The concept *is* the execution
Working alongside advertising people, you hear the phrase “oh, that’s executional” a fair bit. Granted, ‘executional’ is a revolting neologism, but that’s not my big problem with the phrase.
There are a number of trigger phrases that people use to try to prevent you focusing on the detail of a project and back to nice, sweeping, high-level thinking, and ‘that’s executional’ is one of them. I think it is supposed to mean that the particular detail you’re focusing on is not central to the service under discussion and is something that can be worked out at a later date.
This attitude frustrates me so much because I think you make great services by obsessing over details. I think one of the ways to make awful services is by developing some pure, abstract concept in isolation from how people will actually use it. To me, the concept is contained in the execution.
I don’t mean to suggest that every detail must be worked out at planning sessions, but I do think that digging into detail is a very good way of examining how sound the service is. The way users interact with services is often in very small transactions, and the detail of those transactions is vital to engaging the user.
I can never shake the feeling that people dislike getting into details because that’s when service design gets hard, as if it’s the concept that is always right and that the details can be massaged and shaped to fit. Coming up with a grandiose plan is relatively easy, but working out how much of the plan can actually work in detail is much harder. I think we could work much more efficiently if we got into detail sooner.
I’d be very surprised to hear Steve Jobs utter the phrase ‘that’s executional’. I can’t imagine him briefing his engineers that he wanted to ‘reinvent the phone’ and then sending them on their way thinking that the rest was ‘executional’. I’ll bet he obsessed over every single detail of the iPhone, and that he’s doing exactly the same over the tablet/slate/unicorn/whatever right now. And I’ll bet he didn’t start obsessing about the details recently; he’ll have been working on the tablet for years.
To me, a great service emerges from a deep understanding of the way that people will interact with it, the way their lives work and the way that it will become part of their lives. From the way it will be useful to them, in other words. If they’re going to have to use a computer to interact with the service, it’s vital to understand what kind of computer they are going to be using, where they will be using it and, crucially, how much time they have to spend.
You cannot design a great service without an obsessional focus on the details. Deny that and I’m likely to get all executional on your ass.
12 comments
Interesting, thought-provoking post-when worlds collide… There’s no question that traditional ad folk by and large don’t fully understand the importance of UXD and the role of what seem like minute details in driving sign-up, usage and overall enjoyment of a service. I’m a big fan of Joshua Porter’s thinking on the importance of micro-copy in transforming interactions and indeed how many micro-interactions make a single great experience. Interestingly, a lot of ad folk care enormously about the “executional” detail, be it choosing the perfect piece of music for a commercial, identifying the photographer who an transform a concept or crafting the perfect piece of body copy. It’s just that in traditional communications the concept tends to exist before the execution whereas when designing an experience they’re inextricably linked. So perhaps there are two things we should be trying:
1. Elevating the importance of UXD for agencies to the level of the executional elements they care most about-getting this experience design right, getting the right kind of experience design is as important as choosing the right photographer, font or track
2. Bringing concept and execution closer together again in traditional comms-film, print, posters. They used to be more tightly welded together and the output, arguably, was better. For a consumer, there’s no idea without execution.
Yes I think it’s an absolute first principle of good (agile) strategy to flip continually (iterate!) between strategy and detail to discover what it might mean to implement a concept in reality. In service design, as in architecture, strategy and design aren’t separate activities because the qualities of a design determine its success: It’s also the only sure way to both test and communicate your thinking clearly, in multiple forms of prototype execution at different levels of details.
James, you observation is so spot on. What many ad folks as well as some of our “counterparts” tend to miss is the details which speak directly to the user. The execution is simply the result of the idea, but its the details that bring the idea to life and create the emotional connection to the end user. Their are a lot of interesting “executions” but so many people get hung up with a technique or style as opposed to the real added benefit or value from the details. The Apple reference and total brand experience they’ve created is demonstrated in the details, from the web site to the in-store experience. Look at anything around us, it’s the details that make something more memorable or persuading someone to pay more for.
Strongly reminds me of this excellent post by David Lowe, where he uses the term tactics to mean a very similar focus on praxis: http://dlowe-wfh.blogspot.com/2007/06/tactics-tactics-tactics.html
http://dlowe-wfh.blogspot.com/2007/06/tactics-tactics-tactics.html
Yes, that’s an excellent post (although the non-technical reader will probably not get as much out of it). As a developer though I’m extremely wary of pattern-itis. Some of the worst code I’ve ever seen has been written shortly after the developer swallowed a copy of the GoF book whole – and here this refers back to Tim’s post about cargo cults.
