月度归档：2010 年六月

从小的创意到激进式的服务创新

                                    作者：Mark Jones    Fran Samalionis
      前沿的服务设计的策划和执行要求创造力和标准的完美融合。Mark Jones和Fran Samalionis在此过程中进行了一定的探索，并提出了一种通过五个阶段来达到积极效果的方法。他们说明了这种结果的细微差别以及巨大前景，他们通过在印第安纳州南本德第一源银行的个案研究来进行说明。
    要想在商业界竞争和维持，服务公司必须进行不断的创新，大多数的顶级服务公司的管理者都会说创新性服务的引入是最重要的。事实上，在2007年10月麦肯锡作了一个全球大范围的公司调查（包括服务公司），发现超过70%的公司领导者把创新作为推动企业发展的三大策略之一。但是，想要进行创新，要把创新性服务推向市场是很少的，而通过根本的创新性服务显著地改变市场就更少了。
当被问起如何进行根本的创新，服务公司的管理者会告诉你创意其实是不值钱的，更重要的是决策：正确的指导思想，正确的团队，正确的发展规划，正确的领导层，正确的危机管理水平，正确的目标 ，正确的入市时间等等。在这篇文章里，我们来讨论这种创新的方法。这不仅仅是一个随意的想法，而是进过严格的程序鉴定和实行最可行的想法。


IDEO已经形成了一种分阶段的创新程序方法，这种方法可以让一些好的创意被提出和改良，从而让这些创意在被舍弃之前变成一些可以改变市场的好的想法。
     

 Mark Jones, Lead for

Service Design and
Innovation, IDEO

  

Fran Samalionis, Head
of Service Design and
Innovation, IDEO

在服务公司有一些创新的结构性障碍是很明显的，其中有：

设立服务团队是为了改善公司的经营效益，而不是寻求快速的改变，尤其是服务公司
在公司内部的一些议程安排都是为了争取到相同的资源
从创意产生到把这些创意投入到市场的这段漫长时间里，缺少一个持续的团队或者领导者
对成功的评估（和应作的解释）不够清楚
数量庞大的服务团队很难与灵活多变的市场环境相适应
最后但并不是最不重要的一点：事实上改变是昂贵的
 
常见的错误
并不是服务公司不想尝试引入新的创新性服务。相反，公司意识到了那些结构性的挑战，开始进行创新方面的努力。但是他们很少成功。下面是一些他们在创新的过程中遇到的常见的问题。
即使当一些公司讨论激进式的变革，他们也只打算在对市场不会产生根本影响的情况下做渐进式的服务改进。
往往想法会因为一些不合理的原因被抹杀了。他们可能不适合当前的运营模式；没有明确的筛选和优化程序；人们可能无法从粗略的想法中看到具有实际价值的提案……这种原因还有很多。
 有些时候想法被否定是基于运行的可行性和现有的技术，而不是客户的真是需求。结果往往是对现有服务进行改装，却不能创造新的价值。
进行新的服务概念的团队没有积极的向公司争取必要的资源来发展新的服务概念并将它推向市场。
新产品开发的程序没有积极努力的执行，公司没有在把新服务推向市场之前通过实验和原型来减小创新的风险。没有总体的目标可能导致缺少中心或过于狭窄的中心；这两者都是对创新不利的。
 
我们如何避免这些错误呢？IDEO已经形成了一定的策略，服务公司可以增强发展一个实际的创新性服务的机会，并通过合理的安排推向市场。
 
根本创新的途径 
根本的创新意味着服务公司和市场的根本改变。看看那些改变世界的新服务——捷蓝航空、奈飞DVD、前进保险公司。那些引入新服务的公司必须真正开放的改变市场的性质。他们不得不考虑新的切入点，新的营收模式，新的技术，新的客户关系。太多的关注当前的现实就很难想象一个完全不同的世界。
一旦团队形成了新服务的实际的想法，自然就会开始考虑到对生意和业务运营的影响（可行性和现实性）。对可行性和现实性的权衡才是最重要的。在新服务形成的过程中，很容易过早的否定一个想法，因为它不是很容易符合当前的运行模式，或者它不满足一个商业案例典型的起点。事实上，好的想法往往能够克服来自当前运行模式的内在的挑战，根本的创新可能就需要新的途径来形成一个富有活力的商业案例。我们希望了解和改进新的服务概念，而不是否定它们。一个贯穿每一阶段的讨论话题是如何持续关注开发团队每阶段的努力。这要求通过严格地研究每一阶段去发现真正有价值的新服务，从而不让传统的商业和运营脱离程序。在这过程中需要拿出足够的信心去保护创新不被传统侵蚀。
五个阶段框架
现在我们将详细的说明这个程序框架，这个框架已经让IDEO成功的和很多服务公司合作设计和引导根本的创新服务。在早期的阶段，我们根本的宗旨是必须放开现实，发散的、富有灵感的思考问题，努力培养市场洞察力。如果你已经形成了大量的可行的想法，下一步就是评估这些想法的最大化客户期望，技术可行性和商业可行性。但是同时你必须保持谨慎和注意，从而不至于脱离创新程序。
这个程序可以分为五个阶段：
培养市场洞察力
创造根本的价值主张
探索创造性的服务模型
遵守送货规则
反复试验和改进新服务
1. 培养市场洞察力
基于对市场深入观察的创新可以激励更好的想法。后面写了很多是关于这方面的，很多我们
合作的公司通常都会组织用户洞察力的调查。另外，很多公司已经开始将结合观察的方法纳入到自己的体系中。这对服务机构是一个很好的消息，我们希望这种趋势能够继续。
    保持对用户、商业、技术同样的观察力。如果仅是观察消费者，可能不足以挖掘出可以改变市场的创新方法。灵感可以来自许多方面，所以不要仅仅停留在观察用户的层面上。要尽你可能地发现不寻常的商业模式、市场前景、运营和技术方面的可能性。创新就是这些方面的综合，如果这些创新能够符合消费者的需求，就会很成功。
形成一个清楚地描述不足和发展空间的框架，如何对待市场洞察力比洞察力本身更重要；往往，公司没有好好的挖掘他们的全部潜力。过度的关注用户需求可能导致小组草率行事，并且启动头脑风暴解决方法，这样只能解决特定的问题。这样结果往往只是渐进式的服务改进，而不是小组寻找的真正的飞跃。
对于一个团队，使自己理解这种差别，并且形成有效的机制来组织创新思维能力都是需要时间的。当一个团队发现一个机会，一个通过根本不同的方式来满足客户的需求，就意识到需要真正的进行创新和原型设计。
 
2. 创造根本的价值主张

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根本的创新要求获得新的客户和开发服务水平低下的市场，还有，一旦他们成为了你的顾客,你就要留住这些人。让人们在一个拥挤的市场中选择你的服务产品，需要你的服务比他们正在使用的服务更上一层楼。还有，如果你正在提供的是一种新兴服务–例如，想想汽车租赁公司–那么,你需要帮助你的客户认识到尝试新的服务的价值。有时候,全新的服务可以填充市场Zipcar中的明显的空白。想一想Google 411和SMS信息服务。在有些时候，全新的服务可以帮助在新的方向中引导市场,从现存的而不是片断的行为中获利——想一想苹果的iPod和iTunes。

同时涉及一线职员和管理人员。许多管理人员专长追踪他们的服务的利润，还有他们如何面对竞争。所以，你可能会以为这些管理人员会熟悉前线职员在提供一项高质量的服务中遇到的挑战。但是，实际状况并不是这样的。我们发现几乎没有管理人员真正的了解他们一线职员在想什么，还有，他们并不知道他们该怎么样去改变那些员工来支持一项新的服务。这是一个很大的差距，因为这些员工在服务中扮演一个很重要的部分。
 你是怎么考虑这点差距的？关键是深入合作。仅仅告诉管理层一线员工在想什么、能做什么是不够的。我们发现管理层需要直接从他的员工那里听取关于新服务的想法。很多管理者都惊奇和赞叹他们的面向客户员工是多么的灵活和变通。
 极端的服务模型提倡提前延伸组织观念。低成本的模型可以让形成的想法得以表达、探究和修改，并以一种实际和感性的方式与用户、专家以及利益相关者共享。他们更支持有根据的决策，而不是理论的东西。他们希望想法能够被持续的改进。既然他们经常处理这些无形的资产，可能需要测试服务想法或者形成一套方案。例如，模拟用户在接触一个服务的体验是很有价值的方法。
 经验原型看起来像是为了从他们的具体观点中形成创新性新服务，但实际上并不能建成像创新性服务那样满足各种不同的用户的需求，还有那些利益相关者（涉及到品牌、市场、技术、客户服务、运输等等）。一个好的原型设计可以提出关于客户需求、商业可行性和技术可行性的问题。
进行形成性研究，以弄清可取性、可行性和可能性。形成研究采用原型获得潜在用户的反馈来改进新的概念。许多服务公司都习惯于进行概念测试。然而，大部分公司进行概念测试或者是为了否定想法或者是为了确认想法，而不是为了利用它们或者改进它们。相反，形成性研究需要将那些想法研究作为原型放入生活当中，并将它们展示给客户、专家、利益相关者以获得反馈。目的是为了了解客户和商业需求是如何被很好的解决的，研究应该是探索性的和积极的，而不是判断和消极的。
在创新的过程中，在适当的时间和适当程度的保真度去进行这种形式的研究是至关重要的。原型需要足以能够直观的得到一些反馈信息。不过，可视化不应过于打磨，因为这会在两个方面阻碍反馈过程：一，客户和利益相关者将会判断或将阻碍；第二，设计团队过于在意自己的想法，无法建设性利用反馈信息。
 
3. 探索创造性的服务模型
已经建立的商业和业务结构并不总是有益于支持根本的创新，因为它们是专门针对现有的服务。有能力改变市场的创新通常需要根本的改变内部的组织，以及创造性的解决方案，使这些新的服务项目从商业的角度和技术的角度来看是可行的。
挑战现有的业务水平。成功的创新需要业务和技术团队成员像他们的设计同行一样具有创意——YouTube或谷歌的服务模式，使它们能够通过广告收入赚钱同时不影响服务所提供的产品的价值。至关重要的是要记住他们的产品广告业的成功振兴，这是在当时没有显示太多的迹象。
以客户需求的可行性和可取性为最终目标。这样可以很容易地恢复到传统的标准和可行性模式，但这样做会使创新从激进式向渐进式转变。倡导创新的需求促使组织建立新的结构，将培育根本的创新。这不是一项容易的任务。
 
