The Adaptive Path book “Subject to Change” quite literally landed on my desk to review. As a long-time fan of the work of Jesse James Garrett and the folks at Adaptive Path, I was eager to read this book on “creating great products and services for an uncertain world” right away.
Several years ago when I was working in the LexisNexis User Experience Department, we had the folks from Adaptive Path come in for a workshop, and the organization has quite honestly framed my perceptions on design and product development. I eagerly picked up the book as soon as I was able.
Last year, I heard Jesse James Garrett (the President of Adaptive Path), speak at a local gathering. His presentation opened with a discussion of how Kodak fundamentally changed the field of photography. So too did “Subject to Change”.
I suppose it should be no surprise that many of 
the examples of successful design that Jesse shared then are in the book. I have no doubt that for people who haven’t yet been exposed to the ideas, they will be as intriguing and interesting as they were the first time I was exposed to them. Obviously there was more detail in the book than in the talk, so I did gain a deeper understanding about the ideas being discussed.
As ever, I am impressed with the deliberate nature of the work Adaptive Path does. While it may be simple to believe that great design stems purely from inspiration, the book draws attention to the formal process of product development. I eagerly jotted down notes while reading, hoping to internalize what I view as best practices:
Aiming to be better at an activity that everyone else has mastered isn’t a strategy. Strategy is about tradeoffs – purposely choosing tactics different than your used by your competition. Strategy means saying no to some activities so you can excel at others.
This is the same concept discussed in Made to Stick: determine your core value and align all your activities accordingly. It seems so simple, yet that doesn’t mean that is it is easy to put into practice. I believe as humans we’re naturally competitive, and it can seem like a realistic goal to achieve what someone else has – and then a bit more. But in such a race, there is inevitably someone else right behind you, eager to pass. Great design doesn’t focus on the solutions others have come up with, but rather on the problem to be solved.
One idea that was explored that was novel to me was the idea of looking beyond tasks and goals, and seeking to consider user behavior, motivations and meaning. As interested as I am in user experience and information and interaction design, I am still quite junior at it. The idea of task-driven process flow makes sense to me as a developer. Starting to consider things that are a bit more qualitative makes sense, but it’s not something that occurs to me naturally. While we do resign ourselves to using “unusable” systems if we must, do we not prefer something that is more engaging or in alignment with our preferences? This is a great point that is likely what separates me from “the designers.” 
I admire the designers and strategists at Adaptive Path, but I will admit that their approach to technology always leaves me a bit underwhelmed. One of the final chapters in the book is entitled “the Agile Approach” and seeks to explain the agile development process to non-developers. As it turns out, I’ve worked in the User Experience Department at an organization that adopted the agile approach, and I can assure you that things are not quite so ideal as the book makes them out to be. While much of the book educated and excited me, this single chapter brought me back to the reality of budgets, timelines and scoping exercises.
Overall, however, Subject to Change serves as a fantastic introduction to product design and development in a logical, practical way. Anyone wanting to get into product design and development would do well to pick this book up, and learn from the best.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Ah, I like that you have a Twitter ID field! But that’s neither here nor there.
My company is currently moving towards an agile development framework, and one of the birthing pangs that we’re going through now is identifying how and where and what kind of artifacts UI/HF fits in and needs to bring to the table. The conversations that we’re having are equal parts interesting and difficult, and there’s going to be a lot of iterations (ha!) on how UI/HF plays to get it right.
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At LexisNexis we tried to integrate UX/HF into the month-long sprints, which was tough as it created little mini-dependencies within the sprints. At the Web Directions North conference the other week I spoke with Christian Heilmann and he said they did a design cycle every three sprints, where that was the main focus. It’s not entirely “scrum by the book”, but it seems a decent compromise.
Follow me on twitter: afhill262
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