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Well-Designed: How to Use Empathy to Create Products People Love Hardcover – November 11, 2014

by Jon Kolko (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 143 ratings
See all formats and editions
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From Design Thinking to Design Doing

Innovators today are told to run loose and think lean in order to fail fast and succeed sooner. But in a world obsessed with the new, where cool added features often trump actual customer needs, it’s the consumer who suffers. In our quest to be more agile, we end up creating products that underwhelm.

So how does a company like Nest, creator of the mundane thermostat, earn accolades like “beautiful” and “revolutionary” and a $3.2 billion Google buyout? What did Nest do differently to create a household product that people speak of with love?

Nest, and companies like it, understand that emotional connection is critical to product development. And they use a clear, repeatable design process that focuses squarely on consumer engagement rather than piling on features for features’ sake.

In this refreshingly jargon-free and practical book, product design expert Jon Kolko maps out this process, demonstrating how it will help you and your team conceive and build successful, emotionally resonant products again and again.

The key, says Kolko, is empathy. You need to deeply understand customer needs and feelings, and this understanding must be reflected in the product. In successive chapters of the book, we see how leading companies use a design process of storytelling and iteration that evokes positive emotions, changes behavior, and creates deep engagement. Here are the four key steps:

1. Determine a product-market fit by seeking signals from communities of users.
2. Identify behavioral insights by conducting ethnographic research.
3. Sketch a product strategy by synthesizing complex research data into simple insights.
4. Polish the product details using visual representations to simplify complex ideas.

Kolko walks the reader through each step, sharing eye-opening insights from his fifteen-year career in product design along the way.

Whether you’re a designer, a product developer, or a marketer thinking about your company’s next offering, this book will forever change the way you think about—and create—successful products.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    224 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harvard Business Review Press
  4. Publication date
    November 11, 2014
  5. Dimensions
    6.39 x 0.9 x 9.61 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1625274793
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1625274793
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Top 11 Books to Watch for Q4.” — 250 Words (250words.com)

A “Best Book of the year” pick.“ … worthy reading for anyone looking to launch a new product or tweak an existing one.” — SUCCESS magazine

“… a welcome reminder that respecting customers' emotional needs should be your top product-development priority--no matter what you're designing.” – Inc.

"If consumers engage with a product to the point of modifying their own behavior—hello iPad!—the marketing is a done deal. It's all about identifying the opportunities then designing products that connect." — Qantas - The Australia Way

“Well-Designed provides a refreshing approach to the way we view successful services, policies, strategies and business models.” — Engineering and Technology Magazine, The Institution of Engineering and Technology

ADVANCE PRAISE for Well-Designed:

Richard Florida, professor, University of Toronto and New York University; author, The Rise of the Creative Class—
“Steve Jobs’s creativity as a designer was the key to his entrepreneurial genius. But can Jobs’s style of ‘design thinking’ be scaled? Jon Kolko shows that it can be—step by step, through a set of processes that are iterative, collaborative, and, best of all, easily learned. Well-Designed is bracingly practical and deeply inspiring.”

John Maeda, design partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; author, The Laws of Simplicity and Redesigning Leadership—
“Great companies are made through great products, and increasingly, great products are made through design. Kolko demonstrates that product managers must learn to think like designers; they need to embrace intuition, emotion, and most importantly, empathy. This insightful book is a must-read.”

Ric Grefé, Executive Director, AIGA, the professional association for design—
“Jon Kolko illuminates the intuitive skills of the designer with such clarity, truly describing ‘how’ instead of just ‘what.’ Two millennia ago, Vitruvius’s manifesto on great design exhorted, ‘utilitas, firmitas, e venustas.’ Well-Designed expands on this: make things useful, usable, and delightful—and here’s how.”

Liz Danzico, cofounder and Chair, MFA Interaction Design Program, School of Visual Arts; Creative Director, NPR—
“There are books about design, and there are books about leadership. By uniting practical processes and insightful ideas and interviews, Jon Kolko gives us both: an essential playbook comprising advice, research, and methods for engaged product design leadership.”

