An interview with Alison Black

Alison Black IDEO Europe, London ablack@ideo.com

How did IDEO come into being?

Through a series of steps. The first was 30 years ago (1969) when Bill Moggridge set up a design development partnership in London (Moggridge Associates). His first client was Hoover, and one of our earliest projects for them, a domestic fan heater, has become something of a design classic and is displayed at the Design Museum in London.
During the 1970s we worked widely in Europe setting up temporary 'open offices' in both Denmark and Germany so that our project teams and clients could work closely together.
It was clear in the late '70s that there were exciting technology developments and business opportunities in Silicon Valley. So in 1979 Bill Moggridge set up a second office in San Francisco. Many of our project teams combined designers from both offices stimulating cross-fertilisation of design skills and cultural values across the Atlantic. Our San Francisco office was successful in exposing the company to new technology projects. For example we designed the first laptop computer for Grid and MicroSoft's first mouse.
Project work in America brought many new connections, including a connection with David Kelley Design, who had engineered the first commercially available mouse. And over a series of projects it became clear that there was a good fit of skills between the two organisations. Similarly we worked with Matrix, an industrial design consultancy that had been set up by Mike Nuttall, who had previously worked with Bill Moggridge.
And in 1991 the inevitable happened. Moggridge Associates, David Kelley Design and Matrix came together to form a new company, IDEO. It was the fusion of people who enjoyed working together, were excited by the same kinds of ideas, and could see a way forward for a multi-disciplinary product development consultancy.
Since 1991 IDEO has continued its development, with new offices in America, Japan and Europe. Again we operate by a combination of established offices and temporary 'open offices', our newest being Tel Aviv and Milan where we are currently developing European business.

Upon what principles was it founded? Have these changed or developed?

Our guiding principle is to do great design. But that needs a bit of qualifying. Our definition of greatness is innovative design solutions that dovetail technology and people's needs, delivering products and services that increase our clients' competitiveness in their business.
Those three anchors of technology, people and business point to the interdisciplinary nature of design innovation. We bring together project teams from different disciplines to ensure we navigate within the anchors.
We were one of the first design consultancies to bring in human scientists to work alongside our designers and engineers as project team members; initially with some resistance from clients who then learned through experience the benefits of 'user-centred' design.
As our business matures and diversifies we have found that the kind of disciplines needed in projects changes and we keep ourselves open to the opportunities for increasing the value of our work to clients by involving new expertises.

What kinds of work are done there?

We work across a range of sectors, including consumer, telecommunications, medical and technical, transport. We've recently won awards for products as diverse as sunglasses for athletes at the 1996 Olympics (designed for Nike), flexible office desking systems (for Steelcase Strafor) and a device to download and play back spoken voice recordings from the web (for Audible Words).

Output from our project work may range from concept proposals, to a strategy for future product or service development, to detailed design of concept through to specification for manufacture. A single client may ask us for all or just one of these, or some specific programme that is designed to meet their needs.

Has the nature of this work altered over the course of time?

Yes, the depth and breadth of vision that stem from a mature consultancy have made it possible for us to work strategically with clients. At the same time, our strategic knowledge rests on an understanding of the real issues that confront designers and manufacturers in product and service development. Indeed both our strategy and implementation work feed into one another. Having both is essential.
Developing technologies change our design work: both the technologies we have to assist us as we work and the new technologies that manufacturers are able to incorporate into products. Take for example the miniaturisation of electronic components. It has moved on our design projects for computer manufacturers from desk computers to a range of portable, configurable devices. Very few of these look like the traditional screen, keyboard, processor suite that still dominate most offices. We could map out similar changes in other sectors.
But however technology changes, and whatever opportunities it brings, the principle of using it to enrich the experience of the people who use it is paramount. We are ourselves, in marketing speak, 'innovators' and 'early adopters' and we buy and use the products and services our clients sell. We talk about them, drawing particularly on our international network of offices to keep in touch with what's new, and to think about how they relate to people's lives at work and at home.

How do all your people interrelate with each other?

Remarkably well. We have people who have been working together nearly thirty years, and newcomers who have just joined us from other consultancies or from college. When people join IDEO they have met and been interviewed by many of their new colleagues. They know they have been recruited through consensus and that there is respect for their work and potential. They are empowered to give their best.
We pay attention to our team work practices. We allow ourselves maximum freedom possible, within the constraints of project schedules, to work in ways that suit us. Project management is, of course, essential. But by and large our project management is 'lite' and tailored to the individuals in our project teams.
We use techniques such as brainstorming meetings and off-site activities to ensure team cohesion. This isn't to say there are never disagreements. Indeed one of the consequences of having different expertises within the office is to ensure that differing viewpoints can be brought together within the framework of a project, to ensure intelligent and fully developed design proposals.

