Gordon Ramsay – rapid user-centred design with swearing? 9 October, 2005

Watching Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares the other night I was struck by how he practices his own form of user-centred design. For anyone not familiar with the programme, top chef Gordon Ramsay has a week to try and turn around a failing restaurant whilst swearing … a lot.

On arrival the first thing Ramsay does is to evaluate the existing setup. He samples the food and the service and then goes behind the scenes to check the kitchen. Then it’s out into the field to investigate the competition and talk with people in the street and other restaurant goers. With customer data and a guerrilla competitor analysis Gordon produces a vision which unifies the customer experience and drives the transformation of the restaurant, all the time evaluating progress and making changes based on feedback.

Sound familiar? Gordon Ramsay is in the business of creating unique customer experiences and the best experiences need passion and just enough process to succeed (and maybe just the odd swear or two).

4 Responses to “Gordon Ramsay – rapid user-centred design with swearing?”

1. anonymous Says:
   October 11th, 2005 at 12:18 pm

   I like Gordon….he kicks ass..

   I wish i could tell people they are a right bunch of f**king cu*ts and they need to change the way they work when I am doing projects…

   Benj…

2. userhappiness Says:
   October 11th, 2005 at 5:06 pm

   He he. Yes, it’s an enviable position isn’t it.

3. anonymous Says:
   October 30th, 2005 at 11:32 pm

   I love Mr. Ramsay. I wish I had a boss like that. The amount you’d learn in a short amount of time.

4. userhappiness Says:
   November 5th, 2005 at 8:23 pm

   True. It would be great to apprentice to someone with such a range of experience and passion for the job, but I’m not sure how I’d handle my boss calling me a ‘f**king diseased bitch’ (grin).

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