Robert Fabricant, cofounder and Principal, Design Impact Group, Dalberg Global Development Advisors—
“Product managers are the most important link between great ideas and great products. Jon Kolko speaks directly to this critical audience, providing the practical know-how to make design fit within their day-to-day decision making. Well-Designed is the essential guide to design that all product managers will learn from and love.”

Don Norman, Director, Design Lab, University of California, San Diego; author, Design of Everyday Things—
“Well-Designed presents a unique, powerful, human-centered way to design a product and then, how to master the important and oft-neglected task of guiding it through the complexities of development and delivery. This unique, easy to read, and powerful book is essential for anyone involved with product management.”

About the Author

Jon Kolko is Vice President of Consumer Design at Blackboard Inc. He joined Blackboard with the acquisition of MyEdu, a start-up focused on helping students succeed in college and get jobs. Jon is also the founder and Director of Austin Center for Design. His work focuses on bringing the power of design to social enterprises. He has worked extensively with both start-ups and Fortune 500 clients, and he’s most interested in humanizing educational technology. Jon previously held the roles of both Principal Designer and Associate Creative Director at frog design and was also a Professor of Interaction Design and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard Business Review Press; 1st edition (November 11, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1625274793
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1625274793
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.03 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.39 x 0.9 x 9.61 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 143 ratings

About the author

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Jon Kolko

Jon Kolko

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Jon is a Partner at Narrative, and the Founder of Austin Center for Design.

He was previously a co-founder of Modernist Studio, which was acquired in 2021, and the Vice President of Design at Blackboard, the largest educational software company in the world. He joined Blackboard with the acquisition of MyEdu, a startup focused on helping students succeed in college and get jobs.

Jon has also held the positions of Executive Director of Design Strategy at Thinktiv, a venture accelerator in Austin, Texas, and both Principal Designer and Associate Creative Director at frog design, a global innovation firm. He has been a Professor of Interaction and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he was instrumental in building both the Interaction and Industrial Design undergraduate and graduate programs. Jon has also held the role of Director for the Interaction Design Association (IxDA), and Editor-in-Chief of interactions magazine, published by the ACM. He is regularly asked to participate in high-profile conferences and judged design events, including the 2013 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards. He has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, the Center for Design Studies of Monterrey, in Mexico, and Malmö University, in Sweden.

Jon is the author of a number of books, including:

- Thoughts on Interaction Design, published by Morgan Kaufmann,

- Exposing the Magic of Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis, published by Oxford University Press,

- Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving, published by Austin Center for Design,

- Well Designed: How to use Empathy to Create Products People Love, published by Harvard Business Review Press, and

- Creative Clarity, published by Brown Bear Press.

- Cashing Out, published by Brown Bear Press.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
143 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Diego
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for Product Managers
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2015
Verified Purchase
The book is about how to approach product management by shifting the focus from features, to the emotional value that your product provides.

Beyond the introduction, each chapter combines three narrative approaches:
- The story of a fictional PM that wants to create a product related to health and fitness.
- The "hands on" explanation of each phase of product design.
- Interviews with PMs of different companies.

That structure is well balanced: the fictional story serves as a way to organize the book into the different phases of product design; the explanation is right to the point, and the interviews are really interesting (I got good insights from them, so reading only the "hands on" part will give you a partial picture).

