the @zibapdx #service design publication on the service economy is free to download!

1Ziba Design | 2015 | Excerpts from Ziba’s Flipboard Magazine

NEVER ENLARGE THE ZIBA LOGO. ALWAYS REDUCE.

Exaggerated ink traps were added to prevent ink buildup inside corners. Trapping always needs to be done in relation to the intended size of the typeface. If it is enlarged to display size, the ink traps become glaringly obvious. Ink trapped artwork can aid in vinyl sign cutting appearance.

DESIGN FOR THE SERVICE ECONOMYStories and observations from the

service renaissance


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Point of ViewsThe Portfolio in Your Pocket, Cale Thompson

Redesigning the American Wedding, Joo Young Oh

Welcome to the Front Line, Steve Lee

The Steam Method of Digital Service Design, Todd Greco

The Auto Dealer is Right to Fear Tesla, But Not [Just] Because They’re Electric

Nest and the Umami of User Experience Design, Paul O’Connor

Customer Service That’s True to Your Brand, Mattias Segerholt

Making More Meaning: The New Service Economy, Cale Thompson

Exciting DevelopmentsStore Your Snowboard in the Cloud, Cale Thompson

India’s Ancient, Durable Model for Grocery Retail, Carl Alviani

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Ziba Design | 2015 | Excerpts from Ziba’s Flipboard Magazine 3

Despite services now accounting for over 80% of America’s GDP, we still don’t have a precise and commonly agreed upon definition of what they are or how to go about designing them. We are constantly bombarded with examples of successful service companies—we can’t go a day without reading something about Uber —but are hard pressed to define exactly what makes them a service. Regardless of industry, service offerings can include digital and interactive elements, environmental and visual components, new products and technology, as well as new staff roles and training procedures. Most often, a custom blend of several of these touchpoints and techniques is what’s called for.

Every year Ziba takes on more and more projects that fall into this hard-to-describe category of services—and this can lead to difficult conversations. When our clients expect a physical product or a piece of technology, but the best solution is a service, we have to do more than just explain our approach. We have to shift their mindset to one of experience delivery, not widget production. And this is not restricted to design, it encompasses the impact it will have on the organization and on the fundamentals of the business. We’ve put together a primer for such conversations that also chronicles what’s working and what’s not in new and recent service offerings.

The following articles–some written by Ziba staff and others collected from around the web—focus on the role of design in the service economy. Because the service economy is so large, the subject matter of these pieces ranges widely, from rethinking postage to understanding the Nest, to name just two. We hope this collection expands your thinking about how design can make services work better, both for the brands and for the customers whose experiences are at stake.

DESIGN FOR THE SERVICE ECONOMY


THE PORTFOLIO IN YOUR POCKETWhat the contents of a wallet or purse can teach

you about the service economy.

By Cale Thompson Creative Director


Ask most folks what their favorite service is and you’ll

get a blank stare. But services are all around you, they

always have been, and the current growth of the service

economy means they’re becoming a bigger part of

our lives every day. An easy way to put this into personal

terms is by opening your purse or wallet.

Start by pulling everything out—cards, receipts, and

whatever else you find—and laying it on a table. It’s likely

that the majority of the receipts will be service-related,

and the majority of those cards are there to connect you

to service providers. It’s just how we live today.

Once you’ve laid your cards out, arrange them in order

of preference, putting your favorite on the right and

your least favorite on the left. For me, the one on the

right is my USAA card. Not only does this financial- and

insurance-services company offer a comprehensive

suite of products, but they continually evolve the way

they deliver those services. They were the first to let

you deposit checks by taking a photo with your phone,

and recently linked my phone to my account with a

PIN, so I could avoid the security questions that are

usually required with every phone call. At the left end

of the spectrum is my rewards credit card that gives

me miles for purchases. I still haven’t figured out how

to redeem them in a useful way, and when I do it’s

never easy.

Up until recently, this kind of failing could be let go with

a shrug, but as the tools of service design become more

flexible and powerful, it increasingly signals a potentially

fatal flaw. Today we demand that effective service-based

businesses always look for opportunities to give you

more, without demanding additional effort. As for the

ineffective ones — how long before someone steps in

to take their place? People know what they want, and

their wallets talk.

For most of us, a wallet is a kind of personal service

portfolio, and examining it reveals the bonds we’ve

formed, with industries ranging from health, fitness,

entertainment and hospitality to finance, insurance,

education and transportation. Each card helps us access

a service, and reinforces the bond we have with the

organization behind it— some recent, some decades old.

PHOTO (CC) via Flickr user Allie Verbovetskya


They’re all quite happy to have earned a place in our

wallets; in fact, they’re fighting to stay as close to us

as they can.

It’s working. Despite my attempts to downsize, my

wallet is still crammed, not with cash, but with credit

cards, membership cards, loyalty cards and gift cards,

along with tickets to an upcoming show. In an effort

to simplify, I keep my prescription, health, dental and

library cards at home, yet my wallet continues to swell

as my personal service portfolio evolves. My second car,

for instance, has been replaced by a service, represented

by a Car2Go membership card. When I lived in a bigger

city with better transit (and worse bike infrastructure), I

had a public transport card that served a similar function.

