Ferg's Blog » Design Research

Do you value the Olympic Games? How can the Olympic Games be designed better?

Fjbisset — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:07:35 +0000

The Youth Olympic Games is chiefly a celebration of the Olympic Values of Friendship, Respect and Excellence. In my new role as GB Youth Ambassador for the Games to held for the first time in Singapore this August, I’m really interested to know what you all think about the Olympics and what about it you personally do or do not value?

In chatting to some people in the design world recently I know that many people don’t see the relevance of the Olympics to them personally and admitted to not really understanding the relevance of Olympics to society at large. Do you share this feeling or does the Olympics mean a lot to you?

Really any answer or reflection short or long that you fancy giving would be incredibly welcome here, it will help me understand how best to support the Young Athletes I’ll be working with over the next few months explore their social and environmental responsibilities to you, as it will be you who they are representing at the Youth Olympic Games this summer.

As Young Ambassador for Great Britain what message would you like me to pass on to the British athletes and if you aren’t British what message would you like passed on to the Olympic community at large that might in turn influence how much you value the Olympic Games and its ideals? Let me know via the comments link below or via Twitter (@fergusbisset) – I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Interview with Dan Pink on Motivation

Fjbisset — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:38:04 +0000

As part of the ongoing promotion of his new book Drive, Dan Pink gives an interview discussing some of the underlying theories and principles which he has repackaged as a management book. I’m looking forward to reading the book which comes out here in the UK at the end of this month. Dan is also due to speak at the RSA in a couple of weeks time which again I’m very much looking forward to.

I think this publication is very exciting for those of us involved in motivation research and for forward thinking business managers at whom this book seems to be aimed. Based on both this interview and his Ted talk last year Dan seems to be leveraging, at least conceptually, Hullian Drive Theory which allows him utilise the straightforward metaphor and illustrate the important point that motivation is about energisation of human behaviour. This theory whilst hugely influential in the field of motivation and educational psychology is largely discredited now by the more recent interpretation that it does not fully accomdate explanation of Avoidance behaviour. To put more simply, Drive Theory does not explain risk taking or more intrinsic forms of pleasure seeking behaviour. For a discussion on Approach-Avoidance behaviour and freely downloadable research papers see http://www.psych.rochester.edu/research/apav/.

It’s nice though to see Pink make mention of Autonomy as a component of motivation and a factor which forms a big part of Deci and Ryan’s Self Determination Theory which I have been leveraging heavily in my own work on designing motivation. I feel that their Organismic theory of motivation is far more adaptable and useful as an explanation for motivation than Drive Theory mentioned above. The question of how designers can utilise an organismic theory of motivation is the subject of my recent chapter contributed to the This is Service Design Thinking publication. It’s perhaps apt that Self Determination Theory and Service Design Thinking share the same acronym as they are well placed to conceptualise and design for intrinsic, rather than extrinsic forms of motivation.

It’s nice to see the mention of a sports person as a metaphor for motivated behaviour and I would hope that this reoccurs throughout the book, as someone who has myself become so interested in motivation by approaching it (no pun intended ) from a sports psychology and elite performance background.

Davos 15km - P. Vordenberg - teamtoday.org

I agree ultimately with Pink’s sentiment that people generally need more feedback, annual reviews and even biannual reviews are not going to motivate employees in the best possible way. But I’m a bit confused then as towards the end of the above interview he is so quick to dismiss (or avoid) addressing the work on Anticipated Feedback (Bandura) as a motivator. The original research on this can be found here, but it basically suggests that anticipated social feedback (as a feed-forward mechanism) is a major primary motivator in individuals. Again, put more simply, this is the notion that if you can visualise a positive response to your work you are more likely to be motivated towards and successful in accomplishing it. This is also another reason why I think Service Design Thinking with its emphasis on visualising complexity to understand it and adapt it is so well placed to understand and promote motivation. I’d hoped that in the current era of social media and game changing, hierarchy busting, technology and given that he is speaking to a blogger for a video that is being posted on YouTube Pink might have addressed this more fully…

Either way I think this publication signals that 2010 will be the year that Motivation really hits the mainstream, similarly perhaps to how ‘Design Thinking’ hit the mainstream last year off the back of Brown and Martin’s publications. Much like with those two volumes though, one could imagine that the release of Pink’s book signals that there will be an increase in demand amongst senior management for creative and innovative practitioners who not only understand motivation but also who possess the tools to create and facilitate motivating systems, products and services.

