Breaking Boundaries

Having moved from so many project I have started realizing the advantages in doing the same. Every domain or say a business vertical works very differently. The design approach and also the mind set is very different.

For example, Online Video site might have very different approach to design; say like engagement or time spent or videos viewed might be important. How much time user spends on your site may well be a parameter of success. While for a portal the success and approach might be to divert the user to a content or application. For Search, more time spent is disastrous. Social Networking might say number of Unique Users they get, or no. of logins per account or virality of their application is what defines the design and success approach.
What I have seen is that these all verticals (if you call them) have their fixed mindsets. There are somewhat clear approaches defined by (whom?) – Competition. What goes on becomes a norm (without analysis) and all of us follow it.


Breaking boundaries

Competitor analysis becomes an important part of our design research and it also sets up the path to design. We mindlessly follow what others are trying to do and what defines its success.

Its useful to break away from this and see the design problem in a new light, what if I apply Online Video design approach in Social Network? The solution might be drastically different. I guess its really important to broaden our boundaries about design concepts and explore unrelated products to see if they could add any value to us. Otherwise we keep our thinking limited to already known parameters and concepts.


Move Horizontal for freshness and Vertical for quality

It’s a different approach to drilling deeper. It’s more of moving horizontally. Look for whats buzzing with user (which is unrelated to your product) and then see if there is any thing that you can borrow or get inspiration – or that allows you to think differently.

This is what I learnt from moving across teams and products.

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