Revisiting our conversation from last night on the factor that limits and criteria can play in our creative decisions (haiku and such), today I found an article written for the software industry that deals with choice overload:

They created two displays of gourmet jams. One display had 24 jars. The other had 6. Each display invited people to try the jams and offered them a discount coupon to buy the jam. They alternated these displays in a grocery store and tracked how many people passed the displays, how many people stopped and sampled the jams, and how many subsequently used the offered coupon to buy the jam.

The results were surprising.

• 24 jar display: 60% of the people passing the display sampled the jam, 3% purchased jam.
• 6 jar display: 40% of the people passing the display sampled the jam, 30% purchased jam.

The larger display was better at getting people’s attention. But the number of choices overwhelmed them and they just walked away with out deciding to purchase a jam. In other words, if the goal is to attract consumers, less is more. Too much choice is demotivating. Admittedly, selecting a gourmet jam is insignificant. Maybe for more important issues, “choice overload” is not relevant? The authors of this paper, however, went on to consider more important choices such as 401K plans, and once again, a clear choice overload effect was found. Choice overload is real. When people are faced with too many choices, the natural tendency is to “not make a choice” and just walk away (probably in frustration). (emphasis added)

The article goes on to discuss how this study applies to the programming community. But we don’t care about the programming community. The upshot for us is that it’s OK to limit your focus when starting a project. In fact, one might deduce that we have to narrow our focus when starting a project, otherwise the project might not even begin. And how do we do this limiting? Research.

Original article (via)

*sigh*

Like she doesn’t have enough problems right now, Ms. Britney Spears is catching heat in the design world, too, for stealing a logo design from mondonation.

Elizabeth Arden the company behind this new fragrance should be ashamed of themselves for putting out a blatant copy of another companies logo and for potentially damaging the wonderful brand mondonation has built around the i believe design. They should be coughing up some serious cash for this blunder, but the sad part about this, is that even paying a settlement doesn’t repair damage to the brand.

Give the full article a read here. What do you think? Where does this fall in terms of our conversations of late on inspiration and the creative process?

Jason Fried from 37signals takes a few moments to slam those that would simply steal design instead of take the time to create something original:

A wrist watch is a tiny canvas with something to keep that canvas tied to your wrist. It’s just a couple inches round or square or triangular. It has a fixed, common purpose: Tell time. [...] And yet somehow, with these physical and practical constraints, watch design flourishes. From analog to digital to a combination of the two, tens of thousands of designs are born.

It’s a quick article so please go ahead and give it a read. And naturally, his conclusion spreads far beyond just web designers; the same holds true for print, identity, and any other form of design.

(via)

Take some time to check this out:
www.okaydave.com

If you only have time for one before class, be sure to check out Mondavi wine video. But look around and notice what he takes the time to document.

Step one: define our working definition for inspiration. Read Cameron’s article on the subject from earlier this year: Influence vs. Inspiration

The natural extension of that article is After the Brief: A Field Guide to Design Inspiration. This was a SXSW presentation given by Jason Santa Maria and Robert Weychert. Fortunately for us, the audio and slides (pdf) from the lecture are available for free download. Grab them both and dedicate an hour to listen and follow along. This is an enlightening discussion about how and where to find sources of inspiration for your designs (and a great look at how today’s designers do it day in and day out).

Still stuck for ideas? Suffering from creative block? What’s a (new) designer to do? Cameron puts forth one idea (which should sound kind of familiar by now) for breaking through the haze: unplugging from the grid for a while. But not to be outdone, Cameron post yet one more on the topic: Pressure = Inspiration?

So, a recap:

• Read Influence vs. Inspiration
• Download and listen to After the Brief: A Field Guide to Design Inspiration (slides)
• Read Uninspired? Unplug yourself
• Read Pressure = Inspiration?

Anything stand out to you? What new ideas will you take to your other classes moving forward? Which of these were you already doing?

Following up on our conversation on the creative process, we dig way back into the past (OK, 2003) to read what Cameron has to say on the matter of stealing. (Yes, I would have posted this even if Veerle hadn’t outed the article.)

This article wouldn’t be complete without a warning to be careful when copying well-known sources. If I were to summarize this warning in one sentence, this would be my golden verbiage: copy the inspiration, not the outcome.

Read Good Designers Copy, Great Designers Steal

As we talked about last night, keeping an idea bank or collection is a handy means of brainstorming. For materials that are online, del.icio.us can serve this purpose. An account is free and the stuff you bookmark is available on any online computer that you come across. To see how I’ve (perhaps ineffectually) put it to use, see my page here:

http://del.icio.us/jmaxf

Just a suggestion; not an assignment. Oh, and I think ma.gnolia.com does the same thing. But prettier.

We spoke last week about natural design limitations (can you name all four?) that are part of any project we will work on. Ted over at North Temple sums up some great design truths after dealing with the Tooth Fairy and a four year old. Specifically, he talks about the subtleties of working within the client specifications.

She had been wiggling her first loose tooth for a few days, and it finally came out last night. When telling my wife what she expected under her pillow in return for her tooth, she said in fine alliterative fashion, “I want dollars and diamonds. Cause I’m a girl.” The interaction design lesson? Know your audience and what they want and expect.

Please read the whole article and be familiar with Ted’s conclusions about client specs. Be prepared to discuss his point and your opinion thereon at the beginning of class.

Continuing with our conversation on design, the International Herald Tribune has an article from April 2007 dealing with what they call “design flops.” Yes, they are speaking more of physical things and not so much on the digital pieces we will create, but the reasons listed for failure are universal.

The odd thing is that no one sets out to design something that’s mediocre. So why does design go wrong so often? Let’s set aside the rational reasons why projects can fail - like budgetary constraints, deadline pressure and lack of talent - to concentrate on the scenarios that should be easily avoidable, but crop up again and again, with predictably dire results.

The article is fairly short and limits itself to eight things that can be avoided. Besides what is listed, what other things can sabotage your design?

Why the overwhelming numbers of design flops?