Tiltool Erez Kikin-Gil | Interaction + Design

At the end of February 09, Microsot™s Business Division President Stephen Elop shared with the attendance of the Wharton Business Technology Conference Office™s labs vision of productivity. Elop™s signature motto was that it is essential for companies to invest in innovation especially during recession as it allows them to develop a competitive advantage that is essential to their survival, and evolution. My friend, Daniel Wigdor, referred me to immortal words of Lisa Simpson: look at the bright side dad, did you know that the Chinese use the same word for crisis as they do for opportunity? Yes , [Homer answers] Crisitunity!

Sure, crisis is a catalyst that forces change, and can be good. Unfortunately, change is a Darwinian mechanism that only benefits those that can overcome the harsh situation and evolve from it. Many of the companies that face this reality these days simply do not have the agility needed to do that. For example, General Motors lost 82 Billon dollars in the last three years, its market worth is only 1.34 Billion dollar. GM™s ability to survive the current rescission it is limited at best. It is admirable that Microsoft is heavily invested in efforts to map the future, even during these hard times. It is even more remarkable how these efforts are focused on real, viable future. If you see the end of Elop™s presentation, you would see him unveil the foundations on which these beautiful visions were founded on. it was all just a glimpse away. Watch Stephen Elop™s speech to see the underlying technologies and trends that will make this vision a reality [Start: 20:38] (Feb. 27, 2009)
Watch Future Vision: Montage (Feb. 27, 2009) (By office Labs)

Previous  posts on the Mobile Monday London group addressed the challenges that mobile operators face when they communicate  with their customers, and how the operators fail them. From the Posts it is  easy to notice how people addressed all the negative aspects to the mobile  provider, even when it wan not their responsibility.

Using  a mobile device often leads to attributing good values to the phone  manufacturer. But what happens if the use leads to bad experience? What if it  is difficult to hear well or something is wrong with the phone?

In  this case the blame would fall on the mobile operator. The reason for that is  that mobile operators usually connect their offering, the ability to talk from  almost anywhere, with the mobile device. Mobile  operators rarely enjoy the luxury of having their own tangible experience  connected to the main aspect of their offering. In rare cases, like in the  Vodafone simply, they can design a holistic user experience that can transcends  to the tangible experience and better relate to their users.

But  what if the company’s business is not in designing mobile devices?

What  if their business is all about intangible service? How  can they differentiate themselves then?

One  way they could take is to try and construct a successful relationship with  their customers.

By  designing a service that puts the focus on its emotional, as well as on its  functional aspects, companies would gain better brand recognition,  differentiation and loyalty.

Affective service, a service that addresses the customer’s emotional needs as well as the  functional needs, views both the customer and the company as elements of a  system which the product and the price are only parts of. Affective service  also addresses other touch points that customers interacts with, like the bill  statement or the sales rep, as points that impact the way that customers  perceive both the service itself and the company which provides that service.

Affective service encourages the creation of a relationship with the customer. As such it  aims, much like in real relationships, to sustain constant line of  communication between the different stakeholders of the system. This allows  early detection of friction points during the time the service is  provided, not only after customers decided to leave. This can be done by  creating touch points that periodically give companies feedback on the customer  satisfaction level, and give customers information about opportunities they  could benefit from.

Affective service looks at the way the needs of the stakeholders are met. Getting  paid for a service (company’s need) is a legitimate request. The way that it is  carried out can make or brake relationships.

Affective service offers the best service but also something more. Looking at the  functional side is important but it is not the only thing. Beyond functionality  comes the way that the service makes customers feel.

Affective service is proactive. It takes the initiative and offers customers real value  that extends beyond the product’s scope. Reward programs, like the one that  Mark Curtis wrote of, are one example for a proactive initiative that enforces  this relationship. As companies know more of their customers’ preferences they  could design these initiatives that meet different types of users.

Affective service looks at customers as beneficial members of the system. It involves  users in the service design and looks for ways that improves users’ interaction  and feelings about the service.

Designing  affective service is a challenge but also an opportunity to create a  meaningful relationship with their customers.   This relationship is something that companies can only benefit from and  customers are looking forward to.

For  professionals that work in this field, this can be an opportunity to think how affective service relate to their business and maybe even send their insights.

On 31st March 2006, Northumbria University hosted a half-day colloquium at The Sage Gateshead on issues around designing services. Check out the Podcasts from Tim Brown – IDEO (MP3, 16.9Mb), Chris Downs – Live|Work (MP3, 4.7Mb) and many others (link).

