Predictable Magic

Predictable Magic

In this book, we share the Psycho-Aesthetics philosophy and methodology through case studies from various industries. We start with helping to answer some of the basic questions about design: How should you approach the design process? How do you know when you’ve arrived at the right solution? And how can you make sure that your design and business strategies work together—consistently?

  • We then show you how to translate these insights into actual products and services. You can:
  • Learn how to map existing products, consumers, and channels using the Psycho-Aesthetics methodology to reveal new opportunities for innovation
  • Understand how to identify design features that can enable you to emotionally connect with your consumers
  • Mitigate risk by understanding your consumers and setting appropriate design priorities
  • Learn, with fresh cases, how companies from Fortune 500 to start-ups have used design to create sustained organic growth

Align all stakeholders around the design process It is now widely understood that consumers engage for emotional reasons and adopt based on rich and fulfilling experience. Yet few companies look at emotion and experience explicitly as a starting point for strategy and design.We have found that those willing to do so often see higher profits, brand value, and levels of consumer satisfaction.

About This Book

This book is organized in two parts. Part I, “Creation of a Design Strategy,” focuses on aligning creative and executive teams and creating an actionable manifest that is the basis of successful design. Teams are guided to  answer three major questions in creating a design strategy and use Psycho-Aesthetics mapping techniques and tools to guide the collaboration. Part II, “Implementation and Consumer Experience,” covers the topics of  implementation and consumer experience. Here, the process of translating insights and strategy into physical design are discussed along with some litmus tests for design success. We discuss how to position these  designs in real-life retail and Web settings so that the value of the offering is easily understood and communicate to the consumer.

We ask and answer some familiar strategic questions about markets, consumers and opportunities, but we answer them from the perspective of the consumer—not the firm. Understanding that all insight would not be  “provable analysis,” we sought to make the decision-making logic transparent by mapping consumer interactions in a collaborative setting. This represents the culmination of lessons learned from across industries, which  have shown us time and time again that there are basic emotional responses that apply to all consumer behaviors, and these responses can be analyzed objectively. We have broken down the steps into a  framework we call “EMPOWER.” Empowerment is after all, what the best companies must do for their teams inside, and what they must do for their consumers as well.