Any critique about the book? Well I love it, but nothing is perfect. The last part of the book: about planning how to build your product... well there are others books dedicated to that particular area; and in this book I found it to be just "ok". For the build planning part with a UX perspective, take a look also to User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton.
5 people found this helpful
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Christine B
5.0 out of 5 stars The best book on design thinking
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2019
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This is the best book on design thinking. Jon Kolko is a master at explaining this concept.
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Olehile M. Setilo
4.0 out of 5 stars When starting a business
Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2022
Verified Purchase
For a new business this book can be very useful. It helps one to think deeply about the product or. Service one is considering to provide, how that will benefit and impact customer. This can really help one to plan better through empathy.
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Kouji Nakata
5.0 out of 5 stars simplified approach that we have been able to actually use without a lot of expensive consultants implementing a seemingly compl
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2015
Verified Purchase
I have read almost 10 related books trying to get enough practical advice to lead efforts to journey map and start designing products and services with a more customer centric approach. This is the only book that articulates a the clear, simplified approach that we have been able to actually use without a lot of expensive consultants implementing a seemingly complex process to better understand our customers.
One person found this helpful
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Dimeji Olutimehin
3.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2015
Verified Purchase
Great book. Inasmuch as its about design thinking, it did not really talk much about empathy. But a good book on product design and the interviews are eye opening.
One person found this helpful
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Melissa Erbes
5.0 out of 5 stars This is THE book to read on design thinking
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2019
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This is the first book I’ve owned where I actually wanted to highlight the pages and steal some passages to pass off as brilliant quotations of my own. Great introduction to design thinking!
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L. Harrison
5.0 out of 5 stars This is THE book for anyone involved in creating value
Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2014
Verified Purchase
It's THE book for anyone in product management or for anyone who wants to learn about product management. It provides the framework needed to not only create value, but to understand why you are creating the value in the first place. Humanizing the product or service is a key element that this book delves deeply into. The What, Who and most importantly, Why, are discussed in great length with plenty of stories shared by thought leaders and product experts regarding how they have perfected the design thinking mindset and succeeded in the marketplace. This will be a required book for my product-centric Introduction to Marketing course.
2 people found this helpful
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Mark P. McDonald
4.0 out of 5 stars Expresses the Design process and ethos in an accessible way.
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2015
Verified Purchase
Well - Designed covers the core of Design thinking, practices and the ethos of a movement that is challenging just about every business and industry. Kolko's book is recommended for executives looking to understand what Design is all about, why its important and why it is different from being easy to use or other customer buzzword trends. This book combines a designers view on products and design in the future with a more practical illustration and approach.

The book breaks down the product design process into a set of easy to understand an actual process in six simple chapters.

Chapter 1 - By Design
Covering issue like the scope of the product, the role of the designer, design thinking and design in product management.

Chapter 2 - Product-Market Fit: Finding Broad Appeal
Focusing on re-defining the nature of the market based on experience and empathy along with how that reality changes market definitions.

Chapter 3 - Behavioral Insights: identifying latent needs and desires
How do you organize and observe human behavior and incorporate those insights into new products and experiences.

Chapter 4 - Product Strategy: sketching a playbook for emotional value
Getting what seems to be qualitative input and insight into a structured process and set of investments

Chapter 5 - Product Vision: crafting the product details
Discusses how you move from ideas into product designs and delivery

Chapter 6 - Shipping
Covers the use of product road maps in mobilizing, testing and learning which are critical aspects of a digital future.

Strengths

The story within the story of a new designer working at a new company launching a health and wellness app. This story works in much the same way as it does in Goldratt's The Goal. It brings the storyline and ideas together and provides an end to end example of the cases and ideas in the book.

The case examples are clear and well articulated.

The ideas and particularly the examples are well illustrated and laid out.

Challenges

Most books about design tend to celebrate the 'designer' as the new leader of the organization and economy. Well Designed adheres to this trend with interviews with designers who have started up their own companies. Executives may find these interviews a little self serving and less accessible than the rest of the book.

Design books can easily take on a preaching tone as if everything that went before them was bad and only with design will things get good. This book has some touch of this, but Kolko is far from being a design bigot.
9 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Product as described.
Reviewed in Canada on June 17, 2020
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Received in perfect condition.
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Hugo
5.0 out of 5 stars Es perfecto
Reviewed in Mexico on October 21, 2018
Verified Purchase
El libro es una maravilla, excelente contenido, y llego en tiempo y forma
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Empathic Design <3
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 23, 2016
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Great deal for a book I really needed. Excellent condition!
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KK Balakrishnan
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in India on March 10, 2015
Verified Purchase
Good one to read
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Humayun
5.0 out of 5 stars Every product manager and designer should read this book
Reviewed in Canada on September 15, 2015
Verified Purchase
This book presents a thorough and thoughtful approach to product design as it applies to software, a discipline that is still very much in its infancy.
One person found this helpful
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