Design Anthropology

Think of Innovations as Systems

In the last post we looked at Nike and the first principle wof successful innovation built around contextual user experiences. These experiences are centered around a particular offering, service or media (message). And naturally all these components are part of larger organisations, markets and offerings. This brings us to the second pillar of innvoation.

Principle 2: Think of Innovations as Systems

What do we mean by a “System”? What is “Systems Thinking”? We can define a system as any set of interacting or interdependent entities that come together to form a larger whole. In short a system is greater than the sum of its parts.

For our innovations efforts to be successful, we need to grasp how this larger ecosystem works and affects the other parts - the small systems and groups within it. What are the relationships that exists between the parts and the whole systems? What the unique attributes of each system?

As an example let’s look at Holidaying in some romantic faraway destination Island. A traditional approach would be to look at the destination and the particular chosen five star resort as the focus and defining factor of our product performance.

Now by placing the resort within the larger context of the island holiday experience and a national/international tourism market, we can develop a greater understanding of the product’s value in relation to all the touch points and actors along the way including the travellers, pilots, the flights operations (from booking to arrival), in-flight service, travel agencies, tourism information centres online and on location, advertisements, wholesale travel companies, restaurants, adventure/tourist activities, shopping, amenities, travel insurance and so forth.

Looking at whole systems and the interactions that are part and parcel of these systems, we can invest in integrated innovation across whole systems and in the process offering services and products that have greater value, and tend to offer massive competitive advantage. Why? Because value is added by ease of use not just across one system but across many that are part of the user’s journey.

Build Innovation around Experiences

Innovation is not magic. It is also not just an incremental process, otherwise the six sigma process would have moved many companies to the ranks of Google and Apple. When we think of innovation; control, forcasted processes that are planned and systemised to achieve predicted results (management speak) are not what would come to mind. Let’s look at the first principle of the four pillars of innvoation:

Principle 1: Building Innovation around Experiences

Let’s look at Nike as an example. They are the market-leading company, because they focus on designing a better experience for athletes, their focus lies beyond innovations in materials, aesthetics or performance. Nike has focused on an engaging experience for their athletes going beyond a better shoe and creating a community and tools to support professional and amateur. Nike inspires their customers. Why is this important?

Experience-focused innovation uses a different approach. Emphasis shifts from the product to the customer and other users involved. Here the focus is on what they do (behaviour, activity, needs and motivations) instead of things people use.

User experience is a key factor in the success of any type of offering. It is rather unfortunate that UX has become mainly associated with the software and information technology industries. This in turn has resulted in different professional industries using other terms such as customer experience, etc.

Successful innovation is built on what we learn from studying people’s experiences as well as a thorough knowledge of a product or technology. The process of employing ethnography to develop a deeper understanding is not easily packaged into a neat process, but ultimately it will move any organisation to expand their products beyond mere features, functions and attributes to create an engaging experience for their customers.

Let’s change our focus from what people say (market research) to what they actually do (design anthropology). While we should not ignore traditional market research methods such as focus groups and surveys, design anthropology’s ethnographic methods allow us to gain unexpected insights about people that can only be facilitated by observing people directly in the actual context where a company’s product or service is being used.

Scaling Fallacy

Systems act differently at different scales. There are two basic kinds of scaling assumptions to avoid when growing or shrinking a design:

1. Load assumptions: When you scale a production processs or design by some factor and assume that the working stresses on the scale increases by that same factor.
2. Interaction assumptions: When you design a new system or process and assume that the way people and the other systems interact with it in the same level across other levels of scale.

The best way to avoid the scaling fallacy is to be aware of the tendency to make scaling assumptions. Verify load assumptions through the use of careful calculations, systematic testing, and appropriate factors of safety. Minimise incorrect interaction assumptions through careful research of analogous designs and monitoring of how the design is used once implemented.

(Source: stuffcreators.com)

Storytelling

(Source: stuffcreators.com)

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