Easy-to-process things feel truer, safer, and more appealing.
More quotesGo to the same conference as every competitor. Photograph the same stands. Return with a mood board called “fresh directions”.
This is apparently how categories innovate.
GM’s concept-car team did the more sensible thing and stopped looking only at cars. Toys, games and fashion could supply forms, interactions and attitudes that had not already been photocopied through the motor industry. Different inputs did not guarantee brilliance. They at least made difference possible.
The modern equivalents are painfully visible. B2B sites share the dark gradient, floating interface and promise to “supercharge” something. Banking apps inspect banking apps while games quietly become expert at teaching complicated systems one action at a time. Airlines benchmark airlines while hotels know far more about anticipation, welcome and recovery after disappointment.
Do not borrow the costume. Adding points and badges to expense software is not learning from games; it is dressing the photocopier for Halloween. Find the mechanism another field understands: progress, reassurance, waiting, ritual, clarity. Translate it for the new stakes.
If every reference comes from a direct rival, the output will be imitation with tidier typography. Leave the exhibition. The useful idea is probably enjoying itself somewhere your competitors considered irrelevant. Preferably before lunch.