What do you think? Do you think 2010 will be the year of motivation or are there other emerging trends and topics that trump motivation in the understanding and design for behavioural change?

(Thanks to @arnoldbeekes for the original link)

Modelling Motivation in the Design of Products, Systems and Services

Fjbisset — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:02:08 +0000

View more presentations from Fergus Bisset.

This is a fairly comprehensive presentation of the underlying philosophy and research behind my masters work in helping designers visualise and support motivation in the design of everyday products and services. I’ve obviously talked about the development of this work extensively on this blog so I’d like to take the chance to thank all of you who have visited and contributed comments and support – its helped me refine and adapt my ideas thus far and I really appreciate it!

I’m hoping to add an audio summary of the presentation at some point, but otherwise the presentation gives an overview of the foundations of my framework of motivation in design, the research behind it and then a few examples of products and services that have either been directed by this conceptualisation or whose success as ‘motivational platforms’ can be interpreted by using the framework.

People may also recognise a few of the case studies from the Nordic Service Design Conference – thanks to the presenters their for their explanations, this presentation also served as an opportunity for me to pass on what I’d learned and enjoyed from that conference to my colleagues at the HCDI at Brunel.

As ever comments and questions are gratefully appreciated and if you are interested in finding our more or understanding how this framework can be applied to your own design or service propositions then please get in touch.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy!

Theories of Planned Behaviour

Fjbisset — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:22:14 +0000

Thanks to Andy Polaine for sharing this tremendous insight in response to my post yesterday. It’s fair to say that those students studying Service Design at Luzern are in great hands.

In his comments he wrapped up a lot of the wider tensions within the Service Design community about the relationship between academia and practice that I know are hot topics of discussion at London events such as Service Design drinks and Service Design thinks at the moment, as well as clearly the Service Design Network Conference held this week.

Indeed, a lot of the background to this post and my own work is fuelled by an urge to bridge some of this tension – between theory and practice as Andy put it – this is synthesis in the truest sense of the word.

For anyone interested further background to these issues can be found here and here.

If I created a strawman yesterday in my discussion of what was said at the Service Design Conference then I apologise. I suppose the essence of what I was attempting to highlight was that despite any personal philosophical or pragmatic differences of opinion that might exist within the community, there appears to be two prevalent ways in which designers classify users. One is to see users as reactive i.e. responsive to extrinsic constraints and the other is to see them as proactive i.e. energised by internal ideas and ambitions (goal oriented).

The reality seems to be that we as humans fluctuate between these states probably faster than we’ll ever be able to measure or generalise accurately (its not going to stop me trying ) and thus we as Service Designers rely on the ethnographic approaches Andy mentions or laboratory based scientific experiments that are well documented in scientific journals to attempt to understand behaviour.

Whether designers are fully concious of the fact that they are making these judgements about users is another issue open to debate and discussion. Indeed, the oft cited definition of Design Research is “to make explicit what is otherwise implicit in the everyday practice of design.” Thus by raising this discussion, I was simply attempting to raise this question within the minds of us designers about how we implicitly view the user we are designing for? As I mention above the answer appears to be as either ‘passive’ or ‘active’ depending on circumstance, context or which particular part of the design or use phase we might be referring to.

Education systems are interesting service examples themselves in how they attempt to balance between encouraging creativity and intrinsically motivated behaviour whilst also controlling these processes with structured curriculum and routines. Indeed, any service we can think of will attempt to strike a balance between generating and controlling value (or creativity, or energy, or money) for all the stakeholders involved.

As Andy clarified in his comment on the last post, Birgit Mager was talking at the Service Design Network Conference about users behaviour being a function of Attitude and The Environment. On further research this would appear to also share perspective with that of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1988) which is also based on Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980).

