Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World: Adaptive Path on Design (Adaptive Path)

SUBJECT TO CHANGE: CREATING GREAT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES FOR AN UNCERTAIN WORLD provides basics for designing products for web software and competitive advantage alike - but to limit it to computer collections would be a shame. It's the college-level or public library collection specializing in innovative business solutions who will find it a powerful discussion of strategy and futuristic thinking processes, packed with real-world examples.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Subject to Change presents an excellent strategic overview of new product development practices for media and physical interaction products based upon the consulting practice of Adaptive Path. It mentions, and briefly summarizes such practices as paper prototyping, persona's, wireframe mockups, storyboards and Wizard of Oz simulations. Several historical and current examples such as Apple's iPod and George Eastman's original camera are briefly highlighted. The book definitely provides a strategic overview of current product development practices, highlighting those of "Experience Design". It is most suitable as a supplement to Ulrich and Eppinger's Product Design and Development for an MBA product development course or as a stand-alone strategy guide for an Art School course in new media design. For the practitioner, this book certainly highlights modern practices of experience design and product development as they affect interaction design, industrial design, and the new media industries. However, as a strategic guide, it is lacking in the level of detail necessary for a cookbook to carry out a specific design project. Perhaps the book should be supplemented by a website with detailed examples of each of the development practices mentioned in this guide. For example, Adaptive Path, the media strategy firm whose practices are highlighted in this volume has illustrated on their own website the development methods they carried out in developing, the Aurora video prototype for a future Mozilla browser with both textual scenarios, outlines of the development effort, and several short video clips. If this brief strategy guide were supplemented with several such practice scenarios, the strategies mentioned in this book could be readily carried out by any competent practitioner.

This review is based on my experience as a new product development consultant in the Information Technology field for Arthur D. Little, Digital Equipment Corporation and several multimedia startups.

-- Ira Laefsky

I think I had the essence of this book by the time I got to page 30: Times have changed, and packing in a checklist of features is not enough to gain marketshare anymore.

They talk a lot about having an "experience stragegy". I understand this to be building a product by aiming to meet the user's needs. Google Calendar is a good example. They stole a large portion of the online calendar market, even though users were already heavily invested into Yahoo and Hotmail's email/calendar. They did this by sitting down with people who used calendars a lot, and finding out what they wanted in a calendar (not exactly rocket science, I know).

Kodak is another company that had a developed experience stragegy. When Kodak cameras first came out, they reduced the task of taking photos from one that required you to be a technician, to something anyone can do. They did this by selling the entire "experience" - you purchase Kodak film rolls (before this film was on expensive and fragile plates), put it into your Kodak camera, point & shoot, then send the film into Kodak for processing. Apple is another good example of a company that has an experience strategy.

There are lots of other interesting examples and an anecdotes sprinkled throughout the book. There is even a whole chapter on Agile Development, both from software and hardware perspectives.

In summary, the message of the book is that we need to design products and services that deliver a positive experience to the user (notice "user", they take issue with the word "consumer"). The book expounds on this with much detail and examples, but I believe this is the main message.

Unfortunately I found this book extremely hard to get through, due to the "dry" writing style. It made me feel as if I were listening to a boring professor's lecture. There may be better books on this subject, something from Seth Godin for example.

I was disappointed when I got my pre-order of this book. At a scant 160 pages, I was skeptical that it could offer very much insight.

On reading it, I was proven correct. Much of the book was nothing more than an extended advertisement for Adaptive Path. Case studies were too short to learn much from. The only case study really discussed in depth was of Target's new prescription bottles, which have been discussed more in depth and more usefully in too many other books.

The book's eight chapters are full of short sections; many of them read as though they are blog entries. They're strung together with little regard for content or context. The seventh chapter, a flawed discussion of agile development, is completely worthless. The book could have been so much better if the authors had taken the time and effort to better consider their arguments and write a more cohesive work.

If you can look past the book's many shortcomings, there are some interesting nuggets in there. Sadly, the useful bits comprise less than 10% of the book, but they're good enough to earn this book two stars.

'Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World' is a good book for thinkers, innovators, and product managers alike. Looking at different ideas throughout history, this book examines how good ideas come about and the work that goes into them. A lot of it is innovation, a lot of it is luck, but as with everything else in life, examining others fortunes and misfortunes is a good way to learn and make good decisions of your own. From looking at lots of case studies packaged in a nice hand held book and smooth writing, this is a good read.

**** RECOMMENDED