Here at Eureka, we don’t make innovation decisions without strong metrics and consuming even stronger caffeine related products. After spending a great deal of time determining the state of product development in the marketplace, we noticed a trend emerging. Design agencies were creating interesting nomenclature to articulate their process. To say we were concerned that industry standards like: One-Stop-Shop, Synergistic Partnership or Turnkey Solution were being abandoned for newer, hipper terms like: design Thinking and User-Centered Design, we set out to come up with a more spectacular word that fully conveys our unique approach. What followed was an aggressively grueling six-week ethnographic, archeological, philology-driven, design camp and wordsmith hack-a-thon. After 468 gourmet pizzas, 112 tacos, 47 tapas and 327 espressos, 119 lattes, 3 bottles of Tums, multiple veiled threats and nine personnel changes we came up with the most amazing discovery in the history of written and spoken word.
Product and software development isn’t soft—it’s hard. Real hard and it requires skill, patience and acumen on a level that should never be considered tender or soft in any way. So a beautiful word emerged; HARDWARE. After speaking to our legal team and marketing staff we concluded that Hardware was already taken and meant something completely different. And though related, not what we were looking for. Needless to say we made four more personnel changes.
What followed was another aggressively grueling twelve-week ethnographic, archeological, philology-driven, design camp and wordsmith hack-a-thon. It was emotional, we hadn’t bathed or brushed our teeth and several of us were on the outs with our significant others but science doesn’t have feelings and science doesn’t bathe. Have you ever seen pics of Einstein’s hair? He was consumed with the quest for answers and meaning. As were we. To say we were determined is an understatement.
And then all at once, like an illuminating ray of light in the darkness, we were staring at hundreds of stickies covering a wall and it hit us. It was right there in front of us all along. Too many words, like too many steps in a use flow is bad usability. It equates to unnecessary cognitive load. Aside from that, nobody reads anymore, especially not humans.
Weird nomenclature for simple things is an experiential design no-no. What we needed was a word combo. A perfect all-encompassing word. A word among words, to be respected by smaller less significant words. And like a perfect Frankenstein we were gifted from the gods of usability.
We’re pleased to have created a disruptor in the technological lexicon of literary goodness that will shake the industry to its core. It’s equal parts adjective, verb, noun and awesome. We call it: Prodesigngineerdevelopmentation™.
Impressive right? What’s key here is the experiential brand promise. A promise of product salvation, good work done by purposeful product designers, engaged engineers and UX teams. NOT software but SOULWARE. Trying to convey that in a word that exemplifies all we do and the reason we wake every morning for our clients wasn’t easy. It was a labor of love and an answer to an overwhelming amount of examples of firms and processes that just don’t get it.
Well, we do. And now you do too.
#prodesigngineerdevelopmentation
