20091130NordicSDC_dinner_34, originally uploaded by Nina Lysbakken.
Thanks to Nina Lysbakken for this picture taken during the presentation from team from Livework Oslo talking about the results of the Service Design Challenge. This was a great co-created dinner, during what was a fantastic conference – more to come on all of it later, just as soon as I get a chance! 
Jason Cooper (@jasecoop) fired out some quick Twitter research this afternoon inquiring after people’s perceptions of the self-service checkout machines we are increasingly faced with at supermarkets these days. These have been in the press this week as Tesco announced that it is to open it’s first ‘automated’ store in Northampton.
I have been meaning to write about these for awhile, so thanks Jase for pushing me in that direction.
M&S Self Service Checkout from jaygooby on Flickr
These machines as most of us will doubtless testify are incredibly frustrating. Not once have I ever used one without the human operator having to be summoned to remedy some sensor malfunction or barcode scanning problem. Yet, every time I see one available, even if simultaneously offered the option of a human operator I seem inexplicably drawn to the automatic machine and it’s purgatorial system processes.
Apart from a potential underlying masochistic streak, the only logical explanation I can find is that it is the perception that it will save me time (efficiency) that drives me to persist with these things. Doubtless this is the win for Tesco too. Yet, no sooner have I pressed it’s big green greasy start button and started scanning than it fails to register me place one of my items in the ‘bagging area’. This usually results in a near instant increase in blood pressure and me swearing blind I’ll never use one again.
Indeed, it is always an issue with the ‘bagging area’ on these machines – with either the sensor not registering that you have placed the item there after scanning it or the sensor detecting that somehow there is “an unidentified item in the bagging area.” In either eventuality it stalls and requires someone to come and prod your shopping or swipe their golden keycard until it is satisfied again. Urghh – even thinking about it makes me tense. No wonder that some of the responses that Jason’s questions were generating this afternoon on these machines were strong in their tone.
From a motivational design perspective however, these machines should really be a hands down winner, as I discussed here and again yesterday. The literature would suggest that anything that promotes our autonomy – our ability to do our shopping ourself, should be a strong motivational tool. The fact that at least until this week in Northampton, customers had a choice between machine and human was also a strong piece of motivational design as it offered otherwise inclined service users the chance to further their relatedness (social) goals for the shopping experience. If they preferred to have someone scan their shopping for them instead of scan their own shopping autonomously.
As I perceive it where these ‘self-service’ checkouts fall down at the moment is in how they fail to fulfil our competence needs. Every time the sensor fails or the barcode is dirty or scratched, we can’t help but take it personally. The machine and it’s support processes make us feel incompetent. Not so much the fact it doesn’t work, as Eddie Izzard highlights brilliantly that has always been a integral part of supermarket shopping.
No, its the fact that in the majority of these ‘problem’ situations we require some other (usually slouching and disinterested) bod to come and fix it for us that these machines leave us feeling so drained and bitter. Further, it is the fact that they usually have to do this three or four times in one transaction that makes us want to burn effigies of the things. And yet next time round, and for me at least, the allure of autonomously being able to scan my own shopping is enough to suck me back into it’s beeping, monotone voiced vortex.
How could all this be made better then? Well, I’m quite keen to open that question up to you…I also kind of think that this is what Jase is away working on right now…
But, first things first Tesco could sort that ‘bagging area’ sensor out, either by eliminating it completely and demonstrating a bit more trust that users aren’t going to scan one item whilst sneaking others into their bags – surely that sort of behaviour is far more effectively prevented by the humans in Tesco’s employ. Indeed the more I reflect on it, this really seems like a engineering function (feedback process) that looked great on the system flowchart and in the product presentation pitch but that simply is not up to the demands of real world, non-expert operation. Probably as a result of a complete and utter lack of real world testing prior to installation, and the fact that the product development process clearly doesn’t accommodate an iterative design process or user feedback even now the product is in operation.
