|
Obvious Design, LLC is a San Francisco consultancy specializing in product vision and user experience architecture. It was founded in 1997 by D. Philip Haine.
Background: Philip has been designing products since the late-80's, first as a software engineer at Microsoft (on Word for Windows v2.0) and GO Corp (a pioneer in mobile pen-based computing), then for over twelve years as a product designer at Apple/Claris and independently at Obvious Design, LLC. He is now product strategist at Product Vision Associates. Philip has a B.Math in computer science with a minor in psychology from the University
of Waterloo.
Products: You may have touched some of his work if you used Claris Organizer 2.0* (still alive thirteen years later, reincarnated as Palm Desktop for the Mac), ClarisImpact 2.0*, Claris Emailer 2.0*, the Gap.com online store (cited in Don't Make Me Think), Adobe.com online stores, various Palm devices and QuickBooks*. (See also: project history.) [*Award-winning versions]
Tools & Methods: Over twenty years of creating products, Philip developed several tools to help with product design and product vision: the Design Pyramid, SSNF scenarios, Formal Needs Analysis, Commonality x Frequency x Severity as a way of rating impact to the user base, the Feature -> Objective Chain, the Product Concept Scorecard and the "Issues Du Jour" problem mapping technique.
Writing: He has written extensively about how to systematically envision breakthrough product concepts (his favorite topic) at ProductVision.org since 2008. Philip has published product vision and design ideas at StealThisIdea.com since 2005. Philip is currently writing a book about product vision.
Current focus: Philip specializes is in helping companies formulate breakthrough product concepts, in training senior product personnel in the art of product vision, and in shifting corporate culture to become more visionary. If your organization could use guidance in these matters, please get in touch.
Philip has filed and been granted several patents relating to interactive design and software architecture.
Philip was born in Montreal and plays jazz drums
in San Francisco.
You can follow Philip on Twitter at @dphaine.
|
