What causes epic product and solution failures? Fortunately, we there are more than enough examples of lessons learned for us to learn from. In the space of viability, Segway is an excellent example of a cool idea but pretty much nothing else.
In the early 2000s, Segway inventor Dean Kamen invented the Segway and thought it was going to revolutionize transportation, he was wrong. While Segway might have been a great invention, it was exactly that, an invention and not an innovation. The hype was all on the technology and the coolness factor, but what important issues did the product actually solve? What audience were they trying to target? What was the experience that they were trying to introduce to their audience? Were all things considered like price point, regulations, accessibility etc.? Did they do any research, like go out and ask people what they might think of such a product? The company is still alive and still producing Segways but the original “vision” was not clearly thought through and in the end, it’s still just a fancy glorified scooter.
Baselines
What Do People Want?
To understand innovation is to understand the demographics of who we’re targeting and to do that we need to understand people. What does it take to motivate a person to do things? What pushes people to go to that next step, to click that link, to make that purchase? In markets as competitive as they are and with human beings as complex as we are, simply guessing and making assumptions is not enough.
Emotion Basics
When look into our minds and dig to find these answers, we find things such as instincts, emotions, experiences, mental models, all which lead our physical and mental outputs. American psychologist Paul Ekman’s research on human emotion and its relation to facial expression identified six basic human emotions. These six basic emotions are supposed to be universal, unconscious and trigger high survival behaviors. So what makes these base emotions so important? Emotions give us responses and we can use these responses as the fundamental building blocks of our experiences.
Experiences Are Our Realities
Our mental and physical functions are wired to be efficient as possible. We bundle emotions into experiences and store them in our brains to serve as abbreviated references for future stimuli. By observing and understanding how people react, we can apply heuristics to build either universal or specifically targeted experiences. In “Making Meaning” by Steve Diller and Nathan Shedroff, the authors talk about introducing meaningful customer experiences derived from 15 core experiences. Each successful company or brand out there embodies, or tries to embody, one or more of these core experiences. If we can tie in an experience to a solution or product, we can breath life into it, making it into a living entity with a soul.
Human Factors & Research
“Don’t make me think”
― Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
What is human factors, and the research it entails? Human factors is understanding and empathizing with human behaviors, why do humans behaved the way they do, and most importantly, thinking about how to formulate around the human behavior to either conform around it or guide it to change.
Where to Begin with Research Techniques & Methodologies?
Research begins by understanding what the project is asking for (requirements & goals) and what the limitations are (scope & constraints). Does the project need validation? Will the project have enough time and budget to accommodate proper research that will produce significant, unbiased data?
Once a solid understanding of what is needed has been established, we then have to think about what type of research methodology(ies) might yield the best data, as each has their own unique advantages and disadvantages.
The quality of the data that will eventually be collected is highly dependent on how the methodology is designed. For example, in observational research, if we’re looking over a participant’s shoulders, how would skew and add variance to our observational data? Would the participant’s behavior shift, knowing that they’re being observed under a microscope? Would the data be different if we were in a different room and just watching them interact via a camera? When asking questions in user interviews, how much of the interviewer’s bias would be included when asking a user “how do you like this” (leading question) versus “how do you feel about this” (neutral question).
When to Research?
Now that we’ve decided what methodology(ies) to use, the next question is when do we apply these methodology(ies).
Different phases of a project might require different types of research methodologies.
By asking the right questions, we gather the right data that will shape and frame the design of the user’s experience.
Experience Design
“Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.”
― Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things
Introducing an experience to a person or a targeted group is complicated on many levels. Even with research, we never really know if the interactions, mental and physical inputs that the user receives will actually resonate with them enough to make a connection, to induce the actions we want them to perform or feel the emotions we want to elicit.
Research and design come hand in hand. Designing an experience, like research, has its own processes also, starting with ideation and leading to iterations.
Ideation
Before anything can start, we need to jot down all the information, thoughts and notes that are jumbled up inside our heads. Ideas generate more ideas and that becomes the purpose of this ideation phase, to think, brainstorm, question thoughts and challenge what could or couldn’t be.
Different people use different tools, in a group setting, whiteboards and post-its are great for aggregating ideas. For the purpose of this site, ideation was done with myself so for the sake of saving paper and not having to buy a white board, I reused an old notebook I had hanging around.
Prototyping
This is (for me) the fun part. Prototyping is a great way to validate ideas and to get everyone on the same page. If we are all in agreement that we need a red balloon on the front of a webpage, I could be imagining the balloon in the middle of the screen, one person could be imagining the balloon floating across the page from left to right and another person could be thinking of a balloon attached to a string held by a child. While each of us satisfies has envisioned satisfying the requirement for the page, the visual experience that each invoke is different. Prototyping allows us to all see the same thing and then make modifications.
Low Fidelity Prototyping
The stick figuring of prototyping, low fidelity prototyping is usually done with the bare basics. Black and white lines with gray boxes or common household items put together with glue and tape, the idea is to convey the general idea of how the idea could potentially look like. Usually paired with some kind of flow (journey mapping, information architecture, story boarding), the focus at this point is on how the story is told, how the experience starts and ends. The lack of color and details makes prototyping quick and, more importantly, keeps the bickering of details such as what color the buttons should be for the high fidelity prototype.
Mid/High Fidelity Prototyping
When building a house, you’ve got your blueprint that tells the contractors all the details they need to put the house together. They’ve put in the foundation, got all the 2x4s and drywalls up, plumbing and electrical are in place and now its time to paint the house and decorate. This moves us into the multidisciplinary realm of experience design, the actual design part. Putting together mid/high fidelity prototypes adds another layer of required skill sets, understanding visual design and within it, understanding things such as color theory, gestalt principles and how to visually communicate to people.
Iterate
Iterations continue to happen throughout the development of the product. Stakeholders review the prototype, further discussions are held and modifications are made. In an Agile process, each sprint can add new features which needs to be researched, prototyped and reviewed. Iteration is an ongoing process that keeps going until the project is deemed complete.