Most of all, and the biggest design issue from a Motivational Design point of view, is the fact that when this flawed functionality inevitably fails, the staff should look us in the eye and explain to us why the machine is having this problem as they solve it for us. Such increased transparency (or supported user skill and knowledge acquisition) will empower users to at least feel like they understand the technology a bit better. Such understanding or ‘mental model’ will help users in the event of a problem feel superior and more capable than the machine. Such an enhanced perception of capability will help restore a little of the behavioural equilibrium within the human-product interaction and ensure that we are just as motivated next time we visit to use the self-service systems. This is indeed, the paradox of automation – the more automated a process the more we rely on non-automated components of the system. Its also why all the unions, consumers groups and sensationalist press should stop their moaning about the so-called “death of the supermarket operator”.
In summary, if Tesco plan to introduce these machines nationwide, they will have to take a more holistic view of the service these machines are supposed to provide as well as realising the fundamental role that their human staff play in ensuring a smooth and seamless consumer experience.
What do you think? How would you redesign these machines to motivate more people to use them?
Enjoying autumn in Scotland this past weekend.
In the past couple of days I’ve come across a couple of valuable articles on Participatory processes and how best to visualise them. The first is from the excellent Museum 2.0 blog, which I’ve followed for a while as a source of theory and inspiration for the day job. Nina Simon’s article, in turn inspired by this document, explore the various ways in which you can incorporate users in public engagement with science. In another post I’ll explain which of these methods we used on the Ergonomics Real Design project, but I think these are of value to designers and public engagement specialists alike in evaluating how best to integrate participatory design into your engagement or design process.
Participatory Processes ((c) Nina Simon from the Museum 2.0 Blog)
Today I also uncovered another typically brilliant paper from DDO detailing the role that Cybernetics (described as the science of feedback) and systems theory can play in helping designers design sustainable products and services. Some of the article seemed similar to work that the likes of Birgit Mager, Stefan Moritz and Ezio Manzini have contributed long since to the Service Design Community but I think this article also serves as useful introduction to or simplification of Cybernetics and the value of reciprocity in the design of systems and services. If you haven’t checked out the others you should, particularly Stefan’s dissertation. This paper by renowned Cybernetician Klaus Krippendorf was also one of that encouraged me to pursue my Masters studies in Intrinsically Motivating Design.
Taken together these articles are brilliant in asking us to reflect on why Participatory Processes are valuable? Something that many of us know and feel as designers, but something that we often can’t justify or articulate. Having witnessed a few examples of this inarticulable, unsystematic ego-design this week – not least in watching the BBC’s Design for Life series with Philip Starck – I feel it appropriate to reiterate my own personal enthusiasm for a more systematic and empowering way of visualising and articulating design thinking. I’m as giddy as anyone when I see something, product or otherwise that is aesthetically out of this world or that contains an inordinate amount of technology or machined aluminium – I just think that we need to find a more sustainable way to focus our energies as designers. This in turn will result in more sustainable and empowered behaviour of those that interact with the products and services we design.
The Dubberly article is thus to me valuable in how it visualises the reciprocity of participatory processes. Their classification of this seemed to overlap a little with that of Nina Simon’s more theoretical but equally valuable insight.
The idea of reciprocity in both human effort and reward, and how this relates to the wider product or service eco-systems we interact with, is integral to my Masters work on Motivational Design. It’s also instrumental in ensuring effective public engagement with science. I’ve thus attempted to visualise the various collaborative processes detailed in both the previously cited articles. These, like the Motivational Design Personas I put up at the weekend, are still very much in draft so any feedback on these would be gratefully received. The basic premise is – the more balanced and symmetrical the image and correspondingly the transfer of information between left and right, the more sustainable the process.
The red lines indicate an internalised process (i.e an internal thought process), the dotted blue line indicates an observed (implicit) process, the think blue line indicates an articulated (explicit) process. [Does this need greater clarification? - If this doesn't make much sense let me know and check out the Dubberly article first as a primer.]
