the details are not the details: how small things have a large impact

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The Details are Not the DetailsHow small things have a large impact

Space, The Eamses and small things making an impactA nice segue from Andy

video credit: Armatonic

As you heard, the project had experienced many delays. The pressure was on for this launch to succeed. What harm could come from it being a little cool for the o-rings operating range? Its such a small component in such a large, complex machine. The project was overtime and over budget. There was so much pressure to launch that a tiny detail like that wasnt going to hold them up again.

The details are not the details. Small things can have a large impact.

Im lucky enough to work with a talented team. As we were moving into our new digs, we got together to reflect on where we were as a company, what we were doing, how we were doing it, and how we want to do it in the future. Of course, we burnt through lots of Post-its. (We also got to design our office fit-out and furniture.)A recurring theme that came up across a span of exercises was a lack of time and space to learn and reflect.

My team are all great researchers and designers. But they need breathing room to really excel. Time to soak up, reflect and focus on the details.

So why is there this relentless time pressure with our clients?

The quest forefficiency

It all comes down to the quest for efficiency

image credit: Detroit Public Library

World War 2 prompted manufacturing to make leaps and bounds forward. On one side, it saw the birth of Human Factors - the foundations of Human-Centred Design. But it also ushered forth the birth of rapid production on a scale nobody had experienced before. Of course, with this came defects and inconsistencies. This drove a number of trends in manufacturing over the coming decades:From Total Quality Management to continuously improve processes; Toyota Production System to reduce waste; and Lean Manufacturing to increase efficiency and remove waste.

The design of corporations have their origins in the assembly lines of the industrial revolution, so its no surprise they adopted the same approaches as the manufacturing industry. White collar work moved from highly structured but often wasteful waterfall projects - that mimicked the assembly line

to six sigma in an effort to reduce defects

agile to increase velocity

and lean to remove waste.

Corporate pressures

Corporations have shareholders to answer to quarterly. And the shareholders expect continuous growth. When a market is saturated, this means a drive to find efficiencies.Because corporations are built on the assembly line model, every unit and every staff member have their KPIs to meet.

Corporate pressuresMarketing

new and shiny

Marketing needs something new and shiny to promote.


new and shinyBusiness

+on time and on budget

Business needs to deliver more projects on time and budget.


new and shinyEngineering

increase velocityBusiness

+on time and on budget

Engineering needs to increase production velocity.Their one common theme is speed. Speed to business case. Speed to develop. Speed to test. Speed to market.So each year those KPIs get higher and arbitrary deadlines become shorter.

Commodifying designFrameworksTemplatesPatternsGELs

GEL

GlobalExperienceLanguage

Research and design has been forced to follow suit. These tools are all good for maintaining consistency across a large organisation and theyre great for scale, but they are often developed quickly and wielded heftily as incontestable truths.

Where good ideas come fromResearch and development teamsPure research and space to experiment

image credit: Magnus Manske

Corporations used to have research and development units. Places where pure research was often able to be conducted and labs in which experiments could be run. Some companies like Steelcase, Ford and Intuit still have this but for many, the need to demonstrate direct, tangible benefit to the quarterly results meant that R&D was shut down.To fill the vacuum left and try and propel new products, corporations started relying on outsourcing agencies or simply having management generate new ideas.

Design is becoming valuedAppleCoca-ColaFordHerman-Miller IBMIntuitStarbucksStarwoodSteelcaseTargetWalt DisneyWhirlpoolNewell-RubbermaidNike Procter & Gamble

Now that design-centric companies have proved their worth by significantly outperforming the market, corporations are again sitting up and taking notice. Theyre bringing research and design in-house with innovation centres, internal start-ups, and incubators.But even these are given little time and breathing room to really understand problem spaces. They follow lean methods and so researchers and designers only ever get to scratch the surface of the human needs that drive real innovation.And the agency model continues as a large part of supplying and supporting these internal research and design functions. Hell, thats what my team do daily. But the purpose of this talk is to explore how we can do it better.

Details and design

The details are not the detailsTHEY ARE THEPRODUCT- Charles & Ray Eames

The title for this presentation obviously came from the famous quote by Charles and Ray Eames. The Eameses obsessed about details. They espoused that every product is just an emergent property of its details. When they designed the Eames Upholstered Wire Chair it had simple, screw-on feet with steel caps. But after months of use, they found that the metal feet werent as fit for purpose as they hoped. They slid on hard surfaces and could, under the wrong conditions, break. So they worked through many iterations before they settled on a welded ball covered by the durable nylon glide you see on the chair today. You can feel the difference between a genuine Herman-Miller Eames Upholstered Wire Chair and a knock-off that looks exactly the same. The details are not the details.