4.遵守送货规则
在他们心中，服务公司是业务集中的组织。提供一贯高水平的服务需要一个运营心态，执行严格的程序、标准和培训。引入新的服务几乎总是需要改变规则，有时很明显。由于服务是生产和消费同时发生的，所以改变服务的运作方式更难。
得到失败的许可。在第一次，每一次都能正确的获得根本的创新，在一定程度上是有风险的，也是极不可能的。公司应该将失败作为创新过程的一部分。团队需要从领导那里获得授权，使他们有信心尝试新的服务概念，而这些概念仍有很多没解决的问题。对于那些害怕进行根本的创新会失败的团队，是不可能的。通过从领导那里获得授权来进行成功的试验，然后使用这些权力获得失败许可。
设计衡量成功的新标准。关于标准的规则可以是一个巨大的创新障碍。对于服务公司来说，采用六西格玛方法是非常正确的。对在服务的逐步完善方面的发展行之有效的资助方针通常与基础创新的规模和不确定性相冲突。
根本的服务概念中可能没有一个商业案例是符合六西格玛原则的。放弃那些标准可以打开这通常是压制的机会。如果他们的经费和预算是从该组织的其他部分分开的，那么创新更有可能取得成功。
当我们与健康保险服务中心合作，团队开发的服务概念，实际上将大大延长平均通话时间——这正是与大多数呼叫中心的倡议背道而驰的。精英团队不得不重新构建呼叫中心的衡量标准，主要是客户满意度和处理时间。新的指标集中于呼叫中心的职责在于改变健康状况和如何引导员工提高健康状况以及降低运营成本。这影响着整个服务中心的资金结构。
 
5. 反复试验和改进新服务
根本的创新本质上是危险的，因为它涉及新问世产品。试点服务是控制这个风险最好的方法——在它规模化之前。但是，大多数服务机构都不愿意暴露自己的市场意图。因此，他们不愿意试点，以保护他们的先发优势。这需要在这种不情愿与试点提供的投资决策信息所带来的好处之间做到平衡。
不要等到服务被完善，先适应测试版。根本的创新是基于不断发展的客户行为及市场趋势。这些变化是难以准确预测的，除非在试点中加以强调，否则一项成功的服务会受牵制于一些难以确定的细微的差别。一个工程类的原型可以很容易地在一个小规模的试点，以大幅度降低开发成本，它还可以允许进行反复的完善，这对于风险管理是很关键的。
试点期间利用时间准备大规模部署。任何新的服务都只会在短时间内保持超前性。设计团队必须认识到这一点，并采取相应的行动。要保持先发优势，公司应该在试点阶段投入基础设施，而这些基础设施正是扩大规模所需要的。这将确保在试点结束以前，基础设施能够充分准备好。
一次，我们开发了一组无线通信服务，我们在有限的时间、很少的客户的情况下试验了一个工程性的原型。我们的目标是要了解他们如何使用这项服务，作为群体的一部分，他们的行为是如何变化的。为了使试点尽快的完成，原型开发用独立的技术支持，而不是公司的核心系统。通过客户对原型的使用，我们能够确定客户在群体中确实会有不同的反应，此外，我们了解到，新服务并不会吞食其他收入来源，如短信。
公司不仅要测试一个工程性原型的可取性和可行性，同时也要开发跨多技术平台的通信服务软件。随着群体的通信服务被更好的设计改进，以更好地满足客户的需求，从试点阶段可以看到技术平台的发展。
总结
今天，服务的市场前景是不断发展变化并迅速发展的。在这样的市场前景中，频繁和彻底的创新是很关键的。无论是客户还是市场，对创新服务的反应都很灵敏，而服务公司也很乐意提供这些创新服务。我们在这里所描述的过程就是一种提供创新服务的途径。它将允许公司在低风险的情况下，把创新服务推向可预见的市场。其结果将会是一个充满活力和更加以客户为中心的服务格局。
 
案例研究：第一源银行
第一源银行，是总部设在印地安那得南苯德的一个地区性银行，在2004年，它希望在短时间内，在其系统内增加百分之五十的分行数目。潜在的扩张提示银行应研究如何可能改变客户在分支机构的经验，然后它投资建立新的分支机构。当时，第一来源分行的经验主要得益于工业标准，而不是客户需求。该过程和他们赖以为基础的设施是复杂的，而且往往是客观的。
第一源银行的首席执行官倡导了这样一个理念：在面对为一个新的分支银行信贷设计范例的挑战时，和IDEO合作。这是极其有用的，因为，它给了发展团队探索全新的服务概念的权限。首席执行官把保证时间和所需要的资源来确保成功的是多么的重要成功地传达给该组织的其他成员，而且，关键人物是来自于从银行的不同部分到团队的部分成员。
一个产生于初步调查的关键洞察力是第一源作为一个当地银行可以用国家银行不会采用的方式改变它的品牌。我们还发现，出纳人员感觉受制于他们的角色，而且为不能更广泛和更有效地和客户交谈感到挫败。我们发现客户和在银行工作的人员联系，而不是银行机构（作为银行的机构），而且客户想要受到尊重和关心。虽然银行家们直观地了解到这种需求，但是银行的服务模式和设施却不能支持。小组一致认为，一个解决方案应该帮助银行家们建立他们和客户的关系，而且能为常规的银行和偶发性的活动——例如贷款——建立起桥梁。
我们把很多种类的银行利益相关者（包括管理团队，还有，前线的职员）带入具有共同意念的工作坊。柜员们是首先意识到从柜台后走出来所带来的不同的，这样他们很快就进入了角色，展示着他们怎么用科技在一个开阔的空间里来和客户进行交流。令最高的管理团队感到吃惊的是出纳人员是如何想象自己以这样不同的方式工作的。并行式的银行业作为新的服务模式的关键部分而出现。
移除柜台代表着许多改变。为了进一步了解和疏导这些走出来的出纳员，我们建立了整体建议配置的核心要素的全范围泡沫核心模拟。我们在模拟一个新的程序中引入了银行家们和客户。他们承认并行式的银行业是有效的，但是它也突出了想安全、隐私之类的需要在未来重复出现的事件中解决的问题。
这个概念可以准备实施了。第一来源银行使用适应现有的软件及固定装置来把一些新的服务模式引进入一个分行的一部分，而不是通过建立整体的基础设施来引导新的银行业程序。全部采用新的服务模式的新支行设计追随了这个实验。
那些已经采用新模式的分行在关键度量上的比原来的第一来源分行要好。新帐户，存款的增长，贷款销售至少比那些未采取新的服务模式和设施内容的较小的分行高上百分之三十以上。
图片一：第一源银行的一个新的银行概念的这种泡沫核心模拟，能够使发展团队快速地和并排式银行业务配置模拟日常的银行业务。客户和出纳员的反馈，可以帮助解决隐私、现金管理和定位的问题。

图片二：这个图片展示了第一个采用并排式银行配置的分行。这一概念的实现和传统的银行有非常大的差别。

中国企业的新产品开发战略：高科技领域的范例分析

                                                              

                                             作者：张晓欢 艾利克斯.威廉姆斯

摘要


      尽管有着越来越多的关于中国商业活动和消费市场发展的调查研究，却很少有写到中国企业新产品开发的重要性。另外，有关中国的工业结构和民族文化对新产品开发进程的作用的分析也几乎没有，对此，一个关键的假设是中国的工业结构和民族文化将会反映西方国家的经历。
首先，本文将会论述是否西方新产品开发经验适用于中国本土从事高科技领域的企业。本文还将概述在中国经济背景下，中国企业的新产品开发的自然过程。
其次，作者将呈现由美国一家国有高科技企业范例分析所得到的发现。这个范例分析着重分析了该企业在新产品开发中的市场情况和组织背景，以及它们与研究开发（R&D）、产品系统、特别是技术转让的关系。
本文提出了富有中国特色的新产品开发模式，得出结论认为：未来中国经济发展需要加大加深新产品开发的力度和深度，即使用不同的形式。
 
关键词
新产品开发，设计管理，技术管理
 
 
引言
社会已广泛认识到新产品开发是帮助企业进军成熟或不成熟市场的有力武器。中国经济已经越来全球化了，新产品开发的概念主要被输入成西方文字的翻译，例如产品开发Product Development（Hu，1999），新产品的设计和市场Design and Marketing of New Products(Urban and Hauser，2002)，以及新产品开发New Product Development(Gan，2000)。迄今为止，关于中国新产品开发实例的研究非常有限，而唯一的例外：1994年的Song和Parry；2004年的Chen和Wear；2006年的Zhang，仅仅只是把分析重点放在成功的标准上，缺乏对潜在原因的考虑。因此，很少有可以用于指导实践的中国特色理论。而这些理论很大程度上是以西方和日本的商业组织情况为参照建立起来的，并且伴随的假设是中国的所有商业因素都与西方和日本一样。然而，事实上中国与西方、日本在经济投资技巧、商业结构、技术转让管理、文化等多方面都有重大区别，这些区别需要我们重新考虑新产品开发的进程和它在商业策略上的部署。
本文陈述了由一家州立高科技企业的范例分析所得到的发现。这个范例分析着重分析了该企业在新产品开发中的市场情况和组织背景，以及它们与研究开发（R&D）、产品系统、特别是技术转让的关系。本文作出了关于如何识别同化和成长的管理中的长处及短处的结论，在后者中尤其注重于分析人力资源方面和认清一系列有关于本土和国际公司在中国投资的关键问题。
 
背景
当西方企业利用中国的廉价产品和劳动力时，中国试图利用先进技术、管理技巧和引进外资来加快步伐赶上全球经济水平。当前，爆炸性的消费源于可支配收入的大幅度增加，然而，国内仍然缺乏高科技能力。有着辽阔国土面积和庞大人口数量的中国，有着成为巨大的国际市场的潜力，很多跨国公司已经认识到这一点并且开始为长期盈利作深入计划，例如摩托罗拉、爱立信、诺基亚、通用、大众和宜家。
当现代中国经济开始于1978年改革大开放时，就表现出来需要更多的时间来完善诸如政治、管理、技术转让、法律、经济改革的政策。此外，因为中国极短的设计史随之而来的设计经验的缺乏导致设计成为一个相对次要的角色，而且和企业家精神相比，设计对企业的成功没有做出什么贡献。
 