Observation (cc Fergus Bisset)
Observed Comparison (cc Fergus Bisset)
Conversation (cc Fergus Bisset)
Contribution (cc Fergus Bisset)
Collaboration (cc Fergus Bisset)
Cooperation (cc Fergus Bisset)
Co-Option (cc Fergus Bisset)
Thanks to DDO and Nina Simon for the inspiration.
As you might have noticed, over the past few days I’ve tried to do something a bit different with the blog. It’s something that I’ve had in mind for a while, probably since I first started using Friendfeed. Basically now everything I share in my Friendfeed (which includes my shared Google Reader Feed, My Delicious and Flickr) gets aggregated for the day in my blog, so everytime you visit the blog you get an overview of what I’ve been sharing and any comment I have on that.
I’m going to try and comment on most things that I share, both as a better filter of what I’m sharing, but also as it’ll form a record of my thoughts that accompanied me reading the article.
I hope you will find this valuable – of course if you are on Twitter you can just follow me there to receive my shared links in real time. This is also not going to stop me writing longer blog posts, but it kind of feels like a nice compromise between the instantaneousness and abbreviation of Twitter in real time and the ‘permanence’ and reflectivity of a blog post.
There are still a few kinks to be ironed out, such as how many of my shared links to post to the blog each day, apostrophes and how to integrate it with my RSS Feed. But I’d really like feedback from you as to whether or not this is valuable, how long or detailed the posts should be or whatever you want to say really… Drop a line in the comments box at the bottom of this post, or by clicking here. If you’ve got a webcam you could even click the ‘use media’ tab – honestly it’s the future!!
I’d really appreciate it and am looking forward to sharing with you…
For me one of the stand out presentations at the Experience Service Design Conference in Kuopio Finland I attended last week, was that by Renato Troncon from Laboratorio di Aesthetics in Practice and Community Design. Renato, a philospher by background stated his belief that:
“Philosophy is augmented by design, design is augmented by philosophy”
What this means can perhaps be better understood by Renato’s note that,
“Philosophy is concerned with meaning…to be descriptive is not enough…you have to be concerned with values”
Thus, by this definition design without a clearly defined philosophy has no value, philosophy without a physical or tangible outcome, in other words – a design, is meaningless.
I hope you are still with me, but to me this seems to neatly summarise the wider discussions and presentations that took place not only at the whole Kuopio conference but also at Service Design Thinks a week past Thursday in London. The need to be able to express your ‘design thinking’ , to quote Renato again, in terms of “a truth in which users can all participate”. The discussion of truth takes us to the issue of how users percieve whether or not a product or service is ‘authentic’ or not.
The issue of ‘Authenticity’ has been widely discussed in relation to design, largely off the back of the book of the same name and the Experience Economy books by Gilmore and Pine.
But why is this valuable to designers and why did such discussions, long at the heart of aesthetics and philosophy, find their way to a service design conference in Finland? Largely, I believe because this summarises the core benefits of Service Design and it’s contribution to value generation. It was an inspired decision to invite Renato as a philospher and aesthetician to a conference on the design of ‘intangible’ services. For as it was concurred at Service Design Thinks and as I have learned from my own experience this year attempting to market the profession of Ergonomics. A clearly defined philosophy is central to human ability to engage with your product, service or professional discipline.
Renato proceeded to reference the screenwriter of Taxi Driver, Paul Schrader, in saying that like screenplay writers, service designers should be concerned in creating ‘authentic stories and experiences’ by breaking down their creative proposition into:
I think this and Renato’s thoughts more generally, provide a hugely valuable means of breaking down ‘the aesthetic’ of a design proposition and understanding how we as users identify the authenticity of an experience or service. If we perceive any inconsistency in how a service appears, or if we perceive an inconsistency between the touchpoints of a service and the service itself, we render the service design inauthentic and we lose faith in it. This impacts on our ability as users to engage with the service and therefore impacts on the value it generates both for it’s designers and/or for the bottom line of company who provide it.
