Back in October, I thought I was done for the year as far as attending conferences goes. But, when I saw the lineup for Gigaom’s Roadmap, I just had to attend. The conference certainly didn’t disappoint. 

The focus was on the intersection of design and experience. There were lots of Designers-as-Founders and discussions about rethinking verticals from top to bottom. 

Software and hardware, too. And by ‘hardware’, I mean everything from wearable computers to electric cars. 

Atoms to electrons.

Here are few nuggets of wisdom that stood out for me:

Robert Brunner from Ammunition described how technologists like us are now in the fashion business. Fashion is both substantive and superficial. What you wear is what you aspire to be and references your tribe. That very much applies to wearable computing. (I dislike that term, by the way. It sounds so old-school). 

Jack Dorsey talked about how Square built the product for themselves, not merchants. They didn’t want to wait in line at boutique vendors like Blue Bottle Coffee. Square wanted to build a seamless stack; but also focused on the tiniest of details, like a receipt, which he described as a “communication channel” and an artifact from that transaction.

The company also has a unique and transparent culture where all meeting notes and minutes (including board meetings) are broadcast internally so that everyone knows what’s happening at any time.

Tony Fadell from Nest gave an incredibly insightful talk on choosing to go really deep within a vertical (home thermostats and fire alarms) and rethinking an experience from top to bottom. He described some of the challenges inherent in getting VC funding for physical products because you generally need a physical thing to show off how it acts and feels. And unlike prototyping software, that simply takes a lot longer and is much more complex.

The success of physical products hinges on processes, manufacturing, and supply chain stuff.; not just getting eyeballs.

With all the buzz around the Internet of Things, Fadell described how not only is it costly to house and maintain all the data, but that sometimes just because you can connect stuff, doesn’t mean you should. The end user’s experience should dictate what data is accessible, where, and for how long.

Balancing the relationship between utility and emotions is also key for home products such as Nest’s. Creating those magical moments, from the time a user starts using a product, to some point down the road (e.g., Lower heating or cooling bills) is also critical.

Value. Early and often. Check.

Carl Ledbetter, the Principal Industrial Designer for Xbox One gave an interesting talk about how their goal was to make this next-gen console feel like a welcomed member in the family living room.

They saw lots of opportunity with voice-enabled controls in addressing simple things like a television’s programs menu - which basically hasn’t changed since the 1970’s! (And yup, my Xbox One Day One Edition has finally arrived!)

Jonah Jones and Bernhard Seefeld discussed some of the possibilities for Google Maps moving forward. They talked about how the physical world is their biggest competitor in that business locations change quite often, etc.

What’s to come in the world of interactive maps is really exciting. We’re now seeing a tipping point where a map is a canvas for much deeper personal experiences. Location is simply the query and the context.

Those possibilities around context and knowing things like when you have dinner reservations for 4 people at particular location are also tremendous.

And looking back at how cartographers used to to tell a story with their maps about a particular area is also inspiring. Folklore, history, regional quirks, etc. (See Edward Tufte. Please.) Funny how we sometimes need to look back to truly move ahead.

Kevin Systrom from Instagram talked photos. Photos as messages, that is. It’s all about friction-less communication, which Instagram pretty much nailed. The rest is history.

The use of data will be key for them moving forward. For example, knowing when a bunch of photos are coming from a particular location. Maybe there’s a major event happening, etc. Layering meta data onto that could be really powerful. As is proximity. As he put it, ‘you don’t have to be the First Person Shooter in order to be a part of the story.’

On the future of mobile products, his take was that it was all about apps as utilities with a narrow focus. He also described how bland decisions create bland products. You need a point of view. Word. 

Gentry Underwood from Mailbox was one of my favorite speakers. (Love the iOS apps, BTW!) Hearing about the evolution of the product was really interesting in terms of how they originally intended to start with a productivity app, but quickly realized there was a huge elephant in the room: ELECTRONIC MAIL. (Think about how often you email yourself reminders. Yup, exactly.) So, they decidthat paradigm by embracing it and ended up killing off their first product.

“When you want to make something better, it also has to be familiar.”

They began looking at how much time people spend ‘housekeeping’ in terms of putting emails into folders and organizing content to make better sense of their virtual worlds. Then, 

The evolution of how people interact with touch devices was also discussed. Gentry described how people are much more comfortable "in glass" these days, given the evolution - gesture-wise, the use of skeuomorphism, etc. - over the years.

The mobile era is also clearly in a multi-screen environment where we expect continuity across devices.

Being a car guy and all, Tesla Motors’ Chief Designer, Franz von Holzhausen, was a great interview. He discussed how design was a huge part of their vertical integration. Even the smallest of things mattered. For example, rethinking the door handles - if you haven't seen them, they pop-out when you reach for them - was an initial and memorable touchpoint.  

They also made the onboard screen much larger and the affordances bigger. Removing lots of knobs and switches also means a car ages more gracefully and doesn’t look totally out of date when the next models roll out.

They also prototype and get stuff into driver’s hands often. As a matter of fact, they have a charging station in front of the design studio where they observe!

And I’ve been a big fan of Behance and 99U for some time now, so it was great to see Scott Belsky. He described how Adobe is slowly moving into the creative services end of things. Experience is also leading the way there (i.e., “You don’t need 100 Photoshop filters when you’re moving from screen to screen.”)

Interestingly enough, at Behance, they basically removed the Product Manager role to make sure that it was more design-driven and to enhance communication within teams.

Product leaders that are design-driven are in it for the long haul - short vs. long-term greed :)

That tied-in nicely to the spirit of the conference overall.

Thanks for reading.

Marc