中国企业的复杂形式及其新产品开发进程
随着中国1978年的改革大开放，大量的中国工业逐渐被有条理的非集体化。这种同时存在的混合系统逐渐取代了国有企业的模式。中国新工业包括了国有企业、集体所有企业、村镇企业、私营企业以及国际联合风险投资、外企子公司。其中集体所有企业要特别注意，一般是指由国有企业转变成的由管理人员、工人和地方政府组成的合作社。图1是笔者观察到的各种产品开发进程。图1（i）的基础是多样化快速扩张、具备大量途径、允许最小资本投资的市场.图1所展示的是适合于目前版权法不健全又需要灵活性的私营企业的产品开发理想模式。该模式的关键竞争优势是它充分利用了中国的廉价劳动力资源和自身的快速增长率。相反，图1（ii）提供了一种长期目标：吸收世界级水平的技术，让私营企业具备国际竞争力，增加中国的盈余出口。这种模式适合于在综合价值体系中有着长远、深入的投资的实力较强的企业，这类企业特别需要对市场消息有鉴别力。然而，也可能出现这样的争论：当这些企业在埋头苦干专心于技术潜力、开发研究国际新技术时，它们所依赖的国内市场已经在日益激烈的国内外科技竞争中消失殆尽了。
西方国家在过去二十年里逐渐建立起了对影响新产品开发的因素的认识，被Jones定义为：从（i）品质（获取最基本权利），经过有义务和用户/提供商服务，到通过商业形成的整合与网络的一个重要转变。然而，后两个阶段依赖于明确的消费者定位、广阔的供应和销售渠道以及工业基础设施；除了海尔的例外，几乎没有部门或商业组织达到了这样的阶段。
 
工业结构的演变
Best的部门转变菱形模式图有效地阐明了区域性生产和技术管理能力的发展情况。菱形的每一极都联系着在某一套有特色的技术中达到极具竞争力水平的能力;例如，菱形底端和右端阐释的是经济发展的Porter初级要素驱动力阶段；左端阐释了投资驱动阶段，而顶端阐释的是创新驱动阶段。
菱形模式中的向上和向左的运动变化表述了资源从低科技和技术密集型领域到更复杂的知识密集型应用的转变。这样的资源再分配包含了基于更先机生产方法的技术管理能力的重要转变。
在某些方面，快速的工业增长可以看成是对非技术性劳动密集型项目、规模经济领域到技术性劳动、复杂生产过程、知识密集型领域的一种逃离行为。以知识密集型企业为经济驱动力的地区有一系列常用的地区能力：系统综合，开放式网络系统，工业/高等教育机构合作模式，设计的非集权化和推广，科技多元化，创建新公司。同样的，左端的复杂生产活动揭示了管理实践和组织能力，如单元式制造、自我管理团队、绩效性能，能帮助增强灵活性和改进产品的并行开发。
 
案例研究
    在由大量中国企业，包括SOEs、COEs、POEs以及IJVs，于2000年到2003年所做的案例研究的基础上，本文提出了关于一家从事高科技手机领域的国有企业的案例研究的发现。由于本案例讲述所涉及的是一个科技快速吸收、国际和本土的高水平竞争、需求高速增长却伴随着不成熟市场的领域，所以本案例意义尤为重大。
本案例的数据采集自公司文件、相关出版物、与大量直接或非直接参与到新产品开发项目的中层经理进行的半结构式访谈。访谈进行了3个星期，在这期间，新技术的鉴定和实现、资源分配、利益相关者的影响、关键决定点的识别等相关事宜都进行了讨论。访问的结果都确保了完整性。
考虑到商业敏感性，本文中的公司名称被保留并用TelecomsCo 代替。
 
 
TelecomsCo 简介
    TelecomsCo是本地区最大的移动通信设备制造商之一。其制造活动主要在PCB制造、装配、模制和生产运营方面占有很大优势，TelecomsCo的产品有超过1000个的重要部件由国内外供应商提供，而高科技含量的部件则主要来自西方企业和东南亚的台湾企业的子公司。
作为一家高科技企业，其重心放在了以多样化的原则招聘专业人员；令TelecomsCo引以为豪的是，在超过1000名的员工总数中，有超过500名的研究员，其中40%拥有博士学位、理科学硕士学位或高级工程师职称。然而，TelecomsCo仍在公认地短缺市场营销人员、工程师和设计师，另外应用研究和观念发展功能都严重不足。核心技术和关键产品领域都尤其鼓励独立工作和团队协作。由高级管理层的赞助商所支持的技术创新者和输入者在识别新技术时扮演着决定性的角色，他们的任务是通过执照和技术转让协议，获得附加收益。
像许多其他高科技领域的SOEs一样，TelecomsCo获得了大量中央政府的的补贴和贷款用于投资它的技术发展。重要投资需要企业输入和吸收一个先进技术的充分广阔的投资组合来确保其竞争力。投资组合的吸收与采购订单成本的比率是2：1，尽管落后于台湾和韩国80年代后期的水平，但远好于平均值1：1的比率。
自90年代初期，TelecomsCo和Motorola在移动用户产品和系统的生产和销售方面进行合作时起，Motorola将TelecomsCo当做扩充其中国市场份额的市场服务器。从1996年开始，TelecomsCo为了延伸其市场范围，引进了ATM机，和竞争对手签订技术转让协议。随后，TelecomsCo将其多样化的制造兴趣集中在了研发，为了成为关键移动设备商之一而第一个引进了国外的移动通信技术。
 
研发部门及其运行
到2002年，TelecomsCo已经积累了十年移动通讯网络的研发、生产、销售、服务的成功经验。 为了加速技术发展、赶上国际水平，TelecomsCo在其中国总部成立了一个国家级研发中心。尽管这样，或者可能就是因为这样，TelecomsCo的研发方法非常“技术驱动性”，或者说“实验推动性创新”，暴露出高度部门化和组织转变重大障碍。由于高度的商业敏感性，产品开发代替了关闭的网络。然而，TelecomsCo的策略减少了新产品开发，集中在了研发应用。
尽管TelecomsCo集中做好了综合制造和装配方面的灵活度和品质度，该企业还是缺少充分协调的系统方法和整合多角度技术创新的能力。然而强大的驱动力推动着TelecomsCo大量缩短产品开发周期，将重点从流程创新转变到产品研发应用。笔者在上文中已经提到过：由高级管理层的赞助商所支持的技术创新者和输入者在识别新技术时扮演着决定性的角色，他们的任务是通过执照和技术转让协议，获得附加收益。75页的图3阐明了在开发过程中，各种功能和部门交流的水平，以及并行的项目的范围。然而，每个关键阶段都必须获得高级管理层的批准，委员会的低效率，以及团队自主权的缺乏，造成了持续性的重大延误。
 
设计
技术部门包含了设计和研发团队，分配了研发、生产工艺、设计部门。研发部门包含三个关键领域：半导体开发（虽然主要的芯片仍然进口自台湾、日本、和美国）、信号传输技术、软件开发。类似地，生产工艺部门分为半导体制造和PCB开发及装配，需要生产和研发部门的高度协作。设计部门包含平面和产品设计，其中产品设计部含有工业设计师和工程技术员。一般地，部门经理会指派任务给一组意见与市场部相反的设计师。市场调研工作一般都找代理或者咨询公司来做消费者调查，TelecomsCo缺乏一种内部的能力。设计概念初步通过了高级管理层，并被批准按照草模和实体模型的初期反馈来进一步发展，这些模型里一般包含经销商和消费者角色。方案一旦确定好了，就会开始以按照方案来在产品推出前的12个月或更长的时期里来开发。
就全国而言，设计相对来说仍然是稀缺的资源。部门内的设计职员之间有相当大的竞争，同时奖金也相当多，目前的设计团队报酬相当丰厚，设计师的薪水几乎是一般工人平均薪水的六倍。每一位设计师都要求对经理制定的项目提出一系列设计概念，而只有其中很小的一部分概念会被发展为新模型。然而，TelecomsCo的很明显的“设计定位”造成其很难达到设计上的突破点。当产品设计咨询公司和工业设计学院或工程学院不同，她可能提供了一种崭新的视角时，视角还没有足够的数量，实现的机会也很少。
在电信领域，由于高科技产业对于大多数消费者来说比较陌生，技术发展被看作是驱动市场需求的主要手段。TelecomsCo每年将利润的15%到20%投资于新产品开发，而同时技术研发占了整个生产过程35%到40%的的费用，或者十倍于新产品开发的预算。尽管这样，新产品开发项目还是被很谨慎的管理着。不幸地，对研发部经理的采访没有透露CEO授权新产品开发项目的标准，这看起来是商业机密。
 
新产品开发曾遇到的问题
尽管拥有高水平的内部研发技术，由于缺乏充足的设计员，对设计不够重视，对市场缺乏充足调查，TelecomsCo也经历着设计和发展问题。例如，有了移动市场部，开发新款手机的周期为12到18个月。然而设计部的未来不确定；企业高层的决策，整体上耽搁了典型实验和产品批准。在其间，竞争品牌发布了相似风格的手机，致使TelecomsCo面临着二次市场情形。这是由于早期的实验性手机原型生产试点失败引起的。样本以桑特市场研究为基础建立起来，测试的时候产生了矛盾的消费者反应；这款手机在全面生产前就撤销了。

no prescription viagra

 
 
中国电信市场及TelecomsCo的市场位置
自改革开放以来，越来越多的外国商品进入了中国国内市场。由于和国产商品相比，进口商品拥有强大的品牌影响力、更好的造型、更多功能、更耐久性，TelecomsCo发现消费者偏好于进口产品。中国消费人口认为进口产品好于国产的同类产品，给本土企业与同类外企竞争造成了很大的障碍。
因此，诺基亚、爱立信和摩托罗拉三家占统治地位的手机生产商占据了85%的中国手机市场，其他外企竞争者如三星、索尼、西门子以及11家中国本土企业共享剩余的市场份额。为了增强竞争力，一些制造商开始加强售后服务。调查显示消费者仍然不相信国产手机的质量，而更愿意购买质量可靠的知名品牌手机。正如北京大学杨大成教授在亚洲邮政和电信现状报告会上所说，国产企业越是为他们的产品拉票，人们就躲得越远。其他被中国手机制造商采纳的策略还包括大量促销活动和利用中国传统节假日来提升品牌形象，可以短时地增加销量。然而，更坚实和长期的市场发展依赖于以先进的技术来促进研发、生产、销售和售后服务。
当中国电信产业还未饱和时，企业都在努力最大化市场份额和建立品牌。然而，当几乎没有几家公司有能力复制国外的先进科技和产品时，这是在相对宽松的立法环境中，少数几个国内专利得到强烈保护的领域。在这样的环境下，先进技术、第一时间抢占市场的策略以及强烈的品牌辨识度成为使企业在电信领域有竞争力的关键因素。有趣地是，由于离散的消费群体对目标产品有大量需求，城市手机产品市场已经成为利基市场。除了功能、性能、质量，像短信发送服务、游戏支持、MP3格式支持、铃声支持越来越受到消费者的青睐，迫使制造商与通讯网络服务提供商如中国移动合作，以便于获得独有的好处。有趣地是，本地服务提供商期望从与制造商的交易中分享收益，下一步，这样的折扣要求有长远的眼光和获得大量贷款的途径，然而西方投资商却一般都期望着快速的投资回报。
 
