oneux | designing experiences

meet customer needs to get ahead of the pack

 
A blog entry in HBR today outlines three questions companies need to ask themselves to see if they are heading the right direction, that towards the head of the pack. Unsurprisingly question no 1 is: '

• Would you say your company is becoming more effective at meeting customer needs?'

It is not 'is your company effective at selling more?', or even 'is your company effective at telling your customers what they want?'. It is increasingly becoming clear, even to the MBAs, that the key success differentiator is whether companies a)understand their customers' needs and b) find innovative ways to fulfil those needs. Questions 2 and 3 continue on the themes of innovation and collaboration. They read:

• Has your company recently implemented a significant innovation campaign or launched numerous small-scale innovation pilots?
• Is your company becoming more collaborative with outside firms? 

Both these two last questions point to a kind of business that is outward looking, confident, and one that places the creation of value for its customers at the core of its strategy.

becoming more empathetic

I have before blogged about the need for  empathy when researching people's need. Here is an interesting post on five ways that will help you expand your empathy. The post comes from an interesting yet not unlikely place: the School of Life.  Here is the list:

1. Cultivate curiosity about strangers
2. Learn from your experiences
3. Tackle your family empathy deficit
4. Take an imaginative journey
5. Challenge your prejudices

needs first, technology last

I have just finished reading Donald Norman’s article ‘Technology First, needs Last’. The premise of his essay is that design research is useless when it comes to ‘revolutionary innovation’ while it can be useful when applying incremental improvements to existing products. It also helps, wait for this,  to make products ‘ever more attractive [!!!]’.

I could complain that Norman’s argument reduces design research to a superficial, cosmetic element of the innovation process, but I won’t. Instead I’d argue that his essay really lends to the argument that design research and especially design thinking is absolutely crucial, if not critical to designing in our time.

Norman’s essay focuses on products and how technological innovation can make them possible. He argues that technological revolution, i.e. the invention of new product categories has never been the result of a ‘detailed consideration of human needs’. To support his argument he lists a range of products invented in the last century. These range from the airplane to the cellphone, or mobile phone for us Europeans.

He must be right, but then so what? Is it not the case that products are dead? Is it not true that we are shifting our attention from product development to service development? If this is the case – and it is – then technology cannot in itself and by itself solve the challenges we are facing. As Tim Brown puts it ‘a purely technocentric view of innovation is less sustainable now than ever’. Services are centred on people’s needs, not technology.

Of course the technology needs to be there but can we really depend on the technologists to come up with the right invention before we start tackling both minor every day and major global challenges? Is it not also possible that design research can unearth needs that will help change the application of existing technologies? If this is possible, then can we really call these improvements ‘incremental’? Creating a new category of products as part of a service ecosystem, is design revolution no matter if the products are based on existing technologies.

In a service economy needs come first and technology second, well no, actually technology comes third, after needs and service innovation. Technology enables innovation it does not drive it. I would however agree with Donald Norman that we better leave technological inventions to lone inventors, but then again are they ever lone?

Designing for the extremes

There seems to be an increase in products designed specifically for the elderly (IHT Sept 7th).  Apparently populations are aging and the elderly (what does that mean exactly?) have more cash to spend so designers and manufacturers are after a slice of the grey dollar, pound, yen, or euro. Ok, this is good, though the motive: make more and more money, is not what I would have wished. In the IHT article experts talk about how firms want to ‘know how to adapt their products’ and that there is a clear need to create ‘senior-friendly’ products. This is where I get confused.

Can you really adapt a product designed for one type of user to suit the needs of a different user? As Alan Cooper said many years ago, sand a chair as much as you like, it will never turn into a table.  Rather than try to adapt a product why not do the unthinkable and start by looking at people’s needs, motivations, and experiences and let this insight drive the design?

Which leads me to the second point: ‘senior- friendly products’? What the …  does that mean? Does it mean creating products based on a designer’s assumptions of ‘elderly’ people’s needs, which will certainly result in a product patronising its users? Products for the elderly do not need to be targeted to the ‘elderly’ or look like they are made for them. OXO and Smart Design are making beautiful objects that anyone would like though they can be based on the needs of a specific user group.

My final point is that grouping users by age may work for marketers but not for designers, grouping users by needs, abilities, motivations, etc, that makes sense

user observations. challenge #6: observation not appropriate

There are times when while you are all prepared to meet users and gain great insight, you realise that the situation forbids you from any useful observation. There can be a number of reasons for that:

• No space for observation. Here I mean physical space and you can read more on this in a previous post.
• Participant not properly briefed . It is true that sometimes, for whatever reason, participants have not been properly communicated the purpose and format of the  session. As a result you are faced with a situation where you simply cannot observe.
• Atypical behaviour. This is an interesting one. You may come across users that represent extreme cases of the subject matter you are researching. This is absolutely fine if you are looking at extreme cases - this sometimes can be extremely useful  -

Despair not. While you may need to abandon any hopes of observation, you can still use the time available for an unstructured and flexible interview. During a project in Europe, I came across a participant who invited us to meet him in town and brought some of his friends along. While the situation did not facilitate meaningful observation we used it as an opportunity to conduct an extended couch session. There is no need to tell participants that you need to adapt your approach, at best they will feel bad and at worse, offended.

