If you were to design the ultimate product or service, howwould you measure its success? The most common answers would likely be along the lines of how much money it made, or how much time people spent using it.
But there’s another important metric that is often overlooked, and that’s the feeling your audience experiences from using your product.
I know, shifting the focus from something that benefits thecompany, to something that benefits the user, sounds like a bit of a radical strategy, but that’s exactly the mindset that today’s guest built his company on.
On today’s show I’m joined by Joe Hollier, an artist, turned designer and now co-founder of Light, a tech startup that produces the Light Phone, a minimalist device designed to foster digital disconnection. And it’s that artistic lens that makes today’s conversation so special.
For those unfamiliar with the Light Phone, it’s about the size of a credit-card and features an e-ink display. But, this isn’t just a smaller, lighter version of an iPhone or Android-device. Sure, it’s a phone that does phone things, like making calls and sending text messages, pairing with Bluetooth, becoming a hotspot when you need it – all that good stuff.
Plus, there’s some fundamental utilities, like a calculator, directions, music and an alarm clock. But it’s actually the purposeful absence of things that is the real story here.
Joe and I spoke at length about the motivation behind creating a product that was designed to be used intentionally, or as he puts it, ‘as little as possible’, and how the most valuable feature of the Light Phone, now on its second generation, was actually not on the device at all.
And that’s a theme that we kept returning to, value, and howinterrogating things in life that seem static, could actually lead to creative and value-filled opportunities. From the early days where Joe questioned the role of design and why it wasn’t given more importance when founding companies and conceptualising products, through to the development of the Light Phoneitself, questioning consumer behaviour and the role of technology in his own life.
We spoke about the importance of user privacy, the company’splans for the future, how they are tackling e-waste and sustainability, and why they, unlike many of their contemporaries, decided to shun planned obsolescence and instead embrace what I like to call, planned appreciation, by continuing to push out new features to the phone so many years after launch.
And we also got into the companies super creative marketingcampaign to try and recruit Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. But more on that a bit later.
This is a conversation for anyone who’s interested in re-thinking their relationship with technology, who’s curious about designingsolutions that are human-centric, or looking to re-gain more time in their day.
Because, in our hyper connected, always on world, where every app and service is vying for your attention, it can be difficult to seteffective boundaries that empower us to disconnect and get back to living life.
I hope today’s episode can help you start thinking aboutthose boundaries and reclaim more of your time.
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