结论
由于中国拥有一个庞大的电信市场，很多外国手机制造商通过直接输入商品，或自办子公司，或办合资企业，野心勃勃地将目标瞄准了中国市场，给国内制造商造成了很大的威胁。面对这种局面，TelecomsCo选择与国外顶级品牌合作，以求更好的在短期内吸收和发展技术；这个策略帮助TelecomsCo在四、五年间发展到可以与合资企业一较长短的程度。
在TelecomsCo看来，与国外品牌的联盟主要是建立在技术转化的基础上，而不是潜在的出口市场。TelecomsCo有着作为高科技产品领域的国有企业的优点，因此可以得到大量的国家补贴。然而，研发中心的框架完全就是一个技术推动型范例。当IPR政策已经很好地在电信领域实施，并且新的国内生产商很难随意进入时，现存的国外企业和本土企业之间就开始了强烈的竞争。无论如何，国内电信市场的指数式增长和全球市场的广阔机会使得企业必需进行同时顾全市场不确定性和技术经济不稳定性的策略。TelecomsCo现需要建立一个更强的品牌名誉，并提供给消费者越来越成熟的产品，因为她的消费者知识越来越丰富了。同时地，TelecomsCo需要更好地协调自己的研发和新产品开发项目来确保完成从吸收到内部发展的转变。
新产品开发在中国的实施可能最好被认为是复杂管理的出现。很明显中国严重受制于重要资源的不连续性：（i）政治体制迅速从中央计划经济转变到了贸易自由，（ii）技术转移是可以快速介绍中国的诀窍。（iii）随着越来越多的消费者拥有可支配收入同时进化和提炼他们的品牌意识，激进式变革的社会态度促进了新市场和新部门的出现。同时，（iv）监管国家基础工业如电信业、公用行业的变化可以带来新的投资模式；同时开拓企业家精神的新商业模式和新的市场规则连续不断地出现着。
建立严格的改进框架中的悖论好像是那些结构要求发展产品却只给间断变化留下了不足的空间，因此在一定程度上导致了这些问题。关键问题似乎是要管理好稳定的状态或处理好不稳定性。根据贝萨特关于这个问题的四象限模型的陈述，企业可以做到维持不确定性，控制住不稳定性，然后确定不同的策略取向。
通过本案例的研究，可以看出尽管TelecomsCo是中国国内顶级的电信企业，它还是主要着重于技术转化和消化，而Nokia、Motorola等企业已经利用品牌营销来建立技术发达地区的销售额，和费尔多斯的陆上服务器模型一致的策略。直到比较最近，经济不稳定性开始被看成是比市场不确定性更大的威胁。
作为一家国有企业，TelecomsCo在研发方面投入了大量资本，而在新产品开发方面却只有一个相对来说小得多的程度的投资。然而，对市场研究和设计的投资缺乏，以及保守的管理制度使TelecomsCo在竞争中易受攻击，带来发布新产品的问题。TelecomsCo不仅需要有新产品开发经验的经理，还需要洞悉商业和市场的人员，内部市场研究员，新产品推销员，项目负责人，来帮助TelecomsCo在一个开放式的网络环境中将技术研究和产品开发充分整合。这就要求TelecomsCo集中精力在核心技术上，避免纵向一体化活动，与国内外的供应商及消费者建立足够大的网络。这个过程需要很长的时间。同时，TelecomsCo是核心策略开始变为更多的技术转让和同化产品，这反映了TelecomsCo进入到全球市场的的转变过程，以及她和发达国家同类企业之间差距的缩小。
 

A theoretical model for Design in Management science

 
A theoretical model for Design in Management science according to the paradigm shift of the Design profession: from management as a constraint to management science as an opportunity
By Brigitte Borja de Mozota
Summary:
Design Management has changed greatly since 1990 Peter Gorb definition .The purpose of this paper is to synthetize the various models of Design Management and to explain their limits in front of the paradigm shift of the design profession, changing “from an activity based profession to a knowledge based profession” professor Yjro Sotamaa- UIAH
The territory of design in Management science will be developed in detail with the limits of these diverging forces. The converging model of Design value management based not on practices but on management science models will be explained with its proactive force. Finally ,this value model will be applied enhancing its pertinence in the emerging “design leadership” trend and consequently the potential for a “design thinking “ input in front of the new challenges of contemporary managers : sense building, complexity , innovation , Socially Responsible Organizations .
Key words: Management science. Design Management. Design control. Value management. Innovation management .User Centered design .Design education

 

In its august 8/15 2005 edition, the international magazine Business Week published a 20 pages special report “Get creative: how to build innovative companies “. This report insists on the emergence of the creativity economy where for managers the next big thing is to discover “Design Strategy” or “Design Thinking”. In addition, a BCG survey of 940 senior executives in the world of the TOP 20 innovative companies ranked Apple as Number 1 and Sony number 5 both icon companies of the design community. In this creativity economy , design is the new “buzz word “.Consequently ,highly reputed universities or Business schools are working together with design schools on new collaborative course all over the world.
This trend in favour of Design in Business has its risks .It is limiting design skills to creativity and “wow “products. On the other end, it has its advantages of promoting design as a qualified partner for innovation and management. But its main limitation is conveying the idea that collaborating with designers is enough, omitting that design management skills explains the success of these innovative companies.
The aim of this paper is to develop a complete model of Design Management starting with the present situation of design practice, then explaining the theoretical limits of the current models in management science and finally presenting the value model of Design.
 
- the paradigm shift of the design profession “from an activity profession “ to a ”knowledge based profession “
 
- the reality of what is management science , and the aim of management as the “art of collective action “
We shall try to see the problem the other way round.
Therefore, defining Design Management not from the designer’s perspective of a design project but from management science and knowledge management, from manager’s best practices and from the new challenges of contemporary managers.
Changing perspective , the value model of Design Management becomes an application of the value management model in management science .This converging model is pertinent for defining designers capabilities and knowledge in business terms ,for measuring design value and for generating new territory for design practitioners in the future.
Within this context, Management science and Design science become joining forces instead of diverging forces.
1.Changing from Design and Management as diverging forces
Management and design have a constrained relationship : for the designer ,management is understood as “the constraint of administration and project management “ and for the manager design is understood as “the dictatorship of branding or the raising power of perception and emotion in purchase decisions“ .
-Management as the constraint of Administration

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Practitioners both designers or managers think and act as design and management diverging domains.Observation in design schools ,design consultancies shows that Design Management has a limited “MBA” or A as “Administration” focus .
It is true that designers in order to do their jobs have :
 
- to enter an organization whether a design agency or a company as in house- designer
 
- to start their organization and act as entrepreneurs ,open their design consultancy ,work as free lance designer or editor or even launching their manufacturing or retail business.
 
Design -just like many other human activities such as medecine,architecture, etc..-.has to admit that its activity cannot exist without a minimum of business knowledge .
Design is an industry that has to mix creative activity with business skills just like other creative industries such as film ,theater …
Aware of the business side of their trade, design schools are forced to teach project management , entrepreneurship, marketing research , brand and a minimum of business administration.But being creative remains the more important issue.The power of management skills for design success is ignored.
On the other side of management,
-Management as perception or perception management
Just as designers are forced into administration ,are importing management concepts such as brand,strategy ,innovation and still tend to ignore management science ,managers are also forced into design through brand , innovation ,vision but they still ignore what is “design science”.
Managers in general would rather prefer to do their job without design decision ,to take only decisions in strategy , finances ,R&D .But CEOs have learnt branding as a key issue and the importance of building the firm’s reputation .They understand that management is perception management.
So designers are participating in COMEX meetings because of this diktat of aesthetic and perception economy ,the “Aesthetics Economy “ (Postrel 2003 ,Guillet de Monthoux 2004 )
Designers will probably scream when reading this- Design is not Aesthetics we know – .
But the importance of perception management in management decisions gives design its pertinence in management knowledge.Design value is foremost perceived value or aesthetic value .
Perception value translated into management jargon is building a company competitive advantage through differentiated offering perceived on the market .
This ”image driven” management penetrates also designers managing consultancies and free lance designers .They use brand to reinforce their positioning. Design consultancies or some star designers are brand driven and build brand strategy for their clients.
The expertise of designers is forgotten in these communication groups .Design is project driven not value or knowledge driven . Designers partner with communication groups, but they fail to exist in this highly competitive marketing territory .Concepts like brand ,consumer behavior research , sensorial marketing are protected by marketing gurus and marketing research laboratories where designers have no strategic and conceptual position. (Schmitt , Aaker, Kapferer ). Design “black box”and exertise does nto exist in marketing .What exists is the domain of consumer attitudes and behavior and the impact of “forms “ on purchasing behavior .
Let us take an example of taking a “knowledge based approach” instead of a “ project based approach” .Designers have not invented the concept of brand but they have enriched it and are actors in the brand strategy .So in some companies ,positions such as brand design managers are created and research has developed a “Brand Aesthetics model “ that integrates the marketing decisions and the design decisions in brand equity building .( Borja de Mozota 2003 )
So,we see that the territory of design in management science is unclear both for designers and managers . But this “practice based view” is about to change with the ” research based view “ of design .
2. The design profession paradigm shift : from project to knowledge
The design profession tends to organize itself by design disciplines therefore reinforcing the idea that design is an output ,a form ,a shape ,not a process .So does based on studio teaching and projects:”hands on curriculum”
Design theories are also based on the design project .But the focus of the design project has changed in nature across history.
In order to explain this change in focus of the design theory, we can refer to the model developed by Alain Findeli (Figure 1) showing the three successive phases in the design project
-Phase one , focus on the object (l’objet) .
the knowledge designers bring for the project come from humanities , culture , aesthetics,emotion, art , semiology …
-Phase 2 :focus on the process (le processus)
the knowledge designers bring into the project come from technology , Herbert Simon design science model , value analysis, function …
-Phase 3 ,focus on the actors (les acteurs )
the knowledge designers bring to the creative process comes from social sciences ,sociology, anthropology , ethnology ,users observation,co-designing the experience …
Alain Findeli demonstrates “the eclipse of the object” in the present ,third, phase of design project theory . (Findeli 2005 )
This highly valuable historical research on design project shows very well how the design process is getting more and more knowledge based ( based on science and methods ) and complex over the years .(figure 1)
Each phase involves for design educators and designers to take a priority in the way they do their job as designers .Therefore insisting on such knowledge area or on one dimension of the Peirce semiotics model of sign :structure and technology ,function and use ,symbolism and message .
But in this knowledge based approach of the design profession , designers tend to behave as “smugglers “ . They import concepts and models developed after long fundamental research by other sciences in order to improve their every day practices .
And designers in order to sell their activity import also concepts invented by management science such as brand, identity ,innovation , strategy.
Finally where is design value in this knowledge based exchange ?
So ,the only way to demonstrate design value is to explain how design knowledge transforms these sciences methods into knowledge useful for management science.
Let us take the example of design “smuggling “ ethnology as the “ IDEO “or User Oriented Design model . Designers use ethno -methodology to improve their observation skills and humanistic approach .They gather information on users in situation upstream in the design project and transform this users information into users scenarios or “personas” .So where is the specific design knowledge in the design project ?
It is both the ability to interpret the observations and the ability to transform these informations on users into ideas ,future users scenarios and concepts , processes, new products and services .And also the ability to force CEO’s to oberve their consumers and organizations through these viewpoints.
So where is design knowledge in management science ?
It is the capacity to use concepts and methods in art, humanities,engineering science,social sciences and to embed these various scientific knowledge into valuable concepts and forms for brand , innovation ,strategy ,society system and management performance decisions. As in the example below of New Product Development using “User Oriented Design” approach.
A “User Oriented Design”(UOD) methodology improves the chances of success of the New Product Development and innovation management processes.(Veryzer & Borja de Mozota 2005) :
Proposition 1 : Greater emphasis on User-Oriented Design will induce a more collaborative New Product Development effort.
Proposition 2: Integration or inclusion of User-Oriented Design in New Product Development will have a positive effect on idea generation.
Proposition 3: Integration or inclusion of User-Oriented Design in the New Product Development process results in a superior product or service.
Proposition 4: Inclusion of User-Oriented Design leads to products that are more readily adopted by users due to better product appropriateness.
It is specific design knowledge as UOD process that is creating value in the management of innovation.
This example of a UOD / design approach versus NPD / management issue explains the paradigm shift of the design profession :from design as ”project based” to design as “knowledge based “ through design research input .
With this example ,we can imagine also where the design profession is heading.
A profession organized not any more by design disciplines or design projects but developing transversal methods universal in any design project and capitalizing design knowledge across design projects and across design disciplines.
Therefore a design profession building a coherent “design science model” as some companies have coherent design strategy across varied supports of design projects and consumers touchpoints.
Just like marketing is divided into marketing research , marketing strategy,marketing mix,marketing audit , the design science territory will be divided into design research ,design strategy,design mix , design audit and will be more ‘knowledge design” .
3.Design and Management as converging forces :the Design Value model
In the last 20 years design management has had a considerable development through institutions like the Design Management Institute (DMI) ,Corporate Design Fundation or through Design prizes competition such as Red Dot (Germany ) and IDEA (US) or through magazines such as Business Week .
 