I think this also demonstrates, on a theoretical level anyway, the benefits of service design over conventional ‘style led design’ or ‘industrial design’. Perhaps such more established forms of design have a philosphy and perhaps even succeed in representing that philosophy or design intent, but what they lack is the story or narrative that will engage users with them.
Such narratives and philosphies are of course imperative in engaging users in co-creation and collaborative design or improvement of products and services.
For the more pragmatic amongst us, this might all seem redundant intellectual gymnastics. However, I personally find Renato’s thoughts very valuable as a tool for identifying product or service propositions that seem inconsistent with their design philosophy or surroundings. It is in such examples that many opportunities for Service Design lie as we as an emerging disicipline proceed to define our own professional and personal associations and philosophies.
What do you think, is there a role for philosophers and philosophy in Design?
This past week I have been in Finland attending the Experience Service Design conference and workshop in Kuopio Finland. I’d like to take this opportunity straight off the bat to thank Satu Miettinen and all those at Savonia University of Applied Sciences who helped organise this hugely enjoyable week. It was also fantastic to meet Twitter friends Lauren Currie, Arne Van Oosterom and Marc Stickdorn as well as numerous other new friends and faces – thank you all!
Lauren has in typical fashion done an excellent job of summarising the workshop she was running on Tuesday and Wednesday in the following video:
Experience Service Design from Lauren Currie on Vimeo.
Lauren’s Flickr photos also give you an insight into the week. Whilst thoughts on the week, particularly the conference on Monday, from one of the keynote presenters Nico Morelli can also be found here.
I’m going to elaborate some of my own thoughts from the presentations on Monday in subsequent posts, particularly the presentations of Arne and Marc and that of Renato Troncon on the role of aesthetics and philosophy in Service Design. However, in the rest of this post I want to share some pictures and a brief summary of the workshop I was participating in.
The workshop was run by Arne, Marc and Mikko Koivisto co-editor of the book Designing Services With Innovative Methods. Whilst the primary aim of the workshop was to empower attendees in their understanding and use of service design methods, the chosen context in which to do so was a local health care clinic in the town of Kuopio where the workshop was being held.
Patients at the Viretori Clinic
This clinic known as the Viretori, provides elderly people the opportunity to come and receive basic health care checks, administered by students at the University thus serving as a training and educational service for students as well as providing a medical one for elderly members of the community.
Educational and Healthcare Services All in a Oner!!
The identified problem was with a lack of engagement in services offered by the clinic to the elderly people of the town. This of course was having a knock on effect on the students education and motivation to participate in the initiative.
One of the exciting features of the workshop was the opportunity to explore Marc Stickdorn and his colleagues at MCI’s new mobile based tool for logging customer journeys. This Android based software allows you to log and rate touch points as you walk through the journey, then download them and catalogue them when you are back in the studio – really innovative and exciting stuff!
Using MCI's ServiceFellow Mobile Service Touchpoint Logging Software
It wasn’t all hi-tech though, with traditional methods and collaboration very much the point of the exercise. These were a great opportunity to get to know our Finnish hosts better as well as get to know the meriad of nationalities attending the conference courtesy of the Nokia Only Planet project.
Plotting User Journeys the old fashioned post-it note way!
The one and half day workshop culminated with the presentation of the group’s concept, which following interviews and observation of the users and service environment suggested empowering the elderly users with more ownership of the clinic, it’s presentation and activities. Our recommendations and reflections on the process were presented to all the conference participants on the final day and will also be put to the management of the clinic in the near future.
Presenting the Results (courtesy of Marc Stickdorn)
Altogether the week was an immensly enjoyable one, both for the networking opportunities it presented and new friends made, but also for the chance to explore service design within a hugely diverse group and learn from the results. Thanks again to all those involved.
Certified... (Again courtesy Marc Stickdorn)
I’ll be posting some further thoughts from the Kuopio experience in due course.
This weeks call to boycott the Service Design Network’s (SDN) recently announced competition and general grumblings within the service design community provide a fascinating insight into what makes service designers tick (and seemingly what doesn’t).
