In 1969, Hartmut Esslinger founded the global design and strategy firm now known as frog, and in so doing rebuffed the dominant (and sterile) design mantra of the day that form follows function. In his mind, form follows emotion, and as frog works more and more frequently to design spaces and systems, not just objects, the approach holds true.
“Design used to be about making a thing,” explains Turi McKinley, executive director of frogCamp, the firm’s thought-leadership initiative. “Today, for us, design is about making and shaping experiences and relationships.” But in order to make those experiences and relationships meaningful—“to design for an emotional connection,” as McKinley puts it—designers must first understand the people for whom they are designing.
“It’s kind of remarkable how many companies don’t really know what happens with their product once it leaves the store—what the customers are ultimately doing with their product or service in the context of where it’s being used,” says Tjeerd Hoek, vice president of creative for frog, whose clients range from telecom companies and financial institutions to large retailers and home appliance conglomerates. “For us, it’s super important to go out and meet users, whoever they may be, to bring that user perspective into the design process.” He pauses. “Whenever we say that, it sounds so logical.”
“When you think about form following emotion, it’s about not just creating a product that works or doesn’t work, it’s about getting to a product or service that evokes an emotional reaction, that evokes the ‘Wow’ in people.”
Turi McKinley
Executive Director
frog, NYC
As an example, Sean Rhodes, a creative director at frog, talks about a project in which he and his team were tasked with redesigning a digital jukebox. “Just by going into [a bar setting] and observing the context of that product, we made some simple but important design decisions,” he says. When the designers realized that it is rarely a single person picking a song at the machine, for instance, but a handful of people—which is to say, it is usually a social experience—they turned the screen sideways so that a group could collaborate more easily.
It is that kind of small detail that “brings a little bit of magic to an experience,” according to Hoek. “It could be the use of software or animation, using colors and textures in interesting ways. In the physical world, it's often about materials and textures and the arrangement of layouts—not building something that’s just a plastic box but bringing some life to these objects.”
“When technology evolves, people have higher expectations. But with new technology, you also have lots of new possibilities.”
For Mimi Jiang, a creative director at Kohler, those vitalizing details are the justification for designing new products. “When we design a new product, we think about how to bring some energy to them,” she says. “The product has to not only create a good experience but also be enjoyable to use.”
On the way to that final product, there is no such thing as divine design inspiration. To discover these magic insights, good designers rely on research and an exacting design process. “In terms of process, one of the first steps is to make sure you're asking the right question,” says McKinley. “Are you trying to solve the right problem?”
Rhodes makes an analogy to a compass. “Initially we may be heading [in a general direction like] northwest, and then you get more specific about that compass heading through strategic narrowing,” he says. “I think there’s never one massive aha moment—or it’s rare.”
Indeed, the process for the most part requires long periods of hard work, and frustration is par for the course. “There is often a moment of complete confusion and stress,” Hoek says, describing the massive amount of information and the many conflicting objectives designers inevitably have to juggle. “There are trade-offs you need to make, compromises you need to figure out.” He compares this moment to traveling through a small dark tunnel, when “there seems to be no way out.”
But there is always a way out. “Suddenly things start clicking. Little nuggets from the research come up that make the team go, ‘Wait—this is totally different from what we expected.’ And then a path becomes visible, and insights emerge from that chaos moment, and things start falling into place.”
“No idea is too crazy to share with the rest of the team. Sometimes you even prototype by acting something out. So as much as there’s a process to design, a lot of great design comes from the team being open and willing to stay curious, stay open to ambiguity.”
Turi McKinley
Executive Director
frog, NYC
frog’s philosophy and process now epitomize the approach for which most brands these days are striving. Many clients now approach the firm with questions about how they can fundamentally transform their businesses, not just their tangible products. “Design has moved from being about visual design or product design,” says McKinley. “It has moved to being how we get all the skill sets needed to collaborate to build services and experiences for customers, how we can shape what a company should be doing.”
McKinley is excited for this increased attention to feeling, as designers and engineers consider the ever-expanding ways in which they can help define relationships between companies and consumers, especially within physical spaces like retail stores, smart homes, even theme parks. It’s not just about the spaces themselves: It’s about the experiences that happen inside them. “As the scale of the things we are designing gets bigger and bigger, we’re often not just designing a single touch point: a mobile app, or a way to enter a space,” she says. “We’re now designing what it means to enter that space, what it means to be a part of that space with digital touch points, physical touch points, and human interactions.”