How should we appear through design to our customers in order to achieve our vision?
1.Design as difference
Design management as
perception & brand
Market value .Customer value
Brand . Consumer research .Competitive advantage .
VISION
To satisfy our stakeholders how can design help in the business processes we excel in?
2.Design as performance
Design Management as “A” as innovation process
Innovation .Modular architecture.
Time to market . TQM .R&D.Technology
VISION
VISION
To succeed financially, how should design appear to our shareholders?
4.“Good design is good business “
The historic DM economic model
Financial & Accounting Value . ROI .
Value for the society .Stock market value.
Socially Responsible Enterprise
VISION
How will we sustain, through design, our ability to change and improve?
3.Design as vision
Beyond “advanced design “ management
Strategic value .Vision .Prospective
Change management . Empowerment
Knowledge learning process .Imagination .
Figure 2: Designence : Design value for company performance : copyright Borja de Mozota 2005
The value model of Design Management Designence (figure 2) emerges as a consensus among researchers . Various researchers have confirmed the pertinence of this model in different business contexts (Borja de Mozota 1985,2000,Hetzel 1993,Rioche 2002) . This value model is based on the value management framework in management science .In management science , value for the firm is both substantial or financial .
1. The substantial value of a firm is to create customer, performance and strategic value: the zones numbered 1,2,3 in figure 2
2. The financial value of the firm is to create shareholder’s value:zone number 4 in figure 2
But most design researchers and educators focus only on the substantial value of design.And even more on the difference value of design :zone 1 in figure 2
Finally , the initial model of substantial value by design , should add the financial value of design that had been previously documented in GB. What was needed is a simple representation tool for easy application that represent also the design process as in Figure 1.
With “Designence” model ,we have a perfect tool both for representing the design process in its three phases(figure 1) and for turning design value into business jargon .A tool for converging forces between business and design.
The “Designence “ model help designers in asking the fundamental questions for each perspective (figure 2):
How should we appear through design to our customers in order to achieve our vision?
design knowledge applied to corporate difference building and strategic positioning (zone 1)
To satisfy our stakeholders how can design help in the business processes we excel in?
design providing improvements in company performance and processes ,these innovations in processes being totally invisible for outsiders( zone 2)
How will we sustain, through design, our ability to change and improve?
Design explicit knwledge applied to strategic focus and to improve the quality of staff ( zone 3 )
To succeed financially, how should design appear to our shareholders?
Design explicit and measurable value for company reputation and stock market performance(zone 4)
Referring the “Designence” value model to the Balanced Scorecard model (BSC) used in management auditing has many advantages for Design Management :
1.The BSC model is widely known in MBA’s and used by audit and strategy consultants
2.The BSC model is strategic and long term driven so it is in coherence with design objectives : in the center of the four zones of Designence model is the vision of the company mission
3. The BSC model provides a simple framework for organizing design input on each of its four axis that can be applied to any design decision and design policy
4. The BSC model includes the “missing link “ of the financial value in the design community .It emphasizes how design creates value for shareholders as well as for stakeholders .
Desigence value model for design management has another advantage. (Borja de Mozota EAD 6 conference Bremen 2005) .It shows a system view and a visionary view of the values created by designers.It represents design as knowledge for many management and society decisions.
Designers are more than just problem solvers :they are actors of the dyanmics of knowledge building:
“The activity of design consists in the transformation of an input representation into an output representation.”In an activity that functions by way of representations ,knowledge plays a central role. Designing is a cognitive activity .(W.Visser 2006).
With this “Designence” model, managers understand better that design is a continuing process similar to strategy formulation .And that design can be analyzed both through the resource based view (RBV) of the firm and through the Porter’s competitive advantage .
At the same time ,companies have acquired some knowledge of design (cf the “design ladder”Danish Design center ) and recruit designers to do a design manager job .These design managers in order to define the territory of design in business decisions and performance issues widen their expertise as designers and acquire new skills in management .
Mainly skills such as design competency in business words, ability to run a team and manage a budget , ability to place design in the organization chart and methods, ability to train the personnel into design, ability to train design champions , ability to communicate about design , ability to develop tools in order to work with marketing on brand ,abitlity to work with R&D and engineers on innovation management, ability to set up “advanced design “ workshop and forecasting, ability to hire designers and other experts for design research,to write mission statement for their personnel , and finally ability for “design leadership ” and participation in strategy formulation ,in order to accompany organizational change .
Designers are learning about the A” of MBA curriculum and inventing at the same time specific tools for design leadership in organizations .Referring to management science concepts such as the Michael Porter value chain , the Resource Based view of strategy ,value management model ,they participate with a “design thinking” input in these management science concepts.
Design knowledge is embedded through Knowledge Management model (KM):
-in order to create value for the market or for design competitive advantage ,
the capacity to create a perceived difference on the market is designers “explicit” knowledge
-in order to create value for the performance :
designers “implicit knowledge” comes from their creative process but also from their capacity to improve idea management ,staff creativity,NPD methods ,modular architecture, time to market
-in order to create value for the organization
designers “explicit knowledge” is their ability for reinventing the business and developing sense building community within the organization , advanced design , empowerment through brand equity , TQM , issues of change management .
-in order to create value for the society and all stakeholders :
designers “explicit” knowledge develops from information design applied to finances ,design projects analysed in ROI measures through their results on brand equity ,company stock market performance , on society at large through sustainable design and eco design . (figure 2)
4. Exploring the future of Design Management science
By changing the vision from “project based” to ” knowledge based “ design ,new applications for design value emerge in management science.
The success of Apple , the examples of companies like Procter & Gamble,Décathlon changing their culture and integrating design in the company DNA mean that more CEO’s are thinking of design not from the standpoint of the design outcomes but from the standpoint of contemporary managers challenges that can turn to design thinking for solutions and for inventing new governance forms.
Sudddenly design is “a must for companies performance”. CEO’s are going to design seminars or send their managers to design studio education in order to bring more creative thinking into their job.
Designers responsibility is high in creating this new market for “design thinking”.
Of course they can stick to what they do now , design from a design project bias and adding a prospective view to the design project .They are welcomed developing design research in order to reinvent any industry and society through advanced design projects ,user oriented design ,eco design, , inclusive design , and honestly it is a very sensible way to guarantee the chances of survival for businesses.
But designers can also go further .They can ask : what are the challenges of contemporary managers and society governors and can design knowledge help ?
So what are the challenges of contemporary managers and society ? complexity, globalization and innovation, sense making ,process oriented structures , Socially Responsible Entreprise:
 
- managing complexity : applying “design thinking” , holistic view and “information design “vizualization skills to simplify complex environments,to build scenarios for system change .
 
