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engage in a reflective conversation exploring the implications of each Cool Concept—and
with at least a rough idea of product direction such reflection is more worthwhile. So once
the Visioning Session has produced a set of clear product concepts the team can take time
to consider how to design in a cool user experience.
The Cool Drilldown guides designers through the implications of each Cool Concept
and its associated principles for their design. Each Cool Concept focuses on a different
aspect of life and implies different design principles—what should be designed in to best
produce a transformative experience. No one person or team can reasonably consider all
these dimensions simultaneously without getting overwhelmed and losing focus. So the
Cool Drilldown workshop focuses the team on one new product concept and one Cool
Concept at a time. The team works in small groups in parallel, so they can move very
quickly. Designers become more aware of the design principles for cool and produce en-
riched product concepts in a reasonable length of time.
In the Cool Drilldown workshop, the team starts by identifying the product concepts
they want to cover, usually about 4-6 concepts. Taking each product concept in turn, they
break into sub-teams. Each sub-team focuses on a different Cool Concept. Using the 8-10
design principles associated with each concept, individual sub-teams optimize the same
product concept according to the design principles associated with their Cool Concept.
TheyusethedataontheAffinityandContextualDesignmodelstofeedtheirmoredetailed
thinking with the actual customer data; then they brainstorm and sketch additions to the
product concept that will enhance the cool user experience based on principles for their
Cool Concept. This focused design process is another way of bridging from data to design,
using design principles important for creating a transformative user experience.
Each subteam does this same drilldown on a different Cool Concept in parallel. In this
way a single product concept is simultaneously enhanced to get the flow of life done bet-
ter (Accomplishment), make connections to people that matter easier (Connection), sup-
port identity elements explicitly (Identity), create delightful and useful graphics and anim-
ation (Sensation), provide more direct interaction (Direct/Hassle), and eliminate learning
as a task (Learning Delta). But now each subteam has developed ideas independently, so
the product concept is no longer coherent. So after the subteams do their work, all these
independent enhancements to the product concept are brought back together in a full team
review session and reconciled into a single, revised design concept incorporating the best
parts of all drilldowns. The result is a product design that addresses more of the Cool Con-
cepts and addresses them better, and therefore is more effective and desirable.
Each product concept is addressed in this way, resulting in a richer set of high-level
designs. Subteams shift from one Cool Concept to another as they optimize different
productconceptssotheygetfamiliarwithallofthem.Inthisway,theylearnhowtodesign
for cool without getting overwhelmed. At the end of the workshop the team has internal-