Rybinsk 2007 Podium - Photo: Pete Vordenberg - www.teamtoday.org
My initial reaction can be seen in the comments section in that last link, for the most part I am a little disappointed at the near unamimous and public way this competition appears to have been rejected by those who otherwise do so much to promote and positively communicate Service Design here in the UK and around the world.
What is it about this competition I wonder, and it seems competitions in general, that these service designers are opposed to? And from my perspective how much might service designers be distancing themselves from huge numbers of the population and public they claim to represent should they reject such ideas?
Jeff Howard and Jonathan Baldwin impressively and compellingly argue in the comments of that last post that such competive structure does not support the co-design process that is such a fundamental part of service design. But another post yesterday from Joel Bailey got me thinking perhaps its a bit deeper than that. Perhaps the very people (whether male or female as Joel contends) who are attracted to Service Design and it’s processes are those that generally speaking might not relish the idea of a competition.
Carol Dweck (2000) talks about Entity and Incremental ‘implict theories’. In otherwords, two distinct ways in which people percieve the world. There are those that believe that knowledge (or design) are static or intellectual entities and constructs. These constructs can be communicated by linear processes and static hierarchical diagrams. These would be ‘Entity‘ oriented individuals, who to generalise, are those more likely to prefer dealing in physical entities. In the case of design this would be the more traditional graphic or product ‘physically’ oriented design approaches.
According to Dweck the other sort of individuals consider Knowledge (and design) to be more fluid and incrementally elaborated and constructed, more open to debate and interpretation. These individuals are more likely to be interested in the process of design than they are in the final outcomes or physical representations of the design process. This is perhaps because they understand that these physical entities are fleeting representations or put another way simply the tip of the iceberg in the design process. I know for a fact I fall into this category, although I still see and have personally experienced huge value from participating in competitions and dealing and manufacturing in physical entities and constructs.
I don’t know about you, but I know which category I would place service designers (and systems thinkers) in. The latter Incremental category and this leads me to another difference that Dweck highlights, the difference in how these two individuals approach to challenges.
According to Dweck Entity Theorists relish competition, whilst Incremental Theorists (Service Designers) prefer collaboration. Dweck in fact places these two on a sliding scale – indicating that by her perception the two ideals are polar opposites. Perhaps, there are also correlations between males and females as to which gender is more likely to fall in which category. Personally I don’t see gender based distinctions as valuable and find Dweck’s a far more useful categorisation of characteristics of those by my interpretation more likely to engage with Service Design and it’s methods.
How are you being competitive? - Photo: Pete Vordenberg - Teamtoday.org
The one concern however that this insight highlights, and it echos my reservations about Service Designers seemingly being so quick to dismiss this competition this week is, that whilst Service Designers might be Incremental Thinkers and theorists I would bet the vast majority of the population at least in the ‘old world’ are not. This would explain why so many of us participate in competitive sport and value physical objects. Thus, whilst Jeff would still maintain that the service design community should not support this competition. I would encourage the community to do so, as a chance to better understand and resolve the challenges involved and of which we are all aware in communicating Service Design to those with different (Explicit) ideals and perspectives. After all, is holistic and flexible thinking not truely the purpose of co-design and the value that service designers are capable of offering?
“Design uses the whole person’s mind & body…”
This as I interpret it in my own recent contribution to the ‘Design Thinking debate is framing Design from a situated-cognition perspective. Again, saying that the activity of Design is inherently bound to it’s context of activity and therefore it is impossible to completely rely on empirical definitions of what design is or how to practice it. This is a controversial statement and one that can undoubtedly take a bit of time to come to terms with. I’d like to briefly use this post to elaborate how this idea has evolved in my mind and through my recent research into skill acquisition – as such it can be considered the full fat version of my previous post. It contains about 700 words and will therefore take about four minutes to read.
