Form Follows Function. Function Follows Flow
Or : why the old chestnut needs updating
Premise: Form follows function remains useful for a form-centric world. For a world that values experiences, the principle need extension to include a new, more relevant value parameter : flow
Here’s an example :
How would you go about designing a new marathon circuit ? ( replace this with your favourite experience : restaurant, travel, sport, etc.)
“Form follows function” forces you to determine functions in a somewhat arbitrary manner. After all, how do you de-construct a marathoner’s experience into complete yet discrete functions ?
Instead, consider Flow.
First : Graph the experience of running a marathon. Just the highs and lows. The best way to know this is to run one yourself. Or talk to a 6–8 of them and get them to plot it.
Here’s a track profile that’s a good start point for the experience graph
This is the flow.
Breaks in flow needs support — medical assistance, water, encouragement and so on. These are moments of helplessness and opportunities to design.
Find moments of helplessness on the journey .
Where is it tricky ? Where does the rhythm break ? Where will they be when the sun is at its highest ? Your experience and interviews will guide you. You’ll find dysfunction parameters in these moments : dehydration, physical exhaustion, physical injury, need for performance feedback
These give you the function. Quite literally, function ( dehydration) = refreshment, function ( physical exhaustion ) = encouragement, function ( physical injury ) = medical assistance, function ( performance feedback ) = biometrics. Each function is a value parameter.
Function ( dysfunction parameter ) = Value Parameter
Finally design the form for each function or value parameter. In mechanistic terms, this is the clock face (the form ) to the clock mechanism ( the function )— should refreshment be static or moving, should encouragement be anonymous or with family, should medical assistance be point or pace the runners ?
Forms are embodied value parameters
The depth of the moment give you a clue to the right form. Deep moments might need you to rethink the entire journey — the larger form — if a particular part of the run is causing a large number of injuries, expect to redesign the route. Shallow moments may only need a feature — if the initial burst leaves many people shoved out, the route may have a wide start and then narrow later, or have pole positions based on ranking as naive examples.
A simpler way to think of forms is in terms of touchpoints. Touchpoints may be physical forms, but could also be digital forms, humans or even policies.
Touchpoint = Form + Function
Finally, evaluate the experience against the flow. Do all the forms and functions ( i.e. touchpoints ) add to the flow ? If they take away from it, some function or form was misunderstood. Try again. I’ve simplified the process of arriving at the right forms, of course. A good form needs to qualify compared to other forms in the market as well as differentiate from them ( how to, here). This does not get done without your belief systems getting into the mix. But the general idea is simple —
Use flow as the red thread you hang your forms on.
Nicely, most people have no problem recognising when an experience has flow, or when the flow feels “broken”. They can even tell you where its broken, but not why. Just watch them at these moments. You can sense dis-ease. You have to figure out the dysfunction parameter and the appropriate value parameter moment by moment.
But, that why we signed up to be designers didn’t we ?