This classifies user behaviour as a product of:

Attitude (Autonomy)
Social Pressure (Relatedness)
Perceived Behavioural Control (Competence)

What I’m interested in as part of my masters is how we can design systems and services that enhance user perception of these three inherent human psychological capabilities. Doing so successfully or even unsuccessfully will result in behavioural change, but doing so successfully and encouraging users to reflect on these capabilities will result in sustainable behavioural change (at least that’s the theory).

I’m incredibly fortunate that through this platform and as a result of contributions such as Andy’s I can also modify my own attitude and perceived competence as a result of being able to relate my work to you all.

Andy is right though we need to do more to work together and bridge the gaps between academia and professional practice. I don’t plan to stay in academia forever but whilst I’m still here I’d be interested to hear from you all… do you have any questions about Motivation? Is there something that you as a practitioner are working on and feel like you could use a bit of academic insight or research on? Please get in touch here, via twitter or through the comments link below.

User Needs are Outdated, We Should Be Designing User Goals…

Fjbisset — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:40:32 +0000

As I have reported elsewhere I have never truly been comfortable with the concept of User Needs, as a justification or hypothesis for why any designer should be designing something. I get really uncomfortable when otherwise perfectly valid design decisions get glossed with the immeasurable concept of “user need fulfilment”. I get annoyed when otherwise perfectly unjustified design decisions get accepted on account of ‘user need fulfilment’.

Greatest Goal II by Scottwills on Flickr (CC)

These concerns have come to the fore, with the news that Birgit Mager was citing a rough approximation of Kurt Lewin’s field theory http://3.ly/BfAE (thanks Dan for the clarification) in her Service Design Network Conference presentation. Her version of it (via @apolaine) apparently read something like:

“Birgit Mager: “B=(A:E) – behaviour is a function of attitude and environment” #sdnc09“

Whilst Andy warned against me taking this too seriously, I have number of concerns at such an idea being used as representative of a Service Design approach (at least as I perceive it). Simply, for the passivity and clinical (read robotic) view it offers of user motives and behaviour. I think my concerns were shared a little later by @iterations:

“@apolaine Don’t we know most of this stuff from Social Psychology? Any special twist of these ideas in relation to Service Design? #sdnc09“

Good question Ralf, particularly in light of the follow up summary of Birgit’s presentation, Service Designers can and should be digging a little deeper than this in their attempt to understand and influence user behaviour.

“Birgit Mager: “Service Design and Behavioral Change: 1. Understand the current behavior, the motives, gains and consequences.” #sdnc09 again via @apolaine

Put simply, these interpretations of Birgit’s presentation infer an incredibly passive view of the user and of user capabilities: That if we dangle a big enough carrot in front of users (the motives and gains) or hit them with a big enough stick (the consequences) we will be able to sustainably and successfully influence their behaviour.

Whilst I’m relying on a few tweets for my evidence and should probably exercise caution against dangerous oversimplification, Birgit does appear to express that the user has “an attitude” and the environment has influence on user behaviour, both statements with which I agree. My interpretation is that as Service Designers we should seek to understand a user’s current attitude and the experiences that have created their behaviour, before unlocking and empowering their experience and capabilities through co-design activities. This is, in my view the so-called ‘service-design twist’.

To quote Dorynei (2001):

“In current research the concept of a need has been replaced by the concept of a goal.” (p.25)

And further to quote Locke and Latham (1990).

“The more specific [that goal] the easier it is to monitor it.”

“The more challenging [that goal] the greater the satisfaction it presents.”

“The more personally relevant [that goal] the more engaged the user participation in fulfilling it.”

“The more attainable [the goal] the more sustained the human behaviour will be towards achieving it.”

This is not a new concept and I wouldn’t claim to be experienced in defining co-creative activity. But the concept of articulating user requirements through goal-oriented activity is more up to date than the idea of the environment being the primary influence on human behaviour – a world view which is 40-60 years old, depending on your interpretation. Interestingly, of a similar era to the concept of ‘user needs’ and Mr Maslow’s Hierarchy. The concept of goals and outcomes cropped up in an online discussion with @designthinkers this morning and helped spur me into sharing this post and some of my on going research into motivation:

@designthinkers: ”Being successful in life is being able to keep setting new goals for yourself, and enjoying the road trying to get there”

Service Design as an approach, is not 40-60 years old and in order to be successful as a profession itself, perhaps needs to continue to evolve the way it visualises and attempts to understand user behaviour and the processes that regulate it.