- globalization and innovation : companies have to be international :design teams are used to multicultural working environment and creation has no frontier.Designers can help changing to international scope to be both excellent in standardization and in personalization for “glocalization “
 
- process oriented companies :companies have to be more human centric,customer driven , process oriented ; new information systems have to be invented for Customer Experience Management. These managers challenges are a perfect application for the “User Oriented Design “ provided designers take a wider view of users as employees,shareholders,suppliers…
 
- Socially Responsible Organizations while this business model is spreading ,methods are needed in order to implement it as a collective action ,as “sense building “ (K.Weick ) Designers input can go beyond “advanced design” projects in eco design towards inventing and implementing standard process for change towards a SRE enterprise .
These new territories for designers will probably have an impact on changing design education and practices in four directions. A new market for continuing education for designers will develop
-Firstly, it is promising that managers and marketers share with designers the joy of entering the design studio creative space for innovation issues and for learning how to improve their creative skills as managers.
-Secondly, design schools have to enrich the design project by organizing “augmented design project “ studio teaching .Design decisions based on facts and data will reassure managers,engineers and marketers .Design project teaching augmented by design research, means that they apply innovation theories -such as the CK theory of Armand Hatchuel ,(Concept versus Knowledge ).
-Thirdly, this new aura of research based des ign develops new positioning for design consultancies research both upstream in the design process and downstream in the design control phase.
A researched design project means more measures , more tests and more models .Also ,users databases and therefore partnership with computer science , Chief Information Officer and information systems experts ..
-Finally, designers will simultaneously act as responsible actors both for “good design “ but also “for building the frontiers of the design profession” .Design schools directors will understand that it is not sufficient to teach designers for their first job but that they have to educate them in their collective responsibility for the respect of the territory of their profession by other sciences and professions.
In conclusion,
Management science is discovering the high potential of “design thinking “ in our uncertain environment. Design may be a useful tool to solve business problems other than product strategy formulation and emotional branding .
The future of Design Management should be more and more research based and go beyond day-to-day design practices .The territory of design science would be easy to describe and to enlarge if explored from other perspectives than the output of the design process namely from the perspective of the designers capabilities .
References:
Aaker David,1996,Building strong Brands,The Free Press,380 Pages
Borja de Mozota Brigitte, 2002, Design and competitive edge :a model for design management excellence in European SMEs, Academic Review Design Management Journal , Volume 2,p88-103
Borja de Mozota Brigitte, 2003,From Brand Identity to Brand equity :the changing role of design in branding(example Decathlon),Proceedings of 5th European Academy of Design Conference,Barcelona , April 28-30,
Borja de Mozota Brigitte, 2003 , Design Management , Allworth Press /DMI ,New York ,281 pages
(first edition France 1990,2002 )
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Hetzel Patrick, 1993, Design Management et Constitution de l’Offre, Thèse de Doctorat Sciences de Gestion, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3
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Laurel Brenda,editor,2003,Design Research ,methods and perspectives,The MIT Press,334 pages
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Veryzer Robert & Borja de Mozota Brigitte ,2005, The impact of User Oriented Design on New product development : an examination of fundamental relationships , Journal of Product Innovation Management ,volume 22 ,pages 128-143
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Weick Karl,1995 ,Sensemaking in organizations,Sage publications

The Future of Search: A Different Perspective

By Anderson, Stephen P
      Publication: Design Management Review
      Date: Thursday, January 1 2009