Has the development of information technology affected the way you work?

Fundamentally. It enables designers to represent ideas both to themselves and to other people associated with their work (team members, clients, people who might use products we develop) in ways that have not been previously possible. This visualisation and communication facility has advantages across all our work - from developing three-dimensional forms, to understanding people's interactions with products and services, to designing and proving engineering structures. It's not that we have abandoned traditional pencil and paper or modelling techniques for IT. We combine the two. But used in the right places information technology has a dramatic impact on the speed with which we can manipulate and test out ideas, and the fluency with which we can communicate them.

Audible Word's downloader/player takes spoken voice recordings from the Web and allows the flexibility to listen to them away from your computer.

Communication is the key benefit of IT, from the visual representation of ideas, through the direct communication of design data to modelling and tool making without need for interpretation and translation, to the practical and day-to-day emails, video-conferences, intra- and extra-net sites etc. that support us in collaborative team working.

Are design decisions made in the mind or on the screen?

In the mind. Next question! No, it's not fair to underestimate the new dimensions that computers bring to design thinking. Decisions are definitely made in designers minds, but IT is a huge support to thinking. It's interesting, though, that you should say 'the' mind. Our team-working means that decisions are very likely to be the output of many more than one mind.

Is information technology merely an enabling tool?

The problem with this question is the word 'merely'. A small amount of enabling can have a huge impact on designing.

How has information technology affected the balance between functionality and aesthetics in design?

I don't think it has. That's affected by the mindset of the designer. Then he or she can use IT tools to push their thinking about both functionality and aesthetics. I think skilled designers know their tools, and know how far their thinking about any aspect of design can be taken in one medium or another, or with one particular tool or another. And I think most IDEO designers would feel that functionality and aesthetics, anyway, can never be pulled apart. They are inextricably bound up in people's experience of using a product.

Has information technology increased your contacts to other disciplines such as manufacturing? And if so, how?

Yes, at every possible level it has increased the opportunities for exchange of data, information and ideas. We work on projects where designers, engineers and manufacturers all work from the same database increasing the efficiency of the project, the fidelity of the end product to the designers' original intentions and the opportunities for close working to resolve problems, changes in external circumstances etc.

Flexible desking systems developed for Steelcase Srafor.

To what extent do you feel that information technology has brought design closer to the customer?

Largely as a means of representing ideas throughout their development so that they can be evaluated with customers. User evaluation has always been a significant part of our process at IDEO, but IT now makes it possible to represent interactions with products and services with increasing ease. This means that we can focus our energies on what the interactions are, with less diversion into the mechanics of how we can demonstrate them to users.
At a more general level IT has made design more available to the customer through the web. Many design consultancies and manufacturers have web pages where they display and talk about their work. Although internet access is far from universal these pages at least bring some design discourse to the public which might previously have been available only in the specialist press.

Upon what do you base your design decisions?

Two key forces combine:

• the experience and creativity of our designers and engineers
• empathy with end-users which we gather through observations and interviews with them early in our process, and by their involvement in prototype evaluation at later stages.

What tools do you feel you need - or would like - to allow more freedom in design?

Easier tools would be a great start. All our designers and engineers face a learning overhead, both when they start using a new piece of software and as updates of familiar software are released. They produce great work with these tools because they have the vision to see what they want to use them for and then invest huge amounts of time to use them fluently. But few tools are compatible with designers' own ways of thinking about their work. I am always surprised that, for example, MacroMedia Director has established such a hold in interactive prototyping. Its interface is so far removed from the visual thinking interaction designers do. And yet there is no alternative.
Beyond ease of use, standardisation would increase design freedom. Although we work using the same or compatible software with clients or manufacturers, inconsistencies across platforms are common and are a great time-waster for us all. Water-tight standards would liberate us to share ideas and information more effectively.
And finally cheaper tools would give designers more flexibility to choose among a range of tools for a particular job rather than committing time and money to one tool which, therefore, must be suitable for all purposes. Cheaper tools would be great for colleges too, allowing more exposure as students develop their skills, more freedom to compare, select etc.

Are there any golden rules in design?

Probably the same for design as for life:

• openness to ideas
• intelligent assessment and choice of direction
• seriousness of intent combined with a sense of humour.

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