Exponential Design Weight

Exponential Design Weight (EDW) is a design term and theory, for defining the knowledge and attention required as the product is shaped through each production phase. It was first coined and defined by designer and author Jacob Lindborg in the book Design is Not a Matter of Taste, It's a Business. EDW is an algorithm for measuring the knowledge and attention exponentially needed in modern design productions.
Theory
When designers are defining poetic stories, they need to be able to break it into a methodology for creating the foundation, supporting their vision. When their vision is passing through story, function, journey and experience, the vision is gaining weight through each of these achievements. This weight is an analogy for the increasing advanced attention and knowledge, that the product design requires. As the story, the product heart, is evolving into the basic skeleton and the journey is adding muscles, this structure must be able to hold and support the final layer of skin, when the experience is added. The algorithm in this process, should assume that each achievement will double in weight, thus requiring more knowledge and attention by each achievement. As there are four basic achievements, the story will multiply eight times in weight, as the methodology of design is finalizing the product. Most products fail to hit its deadline and resource allocation, simply because there hasn't been allocated enough knowledge and attention by each achievement, and that each achievement is not accounting for the increasing weight added by the next. This often leads to products over due or collapsing under its own weight. The final achievement alone, the experience, will be responsible for 50% of the total weight throughout the project.
The exponential design weight algorithm (EDW) is also the basis for the structured achievement order of story, function, journey and experience, as each achievement is both supporting and accounting for the next. By going through this specific order, the product will be able to support and deliver as a project, by designing the product from the core, following the user through each achievement, increasingly adding knowledge and attention. Each layer added, can be calculated and tailored as the product is gaining structure and validation from the inside out.
The work of the design team, the time spend on research, applying knowledge and prototyping; is defined as design weight, summarized as an index number. This number will define the amount of weight on each achievement, as the next will double that number. Imagine the weight of an elephant, growing from an infant story into a mature and adult elephant experience.
As each achievement continuously double the index, the last achievement will be the heaviest and the achievement where most amount of senior knowledge, attention and resources should be allocated. This is often not the case, when the final achievement is rushed through product creation, crippling the product, as the weight isn't capable of supporting the vision in the end. When this happens, reinforcements are added to the structure to make it stand, destroying the poetic beauty when compromises must be made. The outer experience layer is falling apart, as the structure must be remolded, unable to withhold the experience, which was created for a different structure. The story at the core of the product, is now unable to express its vision, as the experience layer is destroyed, the layer responsible for communicating and resonating with the customer.
Creating the story, the idea, is an easy design weight to lift, as the complexity is on a theoretical level. But when you reach the experience, after going through function and journey, the weight will be eight times heavier, meaning that the required knowledge and attention, in contrast to the story, will be eight times more demanding and critical. When the product is reaching the final achievement, the experience has to bond with the user in an emotional relation. This achievement is not an easy task, as the complexity and required design skills are exponentially high, when story has to be expressed in artistry, through journey and function. If the journey and function achievements hasn't accounted for the complex experience achievement, the project will fall apart.
In short, if it required above average intelligence to deliver the story, it will require exceptionally gifted intelligence to deliver the final product. As the story becomes more complex, so will the required and exponential knowledge, to achieve the product.
In many companies, creative thinking is perceived as the highest intelligence in the company, where functionality is just a task to be done. This misdirected perception and the neglecting of design weight, is what hinders product design in achieving its maximum potential, as the vision can’t be created and expressed by people unable to understand the visionary.

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