From manufacturing to experience

What weFEELWhat weDO

What weTHINKEmotionsBehaviourThoughtsExperienceEconomy

Space shuttle challenger was a horrific lesson in details adding up to the overall function. Eames chair was about details adding up to the overall quality. But theres so much more.Theres a strong desire for industry to shift from a manufacturing economy to an experience economy. To shift the focus to what people feel, think and do.Everyone wants their customers to love their product or service. Thats why our field exists. Organisations want to design for experiences, but if we commodify design, it faces the risk of producing bland, boring and homogenous results. Trying to please everyone pleases no-one.Good design finds it hard to exist within a culture of manufacturing. It requires time to reflect, refine and obsess over the details. It also helps to have a deeper understanding of how we feel, think and do.

Ego and interaction

Emotion, design and apophenia

image credit: crystalinks.com

Humans are pattern matching creatures. We cant help it. Were so good at it, that we see patterns where none exist - in randomness. And although this enables our creativity as Denise told us this morning, its sometimes also our downfall - think gambling. Seeing patterns where none exist is known as apophenia.

The best known form of apophenia is pareidolia: our inbuilt bias to see faces in randomness. This is my son Archer, reading a book before bed. He just told me that the truck was angry. I asked him how he knew that. He said, its on his face.

image credit: Google Self-Driving Car Project

We all know cars have faces, so when you design a self driving car that you dont want anyone to hit, its best to make it look neotenous and innocent. Well thats what the designers over at Google have done with their overly cautious autonomous vehicle. Even if you got frustrated at its Grandma-like driving, youd be less likely to hit a car that looked like a big-eyed puppy.

Products are people

We see patterns in randomness of every kind - from hearing sentences in records playing backwards to seeing Jesus in our toastOur brain is constantly seeking shortcuts to save a few calories by substituting equivalents that are good enoughThis leads us to ascribe human traits to anything we interact with - whats known as anthropomorphism.Thats why we swear at buggy software and services (hello, Census), coerce golf balls to find their holes (cmon, cmon, please go in), snuggle pillows and give our cars names. We emotionally engage with any product that comes to our attention. As designers, this is a powerful insight we should use but rarely do. And its expressed in the details of the product.

EmotionsWhat we FEEL

The details can affect how we feel

video credit: Donna DeRosa

Tesla Model S door handles extend as you approach the car. An assertive, welcoming gesture that says Ive been waiting for you. Lets go.A perfect gesture to expect from a sports car.

Efficiency or emotion?

image credit: Tesla Motors

The reason the door handles are flush with the car is to reduce drag, thereby increasing the battery range. From an engineering efficiency point of view, it would be best to keep the handles extended, and retract them only when the car is put in drive. From an emotional point of view, however, its best to highjack some of the proximity sensors and keep them active so that the handles can greet the driver as they approach. Details like this frame the mood for a driver. It starts the experience on a high note. Experience cant be designed. We can design a product or service, but experience involves a persons memories, knowledge, context and mood at the time. This little detail is an effective way to design FOR an experience. To get it kicked off on the right foot. Tesla has put thought into many such details and is disrupting the auto industry. The details are not the details.

video credit: RocksThejSpot

One of my team members, Alyce, was sad when she had to change her Samsung washing machine for a Miele. She said she missed the happy little song it sung to let you know the washing was finished. Whilst most washing machines buzz or click at the end of a wash cycle, it plays Schuberts Trout Quintet. In a culture driven by efficiency, the circuit board and speaker required for this would be considered a redundant and wasteful addition. But ask the customers

My wife hums along with it when the clothes are done.My Dad made up lyrics to go with it:Come get your clean clothes out of me, its time to do another load.It's nice to have a machine that sings to you, that offers a melody to let you know it's time to fold the clothes. The joys of modern technology. Who was it came up with the idea to play Schubert?I like to sing a little song when it goes off. La la la your laundry is dahahone thank you for putting your laundry in me. You are so super cool and you have really nice clothes

Samsung washing machines and dryers gained the highest customer approval ratings, due to a happy little song they sang to inject a little joy into the tedious chore of washing. Of course, therell be people that hate this - thats the risk of designing for emotional engagement - but most people love it. It can make their washing a better experience - one theyll tell others about - like the thread about it on Reddit. The details are not the details.

