Predictable Magic: Unleash the Power of Design Strategy to Transform Your Business

by Deepa Prahalad, Ravi Sawhney

Companies invest fortunes on innovation and product strategy. But, by some estimates, 80% of new products fail or dramatically underperform every year, though a few rare products succeed brilliantly. Why is this the case? Their creators have seamlessly integrated corporate strategy with design. They don't deliver utilitarian they craft rewarding, empowering experiences. To outsiders, this looks like incomprehensible, and impossible to reproduce. But it isn't. Predictable Magic presents a complete design process for making the "magic" happen -- over and over again . Veteran industrial designer Ravi Sawhney and business strategist Deepa Prahalad introduce Psycho-Aesthetics, a breakthrough approach for systematically creating deep emotional connections between consumers and brands. Step by step, the authors cover everything from research to strategy, implementation to consumer experience. They also demonstrate Psycho-Aesthetics at work - in case studies from some of the world's top companies, including Sprint, Medtronic, Amana, and Hyundai. You'll see how these great companies have used Psycho-Aesthetics to go beyond the utilitarian (or even the merely "beautiful"), to build products that powerfully connect with people... touch them... move them... time and again.

Genres: Business, Design, Creative, Nonfiction

183 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 19, 2010

Reviews

[Julie Jenson Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Widely pub­li­cised across the product design com­munity, the book prom­ises “a com­plete design pro­cess for mak­ing the ‘magic’ hap­pen — over and over again.” Accessibly writ­ten and emin­ently prac­tical, Pra­halad and Sawhney use the term Psycho-Aesthetics to describe their approach.

The under­pin­nings of their pro­cess centre on a grid, align­ing a ver­sion of Maslow’s hier­archy along the ver­tical and degree of immers­ive inter­activ­ity along the horizontal.

They anchor their design pro­cess by map­ping cur­rent products against these axes, then over­lay­ing con­sumer per­so­nas accord­ing to their desired product exper­i­ence within the cat­egory. The design team uses the inter­sec­tions and gaps on the map to drive product defin­i­tion and design strategy.

The book left me uncon­vinced by its the­or­et­ical stance (and even doubt­ing that it has one), but respect­ful of the authors, the clar­ity of their com­mu­nic­a­tion, and their port­fo­lio of case studies.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a designer . . . an engineer . . . or a marketing person . . . but this book was very interesting, wildly informative, intellectually accessible, and yes entertaining! As I see it . . . in life's various roles beyond those professional capacities mentioned above we are all designers/producers/consumers. So on any number of levels, this book is insightful and useful. It is ultimately a professional, industrial-strength, treatment on business products and programs - a genre I am admittedly under-qualified to critique - but as a dad, Sunday school teacher, a small business owner, and a curiosity freak, I was by truly charged by its implications in all aspects of my to-be-constructed-by-pictogram life.

[Leader Summaries · Rating 5 out of 5]

Desde Leader Summaries recomendamos la lectura del libro El Poder del Diseño, de Deepa Prahalad y Ravi Sawhney.
Las personas interesadas en las siguientes temáticas lo encontrarán práctico y útil: marketing y ventas, atraer y retener a los clientes, gestionar marcas y posicionamiento.
En el siguiente enlace tienes el resumen del libro El Poder del Diseño, Cómo utilizar la psicoestética para crear productos emocionalmente relevantes para los clientes: El Poder del Diseño

[Ko Matsuo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love the idea of this book which is how to create a objective process around design strategy and customer experience. The authors put together a model that appears useful, but also appears somewhat complex. For that reason it may work for a company but will probably not go mainstream.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

More marketing than ideas, but those contained therein are worth considering.

[Bruno Monteiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended.