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Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World Adaptive Path on Design

By Peter Merholz, Todd Wilkens, Brandon Schauer, David Verba
April 2008
Pages: 186
ISBN 10: 0-596-51683-5 | ISBN 13: 9780596516833
Press Release (Average of 5 Customer Reviews)

Description

To achieve success in today's ever-changing and unpredictable markets, competitive businesses need to rethink and reframe their strategies across the board. In Subject to Change: Creating Great Products and Services for an Uncertain World, Adaptive Path, a leading experience strategy and design company, demonstrates how successful businesses can--and should--use customer experiences to inform and shape the product development process, from start to finish.
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Featured customer reviews

Subject To Change is an excellent book for customer service and growing a business,  September 25 2008
Submitted by Clay S. Fernald   [Respond | View]

'Subject to Change' is a valuable addition to the modern business person's bookshelf. I should note that this would be an especially great tool for marketers and publicists, research and development teams, as well as application developers.

The Adaptive Path team took a fungible approach to writing this book, as an organization that is interested in anticipation of the ever-changing needs of the expectations of their customers.

In the late Nineteenth century, inventions and innovations were largely based on new advances in technology available at the time. The kludgy inconvenience of these early technologies were simply 'part of the experience.' This book sites Eastman's Kodak Camera as perhaps the first example of a company having the foresight to anticipate a customer's needs. Until then, photographers were hobbyists, scientists, and tech geeks of the age. Eastman's brilliant vision of making technology more accessible to the rest of the populous with the philosophy of "You press the button, and we do the rest," was a great bridge between the customers who wanted to take photos and a company that could provide a service. That service being the development of the film, processing the plates, and mailing the finished photos to the customer.

The book uses this model to encourage shifting our traditional business mindset to anticipate our customer's needs while developing software, hardware, or other devises. By empathizing with the target audience, and my making yourself a part of the audience yourself, you may wish to create an experience for your users that has the potential to seamlessly integrate with their lives. When marketers or designers use the traditional mode—that people are sheep—without valuing the feedback of the audience, innovation will grind to a halt. I emphatically agree with the Adaptive Path on this theme. As a publicist, I value customer feedback as much as I value my own creative ideas.

Another great specimen, and perhaps a more modern one, is the iPod/iTunes Music store. The mp3 player was already invented, but Steve Jobs created the experience of browsing music and buying music for the device, anticipating the customer's needs. One could also argue that the iPhone is also the product of this school of thought, combining the need for a cell phone with the music player experience, all in one well designed device.

I have a niece with juvenile diabetes, and this book gave me a peek into the development of something that she uses every day to enjoy a happy life. There is a relatively new medical product developed called an insulin pump. I can testify that she is much happier using this pump than her previous regiment of daily shots. When developing this pump, diabetics tested a mock-up of the device, and offered feedback as to what would work for them. The developers of the pump changed the design of the belt used while swimming or in the shower, as well as other practical concerns. A side-note is that I was reading this section of the book while my nieces were happily making sandcastles and going in and out of the water! Without the user input, the device might be uncomfortable and unwieldy and certainly not easy to wear at the beach. This reminds me that the first undergarments for women were made by men, but the true innovations in practicality and comfort came when women started designing them!

In conclusion, this is a great book and I have started personally to rethink the feedback I am getting from my customers to be more empathetic. Empathizing with a person's needs in the present and the future will prove to be a better model to provide easy to use, and enriching technologies, customer service solutions, and ingenuity.




Designing software is also subject to change,  September 17 2008
Submitted by Burk Hufnagel   [Respond | View]

As a software architect, I found this to be an intriguing book. While not specifically targeted at software development, it is full of information and suggestions that can help any organization interested in turning users into loyal customers. Notice I said "help". The most you can hope for from a book is that it paints a picture of possibilities in your head. Once it's there, it’s up to you to make those possibilities a reality. That takes time and effort, even if you’re already committed to making changes.

The picture “Subject to Change” paints is compelling. An organization that consistently produces excellent user experiences would not only be a great place to work, but a business that’s headed to the top of its market. With that as a goal, it’s easier to stay committed and do the hard work necessary to effect change.

Oh, just one more thing. Even if you can’t convince your organization to change, you can use what you've learned to make changes in how you do things; and that might be enough.


Create inifinite products,  September 04 2008
Submitted by rvarkelen   [Respond | View]

Being a developer I hoped this book would give me more insight in development. Instead it grasps everything that's needed to create a product which suits a client needs.

While reading the book every piece falls in the right place, your mind will be switched into a mode I didn't know it existed, it makes you think. My customers are very divers and so are their needs/expectations. Adaptive Path helped me to define a clear view in which products / services can be developed and will continue to adapt to their needs in the future (well at least, I hope they will)...

As software developer I expected the book to be much more abstract and cover subjects like software/patterns/strategies, so this expectation wasn't really satisfied but I'm not blaming this book for it, it really was worth reading.

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Media reviews
"Subject to Change is a good book to read if you're into product development or design. If you're staying abreast of the industry trends, most of it is probably not going to be big news to you, nevertheless, it's a good collection of case studies and a summary of rules relevant for modern-day product development."
-- Alex Moskalyuk, Slashdot.org


"This book will make you think. Hard. And that’s a good thing. Because you may not be able to outspend or outwork the competition, but you can certainly outthink them. Today, that’s just about all that matters."
-- Seth Godin, Author, Meatball Sundae


"The principles set out in Subject to Change are essential for the design of any product, but especially relevant for the fast-moving world of web software. It used to be the case that a software product was designed once, and refreshed every couple of years. Software is no longer a product. It is a process, a dynamic service that evolves as it responds to constant interaction with its users. The essence of Web 2.0 design is to create a dynamic framework that harnesses the collective intelligence of customers in such a way that the software becomes almost alive. This terrific book teaches the mindset required for this new kind of design."
-- Tim O'Reilly



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O'Reilly Webcast with Peter Merholz

"This book will make you think. Hard. And that’s a good thing. Because you may not be able to outspend or outwork the competition, but you can certainly outthink them. Today, that’s just about all that matters."
--Seth Godin, Author, Meatball Sundae