What do you think, is the environment the primary influence on human behaviour? Or is it a person’s attitude? Are these entities distinct?

As a designer which one would you prefer to focus on with the aim of creating sustainable behavioural change?

Designing Design Research and Generating Momentum

Fjbisset — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:50:19 +0000

There has been a fair bit of fallout and online conversation over the past week regarding both the future of Industrial Design and the future of Design Research. A lot of it can be found by searching the #drc09 or #idsa09 hashtags on Twitter. But Jon Kolko has written two articles over the past week that have got me thinking about where Design Research is headed and how my own current design research fits into that picture.

By my interpretation Jon is reckoning like many others that Design Research is becoming increasingly ‘comoditised’ and democratised. Outsourceable to other countries and to individuals who are not professional designers – as he says:

“Design Research doesn’t require any special training. We can learn to be better at it, but it’s simply the skill of listening and observing.”

Maybe, but I’m therefore left a bit confused by Jon’s conclusion which is that:

“What’s implicitly lurking in all of this discussion of design, synthesis, innovation, research, experience, and empathy is the momentum of design as it breaks out from the confines of business…The “designer in the boardroom” model may already be out of date. To quote Robert Fabricant, “our value is in the long-term conversation.””

I agree with this, but to me there is something missing – a clear distinction in who we are talking to? Jon’s insight, by his own admission, cheaply available, screams out for increased acknowledgement amongst designers of participatory methods and involving everyone in the design process, but he doesn’t by my interpretation, mention that. Yes he talks about the bigger picture view of design – so-called “design thinking”, and urges us to embrace understanding of ”culture, behaviour and society” but I get the sneaking suspicion that both he and Fabricant are still talking about a model of design research or practice where the designer is in the ascendancy – ‘ego-design’ where the designer plays a more traditional ‘passive observational’ role before going away and constructing his vision of the solution.

I don’t see a correlate between what he acknowledges as the changing landscape of design and what he proposes as the solution to help build momentum in the design process. Involving users in the design process, unleashing and directing their deep understanding of their environment is the first step to creating sustainable design. As @tamsina and @jamesamperi from @hereatengine have been saying, designers who want to unlock this potential have to be able to plan and visualise their research process to ensure effective synthesis. This view is also somewhat represented in an article on systems thinking by John Seddon (via @redjotter). The ability to visualise the process and system of design is key to involving non-experts in it. As Kolko says, non-experts are getting involved already, so surely to maintain relevance established designers need to ensure they are planning and visualising their design process effectively.

To this end and as I have posted previously, I have been exploring visualisation of participatory processes and the role of designers in employing the latent skills, experience and knowledge of all stakeholders within the design process. Thus, I was very excited to find this post on Rob Tannen’s “Design For Humans Blog” talking about ongoing work by Katherine Bennett that was presented at the IDSA 09 Conference a few weeks ago. In a bid to further explore Katherine’s work and to see how it integrates with my own work and recent thinking, I have reconstructed it here: I hasten to add that this is purely to further my own internalisation and understanding of her work and how it relates to mine, I hope you find it useful but I hasten to add all credit and any questions and suggestions should be directed to her here.

Designing Design Research by Katherine Bennett & how this relates to participatory processes

Whilst I think each designer or consultancy will have their own database of tools and methods I think an approach like this is incredibly valuable for designers being able to do what Kolko and others have been suggesting, which is to better structure their design research to ensure that it adapts to the changing demands of our time and empower users in the design of their products, systems and services.

Ferg's Blog » Design Research

Do you value the Olympic Games? How can the Olympic Games be designed better?

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Interview with Dan Pink on Motivation

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Modelling Motivation in the Design of Products, Systems and Services

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Theories of Planned Behaviour

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User Needs are Outdated, We Should Be Designing User Goals…

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Designing Design Research and Generating Momentum

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