HEADNOTE
The mission at Viewzi is to dramatically improve the search experience. But, as Stephen Anderson explains, that doesn’t mean developing a better search engine; rather, it means developing a better way to view search results. The results are a series of custom-tailored scenes whose
look and feel change depending on the intent of the search. It’s an impressive innovation that promises to reshape the Internet landscape.
Google recently celebrated its tenth birthday, sharing with the world a nostalgic recreation of the 2001 version of its site. Surprisingly, however, although there has certainly been a steady stream of subtle improvements over the years, the interface for today’s Google search engine results page (SERP) isn’t all that different from what we saw nearly a decade ago (Figure 1 on next page). This isn’t a bad thing: Google, Yahoo!, and hundreds of other search companies have invested billions of dollars to improve the algorithms that spider the Web, index pages, and bring us back the information we want. And newer entrants like Powerset and Swingly are perfecting the math behind natural language recognition. Good search results depend on the engines behind them. But as the quality of results gets ever better, are we reaching a point where value comes from more than just good search results?
Author/professor Don Norman once stated that "when technology delivers basic needs, user experience dominates." The mobile phone industry is a great example of this evolution. No one would now consider entering that mar- ket with the original Motorola DynaTAC. What made it successful at the time – a phone that doesn’t need wires – is now an expectation. Mobile phones have continued to become more reliable and usable and are packed with some useful (and not so useful) fea- tures. The introduction of the iPhone (and its imitators) raised the bar once again – not in terms of more features, but in the way in which people experi- ence information. Now our mobile phones aren’t just took – they’re also fun to use! This process of product maturity forms the basis for my User Experience Hierarchy of Needs model (Figure 2 on next page), in which I pro- pose that most technology product and service experiences go through six levels of maturity, from "Hey, this thing actually works!" to "This is meaningful in my life."
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION1
Figure 1. The interface for Google’s search engine results page (SERP) hasn’t changed all that much over the years.
So where does the search industry fall along these lines of product maturity? If you look at many of the top trends behind search, much of the focus is still on how we procure results. Mahalo asks users to submit data. Rollyo allows individuals to create their own custom search engines, with results limited to selected websites. Similarly, Lijit is a site-specific search engine (installed on your blog) that can also search your wider social network. And then there are all the dollars invested in natural-language search. These are all worthwhile ventures; capturing even one percent of the search market can make you a billion-dollar company. But which do we need: even better results, or a way to make sense of the results we’re given?
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION2
Figure 2. With six levels ranging from functional up to meaningful, the User Experience Hierarchy of Needs Model Is useful for understanding exactly where a product is in its maturity.
This is the question we asked ourselves when founding Viewzi – a new kind of search company. Instead of focusing on the search engine (we leave that work to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other partners who excel at this), we focus on how people experience information. In short, we focus on search intent.
Framing the problem
As designers, we talk about the importance of properly framing a problem. For the last decade, the search problem has been framed as, "How can we make search better?" This assumes that one size fits all and that we can design one correct way to experience information. A look at any magazine rack quickly tells you that content needs vary dramatically and that people like to experienee information in many different ways. Harvard Business Review, People, and Wired each represents a different aesthetic, appropriate to the content and the customers they reach.
So what about search? Should the search results for "Paris Hilton," "hematoma," and "chicken recipes" all look the same? We think not. "How can we make your search for [name a topic] better?" is a fundamentally different question from "How can we make search better?" By starting with a specific search query (and by designing for a specific intent), we’re continuously uncovering new ways to make specific search experiences better. Think of this as custom-tailored search results.
We start at the top of the User Experience Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, asking, "What kind of search experience is appropriate for this specific search?" Then we design that screen. This has led to at least 18 unique ways to view search results, with hundreds more planned. What’s interesting about this approach is just how different the search results can be, in terms of both the presentation of information and the data sources we choose to aggregate. As you’ll see, sometimes searching the entirety of the Web doesn’t produce the best results.
Mmm, good
Quick – think about finding an interesting chicken recipe. How would you go about that task? For many people, this would likely involve flipping through a collection of recipes (from books and magazines) until we found a recipe that looked good. Recipe selection is often based on the accompanying photograph. So what about finding recipes online? A search for "chicken recipes" from most search engines yields a list of results: no pictures, just written text – same as for any other search query (Figure 3). Is this the best way to browse recipes? It’s this line of questioning that led us to create a recipe search view (Figure 4) that brings back three nodes of data: the recipe tide, source (a useful criteria for credibility), and a nice-looking photo – and all of these link to the source of the recipe.
To create this recipe search, we had to handpick a dozen leading recipe sites, limited to those that provide photos with their recipes. We’ve traded off breadth (searching the entire Web) for fidelity of information. We can deliver a more visual recipe search results page, but we may not cover every recipe out there. Considering that many people tend to search across a small number of recipe sites, we believe this was a fair tradeoff, especially if you can stay current with the most popular recipe sources. The result is a great way to search for recipes.
But this isn’t the only way people find recipes. Let’s replace our search for "chicken recipes" with "pecan pie." In this scenario, we aren’t looking for variations like, say, bittersweet chocolate pecan pie or fig pecan pie – all we want is a really good pecan pie recipe. In this case, photographs aren’t going to be all that useful; most pecan pies look alike. No, the most critical piece of data becomes the rating, or in some cases the identity, of the person providing the recipe. Designing for this scenario would lead us to a very dif- ferent recipe SERP.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION3
Figure 3. A search for "chicken recipes" on most search engines yields a simple text list of results.
Figure 4. A search for recipes on Viewzi returns recipe photo, title, source, and a link to the source.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION4
site serieux achat viagra Figure 5. Other ways to search for recipes.
And what about the sce- nario in which I have only a few ingredients in the pantry? In that case, being able to filter recipes by matching ingredi- ents would quickly become most important. And if I were a diabetic, filtering recipes by nutritional data would be most important. You get the idea. There’s no one right way to design a better way to search for recipes; rather, there are dozens of opportunities, based on different needs and situations (Figure 5).
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION5
Power Grid
The Power Grid view presents information in a grid fashion, with the option of displaying Screenshots or text. This interface also contains functionality to quickly "star" and launch multiple results at once. It’s perfect for certain kinds of exploratory research in which you might want to identify multiple sites that may be relevant, and then open these sites simultaneously.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION6
Simple Text
This search view may look familiar, but we’ve thrown in a few twists. First, results are aggregated (and, where needed, de-duplicated) from both Google and Yahoo! Then we add in a Screenshot thumbnail of each result for added visual recognition.
Timeline View
Often, the timeliness of a result can be more important than its popularity or relevance, as with searching for code, recent news, or product releases. This specialized search view pulls 100 results from Google, then arranges them by date on an interactive (and dynamically scaling) timeline.
Web Screenshot
The Web Screenshot view displays a Screenshot for each search result instead of the typical text link. Aside from the visual appeal, this view is useful for visually identifying context cues (Web design styles and such) that may help in determining whether that result is relevant. This view has been especially popular with an older audience, where we’ve observed a preference for images over text. Snapshots are displayed one at a time, making it easy to focus on and find what you’re looking for.
Four Sources
One of our more experimental search views, the Four Sources view searches the leading search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and Microsoft), and displays results as Screenshots in a grid that lets you "see" how search results from different engines compare. "Stacked" thumbnails and color coding indicate the source (or sources) that retrieved that site. Users can also toggle on or off each search engine, creating a unique mix of search results. The biggest value of this is os a meta-search tool for comparing how search results match up across the leading search engines.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION7
Figures 6 and 7. From Digg Labs to PicLens, companies are designing more-visual ways to experience information.
Is a picture worth a thousand text links?
By knowing more about the content we are showing, we can also explore options beyond the familiar list of links – and these options have, for us, tended to be of the more visual sort. In this respect, we are excited to be part a larger movement to a richer, more visual play of information. From projects coming of Digg Labs (Figure 6) to the PicLens plug-in (Figure 7), an increasing number of companies are designing more-visual, interactive ways to experience information. While rich display of digital data is certainly nothing new, it is less common to see these same ization efforts applied to dynamic data, where the length, frequency, and quantity of elements can vary widely (it is much harder create rich visualizations when you don’t have the data defined ahead of time).
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION8
Figures 8 and 9. The newest version of Microsoft’s Xbox Live favors graphical representations over text, and the new Zune MixView is a highly visual way to explore musical options.
Microsoft has made some notable investments here in at least a couple of areas. The newest version of Xbox Live has a much slicker user interface for accessing games, movie rentals, profile information, and more. It eschews text in favor of graphical representations – images of game boxes are used instead of text listings, as an example (Figure 8). In a similar move, the new Zune MixView (Figure 9) is a highly visual way to explore related music options. As one journalist described it, "What we saw made the iTunes simple Genius feature look like a blast from digital music’s past." The MixView presents a collage of 8 to 10 floating squares orbiting around a selected song, album, or artist.
Offering recommendations in a richer, more-engaging manner encourages people to keep digging around. This deeper exploration is also something we’ve seen validated in usability testing with our own Album View (Figure 10). People love the ability to browse music by album covers and band photos.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION9
Figure 10. Viewzi’s Album View allows people to browse music search results using album covers and band photos.
In the retail space, Amazon.com is testing these same visual ideas with its WindowShop technology (Figure 11). In WindowShop, people browse through featured products displayed as tiles in a larger grid. While it does require direct engagement from the user (navigation is done via arrow keys), it’s a fairly passive way to experience information, prioritizing visual and auditory senses. Movies and games have trailers. Toys have commercials. Even book reviews have been dictated, so you don’t have to read a word. The whole experience is more like channel surfing than clicking on text links.
What’s ironic is that none of this is new to the design profession. From semiotics to Gestalt psychology, we’ve known for years the positive effect that visual cues and layouts have on perceptions. And neuroscience is showing that sorting massive amounts of information using our visual cortex far outstrips our ability to sort using textual analysis. So why has technology taken so long to move in this direction? There are several explanations. One, the technologies for delivering rich user interfaces are still evolving and gaining adoption. Two, this is a natural response to an overload of information. As volume of content increases exponentially, the need for tools to make sense of this data and find exactly what one is looking for becomes even more important. Three, from APIs (application programming interfaces, which enable software applications to communicate with each other) to Yahool’s recent opening up of its search data, the technology that makes all this possible has only recently become available.
Is this the future, for real?
Imagine doing a search for "Michael Jordan sports scores" and being thrown into something that’s more like a portal page – sports-themed, with a listing of sports scores that has more in common with the back of a baseball card than search results. Sound farfetched? Given our expectations of search engines over the past decade, it’s easy to believe that simple text results are something sacred. And while these basic search results aren’t going away any time soon, there are some signs – mostly from Google validating that the search space is moving to a more customized approach to search engine results pages. For starters, Google has already developed a number of customized search engines for certain categories. Most of us are familiar with image search, blog search, video search, or news, but did you know Google also has an album search and car buying results pages? Dozens of what we would call search views already exist from the world’s largest search engine.
It’s interesting to contrast this with Yahoo!, which has created or acquired verticals in dozens of topic areas. One criticism of Yahoo! has been its inability to coordinate all these properties. However, were it to do so, and incorporate something like unified search, we’d have a gateway to quite a bit of rich site information.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION10
Figure 11. Amazon’s WindowShop technology allows shoppers to browse through a grid of products.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION11
In 2007, Google introduced unified search, which (when appropriate) mixes other relevant search results into the regular text search results. Consider a search for the band Radlohead. News, videos, and blog posts related to Radiohead are mixed into the regular text results (but not necessarily In the top three results).
When you refine your search by adding "album" to the search query, the top result is Google’s own index of Radiohead albums and songs.
HEADNOTE
The mission at Viewzi is to dramatically improve the search experience. But, as Stephen Anderson explains, that doesn’t mean developing a better search engine; rather, it means developing a better way to view search results. The results are a series of custom-tailored scenes whose
look and feel change depending on the intent of the search. It’s an impressive innovation that promises to reshape the Internet landscape.
Google recently celebrated its tenth birthday, sharing with the world a nostalgic recreation of the 2001 version of its site. Surprisingly, however, although there has certainly been a steady stream of subtle improvements over the years, the interface for today’s Google search engine results page (SERP) isn’t all that different from what we saw nearly a decade ago (Figure 1 on next page). This isn’t a bad thing: Google, Yahoo!, and hundreds of other search companies have invested billions of dollars to improve the algorithms that spider the Web, index pages, and bring us back the information we want. And newer entrants like Powerset and Swingly are perfecting the math behind natural language recognition. Good search results depend on the engines behind them. But as the quality of results gets ever better, are we reaching a point where value comes from more than just good search results?
Author/professor Don Norman once stated that "when technology delivers basic needs, user experience dominates." The mobile phone industry is a great example of this evolution. No one would now consider entering that mar- ket with the original Motorola DynaTAC. What made it successful at the time – a phone that doesn’t need wires – is now an expectation. Mobile phones have continued to become more reliable and usable and are packed with some useful (and not so useful) fea- tures. The introduction of the iPhone (and its imitators) raised the bar once again – not in terms of more features, but in the way in which people experi- ence information. Now our mobile phones aren’t just took – they’re also fun to use! This process of product maturity forms the basis for my User Experience Hierarchy of Needs model (Figure 2 on next page), in which I pro- pose that most technology product and service experiences go through six levels of maturity, from "Hey, this thing actually works!" to "This is meaningful in my life."
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION1
Figure 1. The interface for Google’s search engine results page (SERP) hasn’t changed all that much over the years.
So where does the search industry fall along these lines of product maturity? If you look at many of the top trends behind search, much of the focus is still on how we procure results. Mahalo asks users to submit data. Rollyo allows individuals to create their own custom search engines, with results limited to selected websites. Similarly, Lijit is a site-specific search engine (installed on your blog) that can also search your wider social network. And then there are all the dollars invested in natural-language search. These are all worthwhile ventures; capturing even one percent of the search market can make you a billion-dollar company. But which do we need: even better results, or a way to make sense of the results we’re given?
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION2
Figure 2. With six levels ranging from functional up to meaningful, the User Experience Hierarchy of Needs Model Is useful for understanding exactly where a product is in its maturity.
This is the question we asked ourselves when founding Viewzi – a new kind of search company. Instead of focusing on the search engine (we leave that work to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other partners who excel at this), we focus on how people experience information. In short, we focus on search intent.
Framing the problem
As designers, we talk about the importance of properly framing a problem. For the last decade, the search problem has been framed as, "How can we make search better?" This assumes that one size fits all and that we can design one correct way to experience information. A look at any magazine rack quickly tells you that content needs vary dramatically and that people like to experienee information in many different ways. Harvard Business Review, People, and Wired each represents a different aesthetic, appropriate to the content and the customers they reach.
So what about search? Should the search results for "Paris Hilton," "hematoma," and "chicken recipes" all look the same? We think not. "How can we make your search for [name a topic] better?" is a fundamentally different question from "How can we make search better?" By starting with a specific search query (and by designing for a specific intent), we’re continuously uncovering new ways to make specific search experiences better. Think of this as custom-tailored search results.
We start at the top of the User Experience Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, asking, "What kind of search experience is appropriate for this specific search?" Then we design that screen. This has led to at least 18 unique ways to view search results, with hundreds more planned. What’s interesting about this approach is just how different the search results can be, in terms of both the presentation of information and the data sources we choose to aggregate. As you’ll see, sometimes searching the entirety of the Web doesn’t produce the best results.
Mmm, good
Quick – think about finding an interesting chicken recipe. How would you go about that task? For many people, this would likely involve flipping through a collection of recipes (from books and magazines) until we found a recipe that looked good. Recipe selection is often based on the accompanying photograph. So what about finding recipes online? A search for "chicken recipes" from most search engines yields a list of results: no pictures, just written text – same as for any other search query (Figure 3). Is this the best way to browse recipes? It’s this line of questioning that led us to create a recipe search view (Figure 4) that brings back three nodes of data: the recipe tide, source (a useful criteria for credibility), and a nice-looking photo – and all of these link to the source of the recipe.
To create this recipe search, we had to handpick a dozen leading recipe sites, limited to those that provide photos with their recipes. We’ve traded off breadth (searching the entire Web) for fidelity of information. We can deliver a more visual recipe search results page, but we may not cover every recipe out there. Considering that many people tend to search across a small number of recipe sites, we believe this was a fair tradeoff, especially if you can stay current with the most popular recipe sources. The result is a great way to search for recipes.
But this isn’t the only way people find recipes. Let’s replace our search for "chicken recipes" with "pecan pie." In this scenario, we aren’t looking for variations like, say, bittersweet chocolate pecan pie or fig pecan pie – all we want is a really good pecan pie recipe. In this case, photographs aren’t going to be all that useful; most pecan pies look alike. No, the most critical piece of data becomes the rating, or in some cases the identity, of the person providing the recipe. Designing for this scenario would lead us to a very dif- ferent recipe SERP.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION3
Figure 3. A search for "chicken recipes" on most search engines yields a simple text list of results.
Figure 4. A search for recipes on Viewzi returns recipe photo, title, source, and a link to the source.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION4
Figure 5. Other ways to search for recipes.
And what about the sce- nario in which I have only a few ingredients in the pantry? In that case, being able to filter recipes by matching ingredi- ents would quickly become most important. And if I were a diabetic, filtering recipes by nutritional data would be most important. You get the idea. There’s no one right way to design a better way to search for recipes; rather, there are dozens of opportunities, based on different needs and situations (Figure 5).
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION5
Power Grid
The Power Grid view presents information in a grid fashion, with the option of displaying Screenshots or text. This interface also contains functionality to quickly "star" and launch multiple results at once. It’s perfect for certain kinds of exploratory research in which you might want to identify multiple sites that may be relevant, and then open these sites simultaneously.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION6
Simple Text
This search view may look familiar, but we’ve thrown in a few twists. First, results are aggregated (and, where needed, de-duplicated) from both Google and Yahoo! Then we add in a Screenshot thumbnail of each result for added visual recognition.
Timeline View
Often, the timeliness of a result can be more important than its popularity or relevance, as with searching for code, recent news, or product releases. This specialized search view pulls 100 results from Google, then arranges them by date on an interactive (and dynamically scaling) timeline.
Web Screenshot
The Web Screenshot view displays a Screenshot for each search result instead of the typical text link. Aside from the visual appeal, this view is useful for visually identifying context cues (Web design styles and such) that may help in determining whether that result is relevant. This view has been especially popular with an older audience, where we’ve observed a preference for images over text. Snapshots are displayed one at a time, making it easy to focus on and find what you’re looking for.
Four Sources
One of our more experimental search views, the Four Sources view searches the leading search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and Microsoft), and displays results as Screenshots in a grid that lets you "see" how search results from different engines compare. "Stacked" thumbnails and color coding indicate the source (or sources) that retrieved that site. Users can also toggle on or off each search engine, creating a unique mix of search results. The biggest value of this is os a meta-search tool for comparing how search results match up across the leading search engines.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION7
Figures 6 and 7. From Digg Labs to PicLens, companies are designing more-visual ways to experience information.
Is a picture worth a thousand text links?
By knowing more about the content we are showing, we can also explore options beyond the familiar list of links – and these options have, for us, tended to be of the more visual sort. In this respect, we are excited to be part a larger movement to a richer, more visual play of information. From projects coming of Digg Labs (Figure 6) to the PicLens plug-in (Figure 7), an increasing number of companies are designing more-visual, interactive ways to experience information. While rich display of digital data is certainly nothing new, it is less common to see these same ization efforts applied to dynamic data, where the length, frequency, and quantity of elements can vary widely (it is much harder create rich visualizations when you don’t have the data defined ahead of time).
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION8
Figures 8 and 9. The newest version of Microsoft’s Xbox Live favors graphical representations over text, and the new Zune MixView is a highly visual way to explore musical options.
Microsoft has made some notable investments here in at least a couple of areas. The newest version of Xbox Live has a much slicker user interface for accessing games, movie rentals, profile information, and more. It eschews text in favor of graphical representations – images of game boxes are used instead of text listings, as an example (Figure 8). In a similar move, the new Zune MixView (Figure 9) is a highly visual way to explore related music options. As one journalist described it, "What we saw made the iTunes simple Genius feature look like a blast from digital music’s past." The MixView presents a collage of 8 to 10 floating squares orbiting around a selected song, album, or artist.
Offering recommendations in a richer, more-engaging manner encourages people to keep digging around. This deeper exploration is also something we’ve seen validated in usability testing with our own Album View (Figure 10). People love the ability to browse music by album covers and band photos.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION9
Figure 10. Viewzi’s Album View allows people to browse music search results using album covers and band photos.
In the retail space, Amazon.com is testing these same visual ideas with its WindowShop technology (Figure 11). In WindowShop, people browse through featured products displayed as tiles in a larger grid. While it does require direct engagement from the user (navigation is done via arrow keys), it’s a fairly passive way to experience information, prioritizing visual and auditory senses. Movies and games have trailers. Toys have commercials. Even book reviews have been dictated, so you don’t have to read a word. The whole experience is more like channel surfing than clicking on text links.
What’s ironic is that none of this is new to the design profession. From semiotics to Gestalt psychology, we’ve known for years the positive effect that visual cues and layouts have on perceptions. And neuroscience is showing that sorting massive amounts of information using our visual cortex far outstrips our ability to sort using textual analysis. So why has technology taken so long to move in this direction? There are several explanations. One, the technologies for delivering rich user interfaces are still evolving and gaining adoption. Two, this is a natural response to an overload of information. As volume of content increases exponentially, the need for tools to make sense of this data and find exactly what one is looking for becomes even more important. Three, from APIs (application programming interfaces, which enable software applications to communicate with each other) to Yahool’s recent opening up of its search data, the technology that makes all this possible has only recently become available.
Is this the future, for real?
Imagine doing a search for "Michael Jordan sports scores" and being thrown into something that’s more like a portal page – sports-themed, with a listing of sports scores that has more in common with the back of a baseball card than search results. Sound farfetched? Given our expectations of search engines over the past decade, it’s easy to believe that simple text results are something sacred. And while these basic search results aren’t going away any time soon, there are some signs – mostly from Google validating that the search space is moving to a more customized approach to search engine results pages. For starters, Google has already developed a number of customized search engines for certain categories. Most of us are familiar with image search, blog search, video search, or news, but did you know Google also has an album search and car buying results pages? Dozens of what we would call search views already exist from the world’s largest search engine.
It’s interesting to contrast this with Yahoo!, which has created or acquired verticals in dozens of topic areas. One criticism of Yahoo! has been its inability to coordinate all these properties. However, were it to do so, and incorporate something like unified search, we’d have a gateway to quite a bit of rich site information.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION10
Figure 11. Amazon’s WindowShop technology allows shoppers to browse through a grid of products.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION11
In 2007, Google introduced unified search, which (when appropriate) mixes other relevant search results into the regular text search results. Consider a search for the band Radlohead. News, videos, and blog posts related to Radiohead are mixed into the regular text results (but not necessarily In the top three results).
When you refine your search by adding "album" to the search query, the top result is Google’s own index of Radiohead albums and songs.
Clicking Into this area reveals all albums (with album cover art) and songs by the band – and even options to buy I While not as visual as the Viewzi album view, Google has essentially created a SERP specific to albums from a band.
As we see more and more topic experts and vertical search engines gaining prominence, the largest search company in the world taking tiny steps in the custom-tailored direction, and scores of companies big and small moving toward more-visual interfaces, one has to wonder what might search results look like in 10 years?
But it’s all about a better experience
Obviously, there’s a lot more to search than the results pages. And there’s a lot more to search than the user interface. In fact, a new wave of companies is redefining what it means to search for something – especially in the mobile space. Shazam identifies songs by essentially listening to a few seconds of music. With Snapshot, you can get product information by simply taking a picture of an album or book. And back online, companies like Idee allow you to find photos based on like colors. The point? The search space – from searching for to consuming information – is wide open to be much more than simply text entry and a list of text results.
At Viewzi, we’ve chosen to focus on one aspect of search – how people experience information. To provide a better search experience, we position ourselves as brokers between the data sources (which include search engines) and the people looking for information. The result? Custom-tailored search results for different scenarios. Until recently, the search industry has been about finding information and content. We believe the next step in the maturity of search results will be a sharper focus on the activities and context behind specific search queries. And in this respect, perhaps we’re offering a glimpse at what the future of search might look like – a future that supports different perspectives.
Reprint #09201 AND23
SIDEBAR
Customized search seems fine for topical searches, but what about generic search?
The following are five different representations of basic search results (mostly from Google and Yahoo!). While the results themselves are roughly identical, or come from the same sources, the presentation of these results has been altered to support either different viewing preferences or different search activities.
IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH12AUTHOR_AFFILIATION
Stephen P. Anderson, Vice President, Product Strategy & Design, Viewzi
AUTHOR_AFFILIATION
Stephen P.Anderson is the vice president, product strategy & design, at Viewzi, where his group is focused on changing how people experience search results. He is passionate about elegant design, remarkable customer experiences, and managing maverick teams – topics he loves to write and speak about.
Prior to Viewzi, Anderson grew and led the user experience teams at both Sabre Travel Network and Bright Corner, a small creative and technology services company he cofounded in 2001. There he worked with a variety of businesses to create valuable online and offline customer experiences, with a special focus on custom business applications. Anderson has worked on Web 2.0style applications with small startups, as well as with larger usability and information architecture projects for enterprise clients such as Nokia, Frito-Lay, and Chesapeake Energy. A former high school English teacher, he brings a love for language and cognitive learning theories to the design profession. As time permits, he shares his thoughts on management and design at poetpainter.com.
 