For me, the single most important facet of code is readability. Sometimes patterns help readability, but very often they don’t. I’d rather see readable imperative code than an unreadable mess of patterns. But then I’m old school that way.
High level constructs never seem to think about the fundamentals of human interaction: the exceptions that have to be dealt with in virtually all phases of how we, as creatures, work. Getting those details right, all of them, or at least handling how to recognize and then deal with them is so easy to get past with hand-waving that the full magnitude of the task is ignored. I have a rule about difficulty: “If a person finds some task difficult or tedious it’ll transpose to a computer very easily, but if a person finds it trivial and maybe fun then that task on a computer will be almost impossible.” Cases in point: handwriting recognition and facial recognition. Walk through any lab and note all the exceptions.
Very nice post. But I hate the fashion of using nouns as verbs!
As programmer, I always want to smack anyone who says “implementation detail” upside the head.
I think I can offer some insight here – I’m “ad folk,” but also “technical”; I’m the interactive creative director at our agency but I just spent the day debugging code.
I would say that while Apple does execute amazingly well on details, that is an expression of their big picture view of who they are as a company. You don’t buy an iPod because the menu leading is just right; you buy it because it is sexy and it has the best music store. You don’t buy an iPhone because they put app settings in the settings app and they have a better inertial scroll feel and their subpixel font rendering is far superior. You buy it because it’s easy to use and it just works.
The big picture is “it just works.” But, to deliver on that promise requires insane levels of executional details. Because so many of the details are so awesomely thought through, it gives consumers a great feeling that they can trust in Apple. It builds confidence and credibility.
Many people feel ripped off after making decisions based on surface details, when they find that the surface isn’t congruous with the core experience.
Not only is the iPhone an otherworldly awesome phone on the surface; it stays awesome no matter how deep you go. And that fact inducts people into the cult of mac from then on.
It’s the big picture that people buy; it’s the executional details that keep them coming back. This isn’t an issue of a dualistic structure; it’s not one or the other. It’s a continuous, holistic whole.
As far as your personal preference for detail, James, don’t forget that INTJ is the most rare of all the meyers-briggs profiles. 98% of the world do not think like we do.
When “ad folk” are saying things are executional, its because their job is to understand the wants of the majority, and they know that details are not on everyone’s mind. Not everyone obsesses over kerning. Most people are way more worried about what bar they’re going to be at tonight, and never notice the typeface that google maps uses to direct them there.
Hi James, thanks for sharing this interesting article. I’m seeking your permission to use the term “executional” and some excerpts from this blog entry to add to “The new lexicology of Design” http://www.buhito.net/lexicon
http://www.buhito.net/lexicon
Here’s the definition (please feel free to modify):
Executional (adj.) the particular technical, interactional detail being focused on is not central to the service under discussion and can be solved afterwards, as described by ad folks who believe an abstract concept is everything, retorting any high-level thinking with the phrase “oh, that’s executional”.
The new lexicology of Design is a collaborative work accross the Internet, hence a web archive of protologisms and existing expressions by various design practitioners in manifestation of certain practices and experiences in the field.
Your name (and link if you wish) will be on the contributors’ list. Please let me know if this ok with you :)
I feel strongly agreeing with you. I’m a designer and a developer at the place where I work, but rarely ever both in the same project at the same time. There are so many things that one has to factor in: time, budget, motivation (hey, if you’re a dev and the concept is something you don’t believe in, most of the time, you still have to do it). I think what’s important is having leaders who have an overarching vision that you strongly believe in (ala Steve Jobs if you will, assuming the folks at Apple believe in him, which I’m pretty sure they dp). No doubt, in concept, it’s in the execution of the details that’ll make or break something…but more often than not, it’s in the leadership that’s behind those details that so much impinges upon success.
This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately, and something that irks me as well. I’m glad to have found your article and I think your points on the subject are insightful. I have more thinking to do, especially with how to successfully merge concept with execution in a way that is truly seamless in the end result. Clear communication is the goal (and it would be nice if it was pretty…)!