Once again Alan Cooper takes complex product design and development subjects and refocuses the conversation in such a way that you’re left thinking “why doesn’t everyone else see the world this way?” (Full disclosure: I’ve been a customer and student of Cooper for the past three plus years
In this keynote address entitled “An Insurgency of Quality” from the recent IxDA Interactions ’08 conference, Alan presents a very compelling argument for quality of product over speed to market.
I would add to Alan’s argument that the iPod, Google, and Amazon also all succeeded in part because they (re)defined the experience of their respective spaces. Before the iPod, nobody had executed an online music store that worked so smoothly with a mobile device. Google redefined search as the most important (and only!) service on the page. Amazon created an experience around the idea of “1-Click Ordering”. In each of these cases, the products and services succeeded not because they were first, but because they met the goals of the users better than any of their competitors. They also succeeded because they created a new and useful experience for the people who made use of them.