用眼睛驾驶的汽车系统研发成功

       最近，德国柏林大学科学家演示了他们的最新研究成果：仅用眼睛驾驶汽车的系统。其核心是研发eyeDriver（眼睛司机）软件识别驾驶者瞳孔的运动，并将其转换成为车辆控制信号。

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早在2007年5月，柏林大学的研究人员就已开发出一辆几乎可以独自在正常交通中自主行驶的无人驾驶汽车，并取名为“柏林精神”（Spirit of Berlin）。2009年，该校研究人员又成功实现用iPhone控制试验车“柏林精神”。而现在，柏林大学计算机科学教授劳尔·罗哈斯以及他的人工智能团队更进一步，通过与德国SensoMotoric仪器公司合作，开发出eyeDriver软件，将控车技术和驾驶者的眼睛运动有机结合起来，实现了仅用眼睛即可控制试验车“柏林精神”。

该演示系统利用一个经过改装的自行车头盔来探测和跟踪眼球运动。头盔上面装有两个摄像头和一个红外发光二极管，并与装有特殊软件的笔记本电脑连接。两个摄像头中的一个指向戴头盔者的前方（场景摄像头），另一个拍摄戴头盔者的一只眼睛（眼睛摄像头）。眼睛摄像头支持红外线，并指向要观测的眼睛。为了不影响戴头盔者的视野，让眼睛摄像头有一个最佳的观测角度，还使用了一个透明的只有红外光反射的镜头。经过短暂的校准后，笔记本电脑中的软件不仅能够捕捉眼睛瞳孔在眼睛摄像中的位置，还可以计算出戴头盔者正在看场景摄像中的哪些位置。这些位置的坐标通过一个通用的局域网传输到试验车“柏林精神”的车载电脑上。车载电脑软件定期接收局域网传来的眼睛观测位置信号，并用它来控制方向盘。

驾驶过程中，司机可在“自由驾驶”和“路径选择”两种模式中选择。在“自由驾驶”模式下，眼睛观测位置直接与汽车方向盘驱动电机耦合。这意味着，眼睛观测位置的X坐标被用来计算方向盘应该转动的值。司机的眼光越向左或向右看，方向盘就向相应的方向转得越多。试验车的速度是预先设定的，并保持不变。为了安全，当系统不能识别眼睛看向哪个方向时，例如司机的眼睛是闭合的，车辆会自动刹车。

在“路径选择”模式下，试验车大部分时间自动驾驶。只有在岔路口车子才会停下，并用语音提示司机选择道路。这时驾驶者要在3秒内做出选择。如果司机的目光徘徊在某个方向的时间足够长，程序就会确认选择已被接受。这个决定会传达给车内的行驶控制器。然后，智能的试验车可以据此路线继续自动行驶。

该系统只是借助于眼部运动来控制试验车“柏林精神”的一个原型应用。演示是在一个废弃的机场进行的，试验车的速度目前尚不能通过眼睛控制，因此距离商业化还很遥远。不过，从2010年11月开始，罗哈斯教授的团队将在德国联邦教研部支持的AutoNOMOS项目下继续研发“自主和辅助驾驶系统”。该项目综合激光传感器、摄像机、卫星导航和自主认知处理程序等多个模块化组件系统，有望对未来安全、高效和环境友好的交通发展作出重要贡献。（李山） 

本篇文章来源于 科技网|www.stdaily.com
原文链接：http://www.stdaily.com/kjrb/content/2010-05/11/content_185196.htm
 

德研发新法提高太阳能电池效率

德国波恩大学日前发表公报说，该校物理学家通过应用激光冷却技术实现了光子的高密度集中。这一技术有望提高太阳能电池的效率，使其在阴天也能高效工作。
      公报说，该校物理学家使用超强反射的拱形镜面收集阳光，令光束能够被聚成激光并在镜面间不断循环，镜面间是铷气。激光在轰击铷原子的过程中会消耗比其本身更多的能量，致使铷气温度急剧下降。
      如此一来，光的运动也随之减弱并聚集得更紧密，形成被称为玻色－爱因斯坦凝聚体的光子团。高密度的光能够提高太阳能电池的效率。由于其独特的拱形镜面设计，即便在阴天也能有效收集光线。 viagra quick delivery no prescription
      这一成果发表在最新一期《自然·物理学》杂志上。 
来源：科技日报