We had a vision to makeACOUNTINGSEXY & FUN- Philip Fierlinger

Speaking of tedious chores, Philip Fierlinger is the Head of Design at Xero. The founders wanted to make beautiful accounting software. Together with Philip, they upped the ante to a vision that posed a momentous design challenge for him: make accounting sexy and fun. Hes described the amount of obsession they built into the reconciliation process on mobile. Not just the way it can quickly learn and match entries for you, but the timing, the easing in and easing out animations of the matched cards. The way they flip over and quickly fall away as if to say See. That was easy. Lets do another!

I think I may love Xero a bit too much. Its addictive. And fun.This is where all the fun begins and trust me, using Xero is addictive so dont say I did not warn you!Its the most fun youll ever have while using accounting software.I believe even my grandmother would be able to understand and figure it out.The process is so easy it almost makes accounting fun!

Xero was a small software startup out of New Zealand. Its now taking significant marketshare from accounting behemoths like MYOB, Sage and Quicken.The details are not the details.

ThoughtsWhat we THINK

The details can affect how we think

The problem with maps is we dont really trust them yet. We like to feel in control. If we see traffic ahead and know the area, we take the back roads, just to feel confident that were making progress. Problem is, it often takes us longer as many other people have the same idea.Google solves this with a little reassurance. When they bought Waze and folded their technology in, they kept the voice prompts with what might seem like redundant information from a map system designed to get you to your destination in the least time.

You are taking the fastest route.

It tells you: You are taking the fastest route. It is all clear ahead to your destination.

You are taking the fastest route. This is still the fastest route.

If theres congestion building ahead, it jumps in before you see the traffic and turn down the back road and says:There is a 7 minute delay ahead on Pittwater Road. This is still the fastest route. You are 20 minutes from your destination.This helps the driver feel in control AND get to their destination in the quickest possible time.The details are not the details.

Timing iseverything

In the judicial system, timing is everything.Researchers analysed 1,100 decisions by an Israeli parole board. Parole was granted about a third of the time overall. But prisoners whose cases were heard early in the morning received parole about 70% of the time. Prisoners with similar circumstances appearing late in the afternoon were granted freedom only 10% of the time. This is due to a cognitive effect known as decision fatigue. The time of day can impact your freedom.The details are not the details.

Clothes maketh the man and womanRedYellowOrangeBlackGreyPurpleGreenStroopTEST

We all know that clothes can make you feel different: relaxed, more confident and whatnot, but they can also change how well you think. In an experiment, people were asked to do the Stroop test. This is a standard cognition test in which you have to try and say the colour of the type, not what the word says. Of course overcoming this conflict is tricky, so people make errors when they try and go fast.For this experiment, one group was just

Clothes maketh the man and womanRedYellowOrangeBlackGreyPurpleGreen

2x

dressed in their street clothes. The other group was given a white coat that they were told was a lab coat.The people in lab coats performed twice as well as those in street clothes.The experimenters worried that it was the heft of the coat, the colour or fabric that improved cognition, so they ran a second set of tests.

Clothes maketh the man and womanRedYellowOrangeBlackGreyPurpleGreen

This time, everyone wore the same white coat.The first group were told is was a painters coat whilst the the second group were told it was a doctors coat. The doctors coats outperformed the painters. This effect is known as enclothed cognition. A piece of clothing can affect how well you think. The details are not the details.

BehaviourWhat we DO

The details can affect what we do

Music can change your behaviour

In a bottleshop, there was an in-store display of German and French wines.Over a 2-week period, German and French music was played on alternate days.


73%

When German music was played, it led to German wines outselling French ones by 73%, whereas


77%

playing French music led to an even more robust effect on sales of French wine - to the tune of 77%.


73%77%

?

Were these consumers aware of the music and its impact on their decision? 86% of people said no, the music had no effect.This is a simple demonstration of priming. Fun fact: Your behaviour is always being shaped by your environment. The details are not the details.

Creating commitment

Silence can make you commit

In dentistry terms, people who book an appointment but never show up are known as Failure To Attends (FTAs). This behaviour of course poses a significant problem to dental practices. We addressed the issue for a client by leveraging social commitment and consistency in their practice handbook:1. In person, the front-desk staff gives an appointment card and simply asks Could you please write down you're appointment on this card and read it back to me? This creates a physical and social commitment.When the NHS implemented a similar intervention for GPs, their FTAs dropped 30% nationally, saving 250 million pounds.2. Over the phone, the front-desk staff ask Will you please call if you have to change your plans? Then pause, waiting for the patient to verbally agree.An experiment carried out in a Chicago restaurant demonstrated that that simple pause dropped their No-call, No-show rate by 66%These recommendations are now proving their value across a national network of dental practices.The details are not the details.

