Future workshops: A user centered design technique to envision future services19Th April 2013

2User centered Design: how to generate concept starting from user research?

1 2

3 4

User research/Requirem

ents Analysis

Concept generation

Prototyping & TestProduct Development

“Everyday people are not

very good designers” - Donald Norman

“You can't just ask

customers what they want

and then try to give that to

them. By the time you get it

built, they'll want something

new”

- Steve Jobs

“If I’d asked people what

they wanted, they would

have said ‘a faster horse”

- Henry Ford

We know that ….

Concept Brainstorming: a methodology for concept generation

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Specs & Implementation

Concept Adoption

Idea Generation

Concept elaboration

• What: 1or 2 sessions of workshop (the first session can last 2 days)

• Who: designers, company stakeholders, end users

• Why:

• To design an ‘identikit’ of the future service/system

• To create a common and shared vision of the future service/system

Which is the main unit of analysis?

People World

Tools

inspired by L. Vigotsky

our focus is to design activities

Divide the problem spaceinspired by Herbert Simon: Bounded Rationality

How to define the ‘agenda’ for a concept brainstorming?

Which activities and tools for generating ideas?An inspiring approach

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Inspiration

Elaboration

Sharing

“The cycle of creative immmagination” - Lev Vigotsky

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• Short video or presentation (about the problem)

• Scenarios/video scenarios

• Personas

Inspiration

Elaboration

Sharing

• Extreme design • Metaphor: “If I were..”• Card sorting• Activity mapping

• Comic Boards• Diary Keeping• Participatory

design• Concept Book

Which activities and tools for generating ideas?Main techniques

A concrete example of Concept BrainstormingDesign a new tool for the Technical Assistance

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Persona’s Elaboration

Activity Mapping

Participatory Design

Concept Validation

1 2 4 6

6 Personas and user scenarios analyzed by participants to identify and clarify Users’ Needs

Groups analyzed four critical processes discussing critical issues and best practices revealed over the three different markets

Groups elaborate proposal of Service and Interaction Design, based on the User Profiles defined in the Personas Activity

User scenarios, in term of “Comics Boards” are discussed and elaborated during a second workshop session

Concept Elaboration

Designers and Project Team elaborates results from the first part of the workshop in order to elaborate a set of User Scenarios to represent main design concepts

Over 40 participants, three countries and various divisions involved (IT, Quality,..)

Tech Features

3

Participants divided into groups discussed the “tech-Identikit” of the future services in terms of form, interaction technology, device mix, optional tools,..

Session 1 Session 2

Personas elaboration – session 1 10

Personas poster

Personas elaboration

Activity Mapping – session 1 11

Map of the main processes “Activity Mapping”

Tech Identikit – session 1 12

Tech stimulus presentation

“Tech identikit”

Participatory Design – session 1 13

Groups elaborate envisioning proposals of “Service and Interaction Design” based on the findings of the field

research.Technological choices were considered as constraints to

design the new service activity

Concept Elaboration (7-10 days) 14

Preparation of comic boards (envisioning scenarios)

Validation Workshop (1 day) 15

4 scenarios containing variations

Participants read and add comments to the scenarios first as single and later in groups

Validation of alternative ideas envisioned in the previous steps

Concept Book and Proof of concept (15 - 20 days)

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Concept BookPrototype

Main Benefits 17

• To define in 2 sessions of workshop a tangible “identikit” of the future solution

• To create consensus among stakeholders (a shared solution)

• To have enough material for prototyping & testing with users

• To have enough material to allow your customer to make internal marketing activities (to other stakeholders, to the CEO, etc)

• …to truly engage your clients!