Design Agility for Startups - Neil Wehrle
The relationship of design to the world of startups has recently shifted from a question of necessity to a position of criticality. To succeed in this new environment, designers need to adapt their strengths. In several case studies, Neil Wehrle provides insight into how designers innovate in an early-stage startup environment. Specifically, he shows how the Product Experience group at betaworks works to transform ideas into products then companies.

4 Principles Apple's Chief Designer Lives By

Source Article: Click Here

Do Something Well, not Different

Many companies focus on differentiating themselves from the competition. And, certainly, that is important if you want to offer strong reasons why customers should do business with you and not a competitor. But any difference has to be organic and not contrived. “A product has to be genuinely better,” Ive says. “Committees just don’t work, and it’s not about price, schedule, or a bizarre marketing goal to appear different—they are corporate goals with scant regard for people who use the product.” If you’re not trying to do something better, then you’re not focused on the customer and you’ll miss the possibility of making your business great.

Focus on the Idea

Although Ive has been key to Apple’s success since the early 1990s, he’s a cultural outsider in important ways—raised and schooled in London and getting his first experience in design companies there. So he still has an outsider’s eye for what makes Silicon Valley different. When asked what he liked about the area, he said this: “There’s not a sense of looking to generate money, it’s about having an idea and doing it. I think that characterizes this area and its focus.” If you focus first on making money (an important part of commercial success), then you’re less likely to pay attention to the ideas, which are the basis of products and services. You lose direction and then are back at contrived differentiation.

Remember the What If

According to Ive, the least challenging approach to innovation is when there’s a problem you’re aware of. The need is obvious. However, it may be obvious to others, as well. What is more rewarding, and more difficult, is when you see an opportunity. “It’s not a problem you’re aware of,” says Ive, “nobody has articulated a need. But you start asking questions, what if we do this, combine it with that, would that be useful? This creates opportunities that could replace entire categories of device, rather than tactically responding to an individual problem.” Solve the nagging problems, but look to the possibilities to set the world on fire.

Put in the Time

Ive says that even solving a tiny detail of product development and design can take “months and months and months.” But a good product has integrity, in the sense that everything works together. You can’t ignore the small details without which you can’t address the big issues.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that you could attain the success of any of Apple’s products. But principles are important. Follow the ones that have been proven to work and you’re closer to attaining your own goals.

Urbanflow Helsinki: Envisioning an operating system for connected cities.

FT Graphic World Live
Stopping commuters in their tracks; stunning 3D interactive projections in Grand Central Terminal.

University of Oregon Ford Alumni Center
Nine towering “Oregon Cascades” serve stories, information, and artifacts; a large interactive “Alumni Table” recognizes every alum in the school’s history, and the “Entry Wall” reveals the day’s campus events while recognizing those whose contributions made the Ford Center possible.

Data: Platform Acceleration

Article Source: Click Here

The rate at which new Internet services can grow has been accelerating dramatically over the years. What’s changed? A new set of platforms to build on as these examples illustrate.

• It took AOL 9 years to reach one million users. (source)
• It took Facebook 9 months to reach one million users. (source)
• It took Draw Something (an iPhone app) 9 days to reach one million users. (source)
• In 2000, Napster was the fastest growing application on the Web with 4.9 million at-home Napster users in July, triple the number in January. (source)
• In 2005, Skype was the fastest growing application ever going from zero to 54 million customers in 25 months. (source)
• In 2007, iLike on the Facebook Platform was the fastest growing application signing up a million users in its first week; then a million more in the 5 days, and another million in the next 4 days. (source)
• In 2009, FarmVille on the Facebook Platform was the fastest growing game ever adding more than 1 million active users a week. (source)
• In 2011, Instagram’s iPhone app reached 12 million users in 12 months. Between January and March of 2012 they added 9 million new users. (source)
• In 2012, Angry Birds Space for iOS, Android, Mac and PC was downloaded 10 million times in just three days since its launch. (source)
• In 2012, the Draw Something iPhone app reached more than 35 million downloads in just 6 weeks. (source)
• It took Angry Birds about 1 year to reach 30 million downloads. Instagram has 27 million users after about 15 months. Draw Something did it in 6 weeks. (source)
• In 50 days, Draw Something passed 50 million downloads. (source)
• Instagram added over a million new users in twelve hours when in launched an Android version of it’s mobile application. (source)
• Instagram had 5 million downloads on Android in six days. The iOS version of the app took about six months to reach 5 million users. (source)

Why are these growth records being set on new platforms like iOS and Facebook and not the Web? The Web is small pieces loosely joined. Facebook and iOS are the same pieces but they are a lot more tightly joined. In the case of Facebook, things are woven together through the social graph of connections. In the case of iOS, it’s the app store, iTunes accounts, and tight OS integrations of these elements that bring things closer together.

Lotus 7.0 - A living interactive wall that responds to human behavior. 

Amon Tobin ISAM Live: Stunning large-scale audio visual experience.