A few words can increase conversion~3x

Im on Twitter.4.7%Follow me on Twitter.7.3%You should follow me on Twitter.10.1%You should follow me on Twitter here.12.8%

Dustin Curtis is a blogger who famously did an experiment to increase Twitter followers. He conducted a simple series of multivariate tests on his call to action, building on success each time.At the bottom of each post, he had a short blurb about him and a call to action to follow him on Twitter.The baseline was his original call to action Im on Twitter with a conversion rate of 4.7%Trying some variations on this led him to Follow me on Twitter at 7.3%. He built on the success of this by trying variations of preceding words to get him to 10.1%, then proceeding words to get him to 12.8%Tweaking a few words in a series of cheap and quick experiments increased his conversion almost threefold.The details are not the details.

Reflecting on our practice

Writing a presentation is a great time for reflection. Writing one on the back of an internal workshop to improve our practice is perfect timing.In the rush to meet deadlines, its easy to forget about the details, rationalising that theyll be picked up later. But the reality is that products in BAU have little budget to refine or improve. Theres little chance of injecting meaningful personality, persuasion or action into a product after release.In our practice, there are a number of things weve been doing - some unconsciously, some haphazardly and some insufficientlyHere are a few things Im starting to formalise in our studio

Create pauses

As weve discussed, good design requires time to reflect and cogitateWe can try and educate clients, but this wont change their KPIs or reality, where the demand for greater velocity is unabating But here are some things that have worked for us when planning engagements: Waterfall: Staggering research and analysis throughout a project. Breaking research into small chunks and starting thematic analysis early to allow digestion, reflection and pivots.Agile: Building in more space to create quality presentations for showcases and retros to give us the ability to discuss and reflect on the prior sprint better and adapt for the next sprintLean: Building in daily summaries for stakeholders during research. This usually means dropping one participant per day to play back research to stakeholders but that give us the space to discuss and sketch our experiences that day, take on feedback and adapt for the next dayAnd Fly-home Fridays is something weve recently implemented: This is something were establishing with clients in the SOW up-front, so our teams can shift gears to allow for abductive thought. Were structuring Fridays so everyone can learn something new. Share projects internally. Give and receive critique and support from the wider team - giving the client the benefit of more smart minds on their project.

Design for emotional engagement

We should design for emotional engagement. Create a personality for our products. What Jon Kolko refers to as a product stance.Were not going to please all of the people all of the time, so we should stop trying. It guarantees nobody will love your product, but they may still hate it.To define a product stance is simple:First, identify aspirational emotional traits: 4 or 5 things like spirited, light-hearted, playful and freeFrom these, establish emotional requirements like Our product will always be revered in a crowd. orOur product will always tempt users to do slightly illogical things.Finally, use the requirements as a set of constraints to determine product features, content strategy, launch priorities and so on This is where youll define the need for handles that invite driving, or washing machines that prompt singing.

Structure learning about behaviour

At Tobias & Tobias, Behaviour Design is something were passionate about and known for. But its a field in its infancy, so staying on top of it is critical as the corpus of knowledge - and the size of our team - growsTo encourage continuous learning in this area, for fly-home Fridays weve instituted a Behavioural Bias a week that we learn about. Weve also started playing Dan Arielys Irrational Game as a fun way to learn the results of more studies and test our knowledge

Design environments for evolution

Weve designed platforms for clients to run randomised controlled trials to test behaviour change interventionsOf course, weve also used these same platforms to rapidly refine details for engagement and interaction much like Dustin Curtis did for his Twitter call to actionTrials run on variations of HSMs on-boarding over a few weeks increased conversion by 40%We need to sell the idea of product as an experimental platform more effectively. Its setting our clients up for long-term success when they transition to the often cash-strapped world of BAU. Long after weve gone, they should be equipped to continue to create experiments to learn from and evolve their product or service.

The details are not the detailsTHEY ARE THEPRODUCT- Charles & Ray Eames

The Challenger disaster is a cautionary tale of what happens when we bow to arbitrary time pressures. To do good design, we have to care about the details. We cant just succumb to the pressures of the manufacturing economy when our clients want to shift to the experience economy.We have to create the time to reflect and understand. Use our knowledge of emotional engagement to bravely design interactions that may polarise users. Learn more about how people make decisions and what affects behaviour. Create platforms to encourage the products we design to be continuously refined.We have to create ways to design well within the assembly line mindset; to find ways to prioritise details that dont correlate with the manufacturing economy if we want our designs to be loved by those who use them.Because the details are not the details. They ARE the product.