In Cultures of Repair, Innovation, Jan Chipchase takes the reader to Delhi, Ho Chi Minh and other emerging markets cities and brings insights from recent field studies of local repair cultures. Relaying on their ingenuity, Informal social networks and the abundances of phones, repairers can sell or fix phones at low prices. As Jan Chipchase points out, these informal repair services are driven by necessity, as customers simply cannot afford to go to official repair service but consider them as an essential tool for their business. The Boda-boda (border-to-border) driver that Jan Chipchase brings as an example for such a customer is another interesting case for innovation driven by necessity.  The Boda-boda is bicycle driven taxi in South Africa. In the 1960s, the Boda-boda originated from the need to transport people across the “no-man™s-land” between the border posts without the paperwork involved with using motor vehicles crossing the international border(link). It is estimated that more than 200,000 men in Uganda were working as Boda-boda drivers, in 2004. In many senses, computer applications may presents obstacles just like any no-man™s land. When people will attempt to complete tasks in an enjoyably way, they may encounter obstacles, distractions, misleading signs and dead ends. Some times, they may even find that some of their needs are not met at all. To overcome such barriers, people relay on their resourcefulness, their experience and on others to guide them through. Affordance, coined by James J. Gibson in 1966, refers to the property of an object that indicates how to interface with that object. By focusing on the Perceived Affordance, Donald Norman pointed out the people™s perspective in the interaction equation, making it a subjective model. It is important to look at people™s needs, desires, capabilities and constraints, as well as the properties that the object introduces. learning how people “ object relationship works and what are the flews in it, elevates the design scope and produces designs that is considers the context it is intended for. Exploring such relationships brings people closer to the design process, not only as research target but also as an active part in the design process. Using their experience, individuals understand at first hand the barriers they are facing and devise novel ways to overcome them. Emoticons are an example for such innovation driven by individual™s necessity. Emoticons are characters used on non-verbal communication to expend individuals™ expression capabilities, to define their social affiliation and express their uniqueness. Due to the lack of pitch, volume, and intonation of speech in non-verbal communication, emoticons are used to bridge that gap and extend the way people express themselves. As non-verbal communication became more popular in bulletin boards, e-mail, instant messaging, online chat, and Internet forums, the need for a solution such as the emoticons became apparent. The first emoticon appeared in 1979, when Kevin Mackenzie suggested the joke-marker -) on a message board. In 1982, Scott Fahlman suggested that “:-)” and “:-(” should express emotions.  Later on, many more symbols were added later on to this Paralanguage. :-] would express polite smile, XD expressed childish laugh and so on. Their popularity became evident to software companies that designed internet messaging software and internet forums.  Msn, AOL, Yahoo and other Instant messaging applications translated text based emoticons to graphical languages for some of the common symbols ( , …). Motivated by their will to please their users, these companies started offering additional expression means such as shared background control, expressing emotions through sound and additional features. Looking how individuals come up with innovative solutions is a common practice in participatory design (PD) methodologies. Originated in Scandinavia in 1960s, PD aimed to involve the end users in the design process. PD aim was to ensure that the product meets the user™s needs, desires and expectations. In PD workshops, individuals took part in an early stage of the design process, suggest ideas and identify problems. Tom Erickson of Apple Computer suggested in1994 four dimensions of participatory design:

1. Directness of interaction with the designers
2. Length of involvement in the design process
3. Scope of participation in the overall system being designed
4. Degree of control over the design decisions

These dimensions also indicate the PD limitations. Individuals that are external to the design process have limited influence on the design process and eventually the design result. Observing how individuals improve products at their own surroundings can generate insights based on users needs in their context. This is the work of design anthropologists such as Anne Kirah from Microsoft or Jan Chipchase from Nokia. Using their capabilities to observe how individuals use the products, improve them and encounter barriers should produce authentic feedback crucial to design. When the first Boda-boda driver designed his bicycles, he did not think about the design process. On his mind was the need for survival in the harsh environment. He overcame the barrier using a simple device and altering it enough so he could offer a new service. When people used textual symbols in a non-verbal communication they did it due to the absence of a solution in the application they where using. Learning from them allowed the enhancement of the existing communication applications.  Learning from users after the product launch there is as important design tool as learning about their needs in the initial stages of the design.

This blog is focused on service, experience, interaction and innovation design. It is maintained by Erez Kikin-Gil (erez [AT] tiltool.com), an experience designer.