So, some ideas:

• Adapt your approach
• Small talk helps
• Flexible  interviewing. Not standardised
• Allow participants to join in time outs

user observations. challenge #5: Sesions in an other language

I know I know... one of  the key principles of ethnography is that the ethnographer speaks the language of the people he is observing and does not use translators, ideally yes. However, when you do research across locations you need to ensure a) continuity and b) consistency on the method and approach, which more than not means that a researcher is present in all locations, even though he may not run all the sessions.

In my experience I was responsible for the research approach and results across multiple locations across countries and languages. Not being a polyglot, meant that I had to rely on local facilitators to extract knowledge. What is important here is that I worked with researchers not mere translators. My role was to ensure continuity and consistency and guide/help the local facilitator, not run the sessions.

Not knowing the language freed me to observe different things to the locall facilitator and regular time outs allowed us to compare notes and ensure we are on track. While not speaking the language I was still able to tell if the local facilitator was following the approach. For example, if the facilitator talks more than the participant, then you know that is something is not right. 

Anyway, one of the side effects of being present in sessions that were conducted in a language other than English, was that some participants were keen to talk in English. here are tips on how to deal with this:

Participant not fluent in English

• Thank them
• Encourage them to speak in local language
• Local facilitator has language skills
• It is ok to ask a question in English and have the participant reply in local language

Participant  fluent in English

• Do not force local language on them, it may insult them
• Ask them to use local terms where they need
• Do not pretend you understand everything they say
• Ask for clarification if necessary
• Local facilitator is there to help

user observations. challenge #4: Group discussions

Sometimes it is useful to conduct couch sessions and the end of the observation. These usually take the form of informal chats  around the coffee table with the participants and a few friends or family. Couch sessions help clarify observations and give you the chance to talk to others apart from the participant. Keep it informal and allow all to discuss new issues or go back to issues that have been raised during the observations.

Some guidelines:

• Couch sessions help clarify observations
• Chance to talk to friends and family
• They allow participants to raise new issues
• They support flexible interviewing
• Bug lists are participants’ favourite subject
• Do not invite more than 3-4 participants
• Incentivise main participant
  
• Clarify purpose of visit
  
• Be clear about offering food, drinks etc.

user observations. challenge #3: Too many observers

or 3 is a crowd as it is otherwise known. In a typical observation scenario there would probably be a team of two doing the research; that would be the lead researcher and possibly either a local facilitator, in international research, or one observer. However, there will be times when the end client, the people who commission and pay for the research, would like to send representatives to some of the sessions. While I would definitely advocate inviting clients to visits, always be aware that not all participants live in spacious houses or flats. I have been to a session where three of us were struggling to share the space with the participant and her baby son.  We overcrowded the flat making observation close to impossible, it could have been worse, we could have made the participant feel uncomfortable and completely waste a session. In that instance we abandoned the idea of oservation and opted to a converstaion round the kitchen table enjoying a nice drink.

So,

• Always confirm with participants before visiting
• Be aware that participants may feel uncomfortable

user observations. challenge #2: Observers that like to talk

I would highly recommend inviting clients around to the sessions. It is a great way to to get buy in on the process and create advocates of UCD. However, this is not without its challenges. Some clients would see the sessions as an opportunity to get as much information as they can from the user, after all it is not that often that they get to spend time with some of their customers. They will jump straight in there with a barrage of questions eager to get the users' response. However, the questions are more likely to be leading and out of context. It is important they do not take over the session. as you probably gathered this is your responsibility. Provide clear written instructions before the sessions. Send them an email with a list of Dos and Don'ts. It may sound quite strict and officious but it will help set expectations and it will make ot easier fr you to intervene during the session if necessary. Make sure they know that only one person, the facilitator asks questions and all questions need to be cleared with him/her. Observers can make a list of questions during the session and pass them on to the facilitator during a time out. That way everyone can focus on the session and the client gets the chance to have some questions asked. whatever you do , do not let the client take over, it may feel that you are doing them a favour but you could potentially harming the research.

So,

• Only one facilitator asks questions
• All questions ‘cleared’ by main facilitator
• Provide instructions list prior to fieldwork
• Use Time Outs as a way for the client to get some questions to the facilitator

intel is looking into the future

As reported in September's Icon issue, Intel is working with the Design Interaction course at the Royal College of Arts and Goldsmiths Interactive Research Studio to imagine the future of consumer electronics.

What is interesting is that a company like Intel is paying for research which focuses on insight than new product development. As Anthony Dunne,  of Dunne & Raby, says: 'You don't know how something you're doing can have a commercial or technological outcome. But the assumption is that [Intel] will find something of value...'.  From my experience you invariably do find considerable value as design research is as much about  about understanding human behaviour as it is about developing new products and services. Genevieve Bell, of Intel, goes a bit further than that arguing that 'design can be at its most useful not in its ability to create physical objects as such but in its ability to redirect our thinking'.

connecting the dots

It is really painful to see your clients developing and trialing different services and failing to see that independently they cancel some of each others' benefits while combining the services and streamlining them will successfully meet their customers' needs. It is not that they do not want, after all, user-centred services will increase revenue and keep their bosses and stockholders happy. It is more because different design teams work more or less in isolation with different  project objectives. As an external agency working on a number of projects for a single client you are in a position to first discover customer needs and then identify what elements of each service can be combined to produce what the client is actually looking for: improve the customer experiences and on their way increase their profits. This is another argument for designing the full service across touchpoints than looking at isolated instances and missing the overall service experience.