffee houses. On holidays, it could work with chocolate companies such as Godiva and M&M’s for holiday events. Every featured promotion would be seen on the website.

Case study:

1. The Confectional

http://www.theconfectional.com/boutique/

We’ll exam the case of The Confectional cheesecake specific bakery in Seattle, who successful opened a store only sells cheesecake in 2006.

2. Dunkin Donuts

https://www.dunkindonuts.com/

Dunkin Donuts is a specific donuts store. We’ll also take the Dunkin Donuts as a model to see its’ features and figure out what are the secrets of becoming a successful global donuts chain store.

The scope of final deliverables:

We will study the rules of IBS (Internet Business Solutions) and different cases to support our plans. Further, we will deliver a thorough business plan, a website structure, the challenges it might face, and finally, the possible future for this chocolate specific bakery in Seattle.

Reference books:

1. Norman, D.A. (2004). Emotional Design, NY: Basic Books

Emotion is a part of our lives, affecting our thoughts and behaviors. Even in decision-making, we partly depend on our emotion. Sometimes, we do not really know why we make the decision, just because it feels right, and this is how emotion affects us.

The book separates a good design into three different aspects: Visceral, Behavioral and reflective. Visceral is the design’s appearances, including the aesthetic while using it and not using it. Behavioral considers the pleasure and effectiveness of use. Reflective has to do with the rationalization and intellectualization of a product, which is the design may generate a certain discussion or a story of it.

We could follow the three design aspects to design our products and services, which is a way to arouse certain emotion of customers and make the business flourish.

2. Tufte, E.R. (1997). Visual Explanation, CT: Graphics Press

The book is mainly about how to make explanation by graphics. In our project, we may need to design our menus, product instructions, promotion, advertisement, etc. We have to do it in a more attractive and creative way to attract customers and the book may be a useful reference.

3. Nielson, Jakob (2000). Designing Website Usability, IN: New Riders

This book introduces the basic rules of designing a usable website. We will follow the guidelines provided by the book and try to design a website that meets our customers’ needs.

References:

Wade, M., Johnston, D., & McClean, R. (Nov 8, 2004). Exploring the net impact of internet business solution adoption on SME performance. International Journal of Electronic Business, 2, 4. p.336. Retrieved October 22, 2008, from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale:
http://find.galegroup.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/itx/start.do?prodId=EAIM

Lorber L. (2008, September 5). Small Business Link: QA: Building a Brand Around a Personality :Online edition. Wall Street Journal  (Eastern Edition),  p. 0.  Retrieved October 22, 2008, from ProQuest National Newspapers Core database.

Journal Entry #3 – Designing for People : thoughts about Henry Dreyfuss

Henry S. Dreyfuss is considered the founding father of industrial design and one of the most prolific designers of the past century. He was also one of the pioneer designers of that time in 1920s when “Industrial Design” become a recognized philosophy in the United States. His invention dramatically changed the world and affected human being’s behavior.

One of Dreyfuss’ most recognized designs must be hat of the telephone produced for Bell laboratories in 1929 that incorporated receiver and microphone within the same molded plastic handset. It was and innovation for the time, and a design that heralded the way the phone of today would move in in design terms and at the time won an award as “The Phone of the Future.”And much of the science of anthropometric – so used in product designs of today – are based on the “Joe and Josephine” from his book “Measure of Man” in 1960.

Joe & Josephine

Take a look of Dreyfuss’ big hit product for Bell, the Princess phone in 1959, it was a compact telephone designed for convenient use in the bedrooms, and contained a light-up dial for use as a night light, and At&T offered the market a broad range of color selection for the Princess phone. In 1965, another popular phone – Trimline phone was launched to the market. It was also designed by Dreyfuss. The idea of behind the Trimline phone was to create an alternative telephone set design that was stylish and easier to use. The dial located inside of the handset, between the earpiece and mouth piece. Amazingly, the same concept is now used by all cell phones and cordless phones.

Dreyfuss designed everything from vacuum cleaners to railway engines, the main reason for his successful was the core concept of his works – designing for people. His idea was simple: every point of contact between what is designed, and the customer/user, must be positive, a delight, it must make people happier. Dreyfuss also told us that good design gives to the user self-assurance, efficiency, and satisfaction. Further, he emphasizes how industrial designers need to understand the producers’ pointviews as well.

Dreyfuss’ products matches what Maeda descrpbed in “The Laws of Simplicity”. A good design is trying to solve and reduce people’s problems. Make it simple, make it easy, but make sure it contains emotion. When we go to a store, we can easily tell that certain producers/designers of certain products care about us and really tries hard to ease our daily doings. Designers nowadays are faced with different challenges, Dreyfuss could serve as inspiration for designers to work based on function and aesthetics.

Reference:

Dreyfuss H. (2003) Designing for People. New York: Allworth Press.

Princess telephone. (2008, September 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 09:51, October 22, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Princess_telephone&oldid=236155214

Trimline telephone. (2008, August 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 09:50, October 22, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trimline_telephone&oldid=231640162

Journal #2 Wireframe

Wireframe – The service page of T-mobile.com

or click here for the ppt file.