Mimi Jiang
Design Manager
Kohler sanitary product group
Atlantic Re:think:
Once you settle on a new product and you have an idea for something new, how do you bring that product to life?
Mimi Jiang:
Designers need to collaborate with engineers to make the design come to life, and the introduction of electronics into a design causes additional challenges. We must ensure the form seamlessly accommodates the technology: It is not compromised for function. The whole system has to work together. In the Veil Intelligent toilet we designed for Kohler, the result was a minimalist design, with clean, flowing lines that inconspicuously shrouds technology that enables us to offer an experience that surprises and delights our customers. It’s a great marriage of art and technology.
Atlantic Re:think:
What excites you about the future of design? What are the possibilities opened up by new technologies?
Mimi Jiang:
The most important point is that we want to give people something more when they use our product. Technology and technological tools will help us to design new products that can help us make people live better lives and solve more problems. We’re still focused on the whole experience for the consumer.
As individual manifestations of an overall experience, each of these touch points offers an opportunity for relationship building. McKinley brings up the example of buying a ticket to an amusement park or a concert. “That's an interesting moment when you're thinking about getting the ticket, and a company can really use that to establish a relationship, and a design team can help the company think about how they use that touch point,” she says.
Or consider the case of one of the insurance companies with which frog is working. That company, like many others, discards the data of its past members, which frog views as a lost opportunity. McKinley likens the relationship to one between old college friends: “It's like that friend has completely forgotten about you. You are a brand new person to them,” she says. “If a company really wants to say, ‘Hey, I remember you,’ they have to make some changes in infrastructure and how they think about data so they can welcome you back.”
Mimi Jiang
Design Manager
Kohler sanitary product group
Atlantic Re:think:
Once you settle on a new product and you have an idea for something new, how do you bring that product to life?
Mimi Jiang:
Designers need to collaborate with engineers to make the design come to life, and the introduction of electronics into a design causes additional challenges. We must ensure the form seamlessly accommodates the technology: It is not compromised for function. The whole system has to work together. In the Veil Intelligent toilet we designed for Kohler, the result was a minimalist design, with clean, flowing lines that inconspicuously shrouds technology that enables us to offer an experience that surprises and delights our customers. It’s a great marriage of art and technology.
Atlantic Re:think:
What excites you about the future of design? What are the possibilities opened up by new technologies?
Mimi Jiang:
The most important point is that we want to give people something more when they use our product. Technology and technological tools will help us to design new products that can help us make people live better lives and solve more problems. We’re still focused on the whole experience for the consumer.
“We need to work closely with our engineers, because they help us bring a product to life. When we include a lot of electronic spots, we need to combine them all together.”
Rhodes mentions a sporting goods retailer that wants to become more than just a supplier of gear for its passionate customers. “One of the questions that we have is, ‘What are environments that are similar where people might go to get the expertise they need to improve as an athlete?’” he says, citing a doctor’s office or a classroom as possibilities. At that point, the question becomes: “How do those educational benefits get grafted into the environment that the client currently has so the customer knows the retailer now provides a different type of service?”
According to Rhodes, the answer often lies in subtle cues that guide and inform consumers. “When you look at a coffee mug and it has a handle, it’s obvious you can grab it,” he explains. “From a physical perspective, when we’re dealing with a product, we want to make it obvious how you should interact with it so there’s no guessing. That spills over to industrial environments. It spills over to retail environments. That type of thinking is ingrained in what we do.”
“When we model out a physical thing, or we start to understand how that experience should be shaped, and we’ve got this framework that seems to get all the important pieces together, you identify it because your heart starts racing, and you just get this moment of, ‘That’s it, it’s there!’”
Turi McKinley
Executive Director
frog, NYC
On the flip side is what Hoek calls “bad design form,” which can be an object or a space that looks overly stylized (or overly sterile) and fails to communicate what it is or how a user should approach it. “I really don't like that mystery,” Hoek sighs. “A product should show you what it is about. It should be designed for a human world. When that happens, when there’s some depth to it—and it can be in many forms, it can be in the shape of things, in materials, in how a button feels when you press it. Really small details that just make something delightful—when those things come together, that, to me, is great design.” ❖
