Looking through the details of Soren Petersen’s Huffington Post article on design ROI it seems clear that his suggestions make very good sense. Reading them I could not help but feel they sounded like the sage advice a knowing Aunt or Grandparent might impart:

(1) Business definition, “Don’t set off until you know where you’re heading”.
(2) Portfolio management, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.
(3) Hedging product concepts and, “Softly, softly, catchey monkey”.
(4) Managing process, “If you can keep your head about you….” Etc

While few would disagree with these words of wisdom, especially when in discussion at the start of a project or deciding how things should be done at the start of a journey, the real challenge is to keep it in mind during the journey itself. Too often it seems that once a course is set, and costs start to be sunk, it becomes more and more difficult to follow our own advice, keep our heads up and realise that importance our best intentions. What teams really need are tools that help them keep their goals in mind and a means to avoid the psychological traps that prey on their day-to-day decision-making.

It seems the hard won perspective we create at the start of our business endeavors is too easily lost and that the tools we need are practical real world reminders to work hand in hand with our grander ambitions.

A chance encounter with a Google Tech Talk on gamification led me to ponder the value of principles in design thinking. To my mind the principled approaches we have always talked about are ones that are heralded as being specific to the brand rather than always important to the end user.

In the talk by Sebastian Deterding he focuses on gaming principles of Meaning, Mastery and Autonomy as basic human needs. While its evident that many in the product and service design world are hoping game design ideas are more than snake oil, it strikes me that this is at least a good start and a healthy mechanism for thinking about what works for the end user.

“Eclipse stood out from the other candidates by building a flexible and innovative approach taking a wider look at the experience. The insight was structured to help us engage with it, bringing the customer to life and structuring the implications and discussions to help us question and refine our strategy.”

Head of Product - Global Mobile Network Operator

Brief: Understand the relationship between key elements of the operator customisation and the existing Google Android experience for European customers. To use this understanding alongside other insight to help inform and develop a strategy that made best use of both Google Android and the operator involvement in the customer experience.

Approach: The recommended approach from Eclipse extended the scope to include competitor customers in the UK and France and also related findings from existing research. It focused on a pre-task followed by structured interviews which focused on elements of use, interaction, brand and need – culminating with a short participatory design exercise. The sessions in UK and France were carried out in unbranded lab’s to allow honest and open feedback on the operator brand and a facility for the client to watch the sessions live. In addition we introduced an agile approach with interim results – helping keep the client close to the results and allowing the approach to be refined between phases and countries.

Result:

• Clarity on differences between Android use profile and needs between UK and France

• Feedback on existing approach and suggestions of improvements

• Holistic understanding of how this insight sat alongside existing research insight

• Tweaked question in phase 2 to gain understanding of needs for help and assistance

• Updated approach to Android integration

Learning: As customers move into their second or third Smartphones their needs have changed and the iPhone comparison becomes less important. In addition to this there is considerable difference between customers in different countries with a noticeable minority demanding much higher performance and control. The operator has a key role to play in this development and the customer by and large encourages this involvement.

Ben Fehnert recently had the pleasure of being able to share some of his experiences to the Social Sciences department of UCL, specifically the students of the digital anthroplogy MA.

The lecture and discussion focused on the realities of applying social insight within organisations, focusing on the changes in the way organisations use social insight alongside other information. Specific attention was given to the tribes within organisations, the extent to which they use social insight and how social sciences compete with peer-to-peer reviewed qualitative insight and anecdote.

UCL anthroplogy

“Eclipse helped us better understand our customers behaviour and helped us develop our thinking to better engage with them ongoing”.

Lucy Birch, UK Head of Internal Communications, KPMG ELLP

Brief: Understand level of engagement of KPMG UK employees with internal communications. Develop a view of the relationship between employees, communication content and communication channels and use this insight to stimulate discussion and develop practical solutions that can better engage employees.

Approach: We started by building stakeholder understanding around a behavioral user centered service design approach by using research and workshop techniques to build fresh user centered and parallel industry perspective. We followed this with a set of structured stakeholder and end user interviews to dig into the details of individual engagement, built a framework of insight and used this base to build out a set of briefs. These briefs formed the basis for innovation workshops where we brought in parallel industry expertise to encourage lateral thinking, perspective and team ownership of the ideas.

Result:

·       C level approval of change based on insight and ideas

·       Shared view of target user needs across different groups

·       Navigable set of insight broken down through theme and related back to user, content and channel

·       Solutions to user needs created and owned by the team

·       Framework of user centered approach to user thinking

Learning: The audience must always come first and we must acknowledge the way the Web and email has fundamentally changed the way we communicate. Better engagement with historical authoritarian marketing models can be improved greatly by echoing the variety of current media.