Concrete courtesy of Katorisi and Wikimedia Commons
‘Design Thinking’ of the sort discussed in the past months online debate and that first brought to our collective attention by IDEO represents “a community of practice” that is to say a socially mediated or mutually agreed definition of what design thinking is and how design thinkers should practice it. IDEO has very successfully wielded old media and more recently new media savvy to leverage it’s definition upon the world, thus increasing the awareness or ‘social definition’ or it’s Design Thinking ‘community of practice’. IDEO has done this so successfully in fact that like so many successful communities of practice the term ‘Design Thinking’ has become hugely widespread in its usage and definition, with the fringes of the community taking this definition and it’s processes and bending and moulding them to suit there own purposes and requirements. ‘Design Thinking’ has thus developed ‘social capital’ in terms of it’s ability to describe the tacit knowledge and processes of designers. A term that many people within the design and now business community understand and possess their own definition of.
What is clear however, is that the broader that ‘community of practice’ has become so to has the definition of ‘Design Thinking’. As I argued in my previous post it is now such a broad term that it is being rejected by aspects of the community it is supposed to represent. Indeed, judging by the comments to Collopy’s article it is being rejected by a large proportion of the design community, particularly those at fringes of the established design community in the evolving service design industry who are seeking at present to develop their own ‘community of practice’ and distinguish it from what has gone before.
The term ‘design thinking’ is not concrete. It therefore only exists as a social construct and it’s application is entirely dependent upon, influenced by and subject to its context.
This week I want to look at how then to develop ‘social capital’? Or more specifically how to teach or engage others with the essence or definition of what it is that you do as a service designer? How you become an Expert Design Thinker or Service Designer without an agreed definition of what that actually entails? More importantly, even if you or the institution that educates or employs you possesses such a definition, how do you communicate this to the rest of the world in terms that are meaningful and valuable to them? How do you interact with their “communities of practice”?
This is what might be referred to as establishing Legitimate Peripheral Participation, a process of individuals in this case entering the ‘design thinkers’ or ‘service design’ community and developing their skill gradually over time so as to become experts in the domain. In the terms of my recent research in Skill Acquisition and Public Engagement, this can be described as the transition from abstract observer to concrete experience. This process is perhaps better known as experiential learning.
I’m aware of a number of initiatives or individuals working on projects that are simultaneously attempting to develop ways of guiding people through this process towards concrete experience and education of ‘service design’ or design in general, I highlighted Participle’s Loops Initiative and Small Fish already. In the next few posts I plan to elaborate my own thoughts on how using the whole body and mind is key to developing ‘concrete experiences’ and key to successful engagement.
Our ATTENTION to and RELEVANCE of a message, determine people’s perceptions of its VALUE whilst an individual’s CONFIDENCE will determine their expectancy for success and their perceptions of CONTROL and SATISFACTION.
Whilst the emotionally charged sharing of news and updates is critical for raising AWARENESS or generating ATTENTION amongst potential supporters, in order to induce motivated behaviour parallel strategies need to be introduced to support both those sending the messages and guiding the individuals responses towards a specific short or long term goal. In it’s simplest manifestation this could include feedback on the number of times a particular piece of news has been linked to / read / retweeted, thus through feedback, motivating users that their voice is being heard.
Indeed, this has had a more literal and physical manifestation in the recent Iranian situation as this haunting and beautiful video demonstrates:
Such feedback is hugely valuable in combatting feelings of frustration or at their most extreme a feeling of learned helplessness – which is to say the sentiment that “nothing I do is ever going to make a difference.” But in this situation this is not didactic feedback from ‘a system’ to the user. The system in question here both online and offline are ‘social’ and enable users themselves to feedback to, inform and support each other. As Arne Oosterom elegantly put it a week or so back:
@designthinkers: “service designers should provide people with tools to self-organize around a common interest.”
How far can we as designers design in features that combat learned helplessness? As Nick Marsh highlighted yesterday in reference to this article;
@choosenick: ”People don’t think like the state: “I don’t have ‘needs’, I have something to give.”
Again there are a number of strategies for designers addressing ‘learned helplessness’, something that might also be referred to as demotivated behaviour. How many of these can be wrapped up by changing your focus to design dialectic as opposed to didactic systems.