Today, products are being replaced by services right

before our eyes. As technology frees us from old

constraints, and we slowly let go of the idea that an

outcome must be tied to a physical object, we’re

encountering an entirely new array of delivery models,

often far more responsive to our needs. And this

transformation is nowhere near over. New businesses and

organizations are born everyday, looking beyond decades

of established practice for how solutions are delivered,

and inspired by the actual needs of consumers, as well as

the potential of new and improving technologies.

But if everything we’re now reading about wallets is

true, it won’t be long before I’ll throw mine out altogether,

in favor of a smartphone or other connected device.

So as a follow-up exercise, take a quick look at the

services you can access on your smartphone using an

app (I counted 38). How many industry sectors are

represented? Which are your favorites, and why? Is it

what they offer that excites you, the experience they

PHOTO (CC) via Flickr user Jessica C


Cale Thompson is a creative director at Ziba, providing relevant and compelling insights

that inspire, inform and affect innovative products and services. Cale works with multi-

disciplinary teams to generate insights about behavioral patterns and cultural trends, and

works collaboratively with clients to solve design problems in new ways. He has led

service design and innovation projects at Engine, a design and innovation firm in London;

and also lead a Microsoft research fellowship in East Africa designing solutions to help

scale microfinance. Cale is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and The Delft

University of Technology in The Netherlands. Follow him on Twitter @caleryder

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

CALE THOMPSON

deliver, or a combination of the two? And how many

have already replaced even the thin plastic card that once

occupied your wallet?

It’s a strange paradox that the ubiquity and ease that

makes services so valuable also makes them forgettable.

Even when it fills a deep necessity, a well-designed

service is by definition intangible. You don’t hold services

in your hand, and you may interact with them for only

minutes, or even seconds, at a time. This is what makes

the wallet exercise so useful, and so important.

But it also presents a challenge. When we’ve detached

the service we’re paying for from the object or place that

delivers it (a car, a theater, a doctor’s office), customers

become far more attuned to the experience than to the

medium. If businesses don’t want their card or app to

end up at the wrong end of the spectrum, they’d be wise

to shift their focus to the end experience as well.

PHOTO (CC) via Cale Thompson


REDESIGNING THE AMERICAN WEDDINGThe conventional wedding experience doesn’t fit modern American values and lifestyles. How can we use service

design to reimagine it?

By Joo Young Oh Consumer Insights Analyst


In one way or another, each wedding had been redesigned to actively challenge basic assumptions about formality, attire, activities or vows, often

at the cost of great effort and frustration.

In the summer of 2014, as one after another of my 30-

and 40-something friends decided it was finally time, I

found myself invited to four very different weddings. One

was a 30 minute City Hall ceremony in New York City,

followed by a casual lunch. Another took place during

an outdoor gathering of Burning Man enthusiasts on the

Oregon coast, and included a smoked lamb feast and

a silent disco. Another was held in the groom’s parents’

backyard, and had all the trappings of a classic American

small town wedding—except that the best man was

a woman in a tuxedo. In fact, of all the weddings I’ve

attended over the past few years, not one was purely

“conventional.”

From a designer’s perspective, this is a good indication that

the American wedding is a service experience that’s failed

to adapt to the needs of its audience. The convention

of marriage already faces challenges in the US: not

from external forces, but from shifting perspectives

among marriage-aged Americans. According to a 2010

Pew Research study, only 51% of US adults are married

today, down from 72% in 1960. Yet despite this decline,

young adults still value social rituals—especially those,

like marriage, that reinforce and celebrate personal

relationships. For today’s increasingly mobile, career-

minded, urban couples, finding a partner with whom

they can build a life is still a powerful experience, and

the ensuing union is well worth celebrating. The

traditional family-directed church wedding, though,

makes assumptions about social and economic

circumstances that are often no longer true.

PHOTO (CC) Joo Young Oh


HERE ARE A FEW WAYS WE COULD SAVE THE MODERN WEDDING.

with the logistics that have always made weddings such a

chore—seating, feeding, entertaining and accommodating

dozens or hundreds of people—plus the fact that our

communities today are more widespread than ever, both

in location and in social norms. Today, it’s not unusual to

have friends and family scattered across the planet, from

conservative, meat-and-potatoes rural grandparents to a

vegan photographer cousin who lives in Berlin.

For most of us, this is a once (maybe twice) in a

lifetime event, that we quickly learn to plan and execute,

then forget.

Approaching this as a service design problem means

examining the entire journey taken by the “customer”

(in this case, the couple and their guests), identifying

failings or friction points, and looking to parallel services

for ways to improve. All of them draw on familiar, existing

activities from other fields, and have broader implications

for the design of social rituals —especially those that bring

together large, diverse groups of people.

CROWDSOURCE THE PARTY.For many couples, the best part of the wedding is that

the maddening preparation is over. They must contend


Crowdsourcing is already a powerful tool for channeling

a community’s resources and experience to help small

groups with specific needs. What if there was a Yelp-

like digital service to help couples choose venues and

wedding-related services? What if an entire wedding

could be crowdsourced, with a platform that invites

guests to contribute time, money or resources to make

it happen? This could be broader than just turning

the reception dinner into a potluck. A well-designed,

How might engaged couples benefit from the knowledge of friends and family who’ve already gone through it?

wedding-specific organizational platform could ensure

that no detail is overlooked, help assign tasks to those

able to complete them, and ultimately result in a ritual

with real significance. For today’s cash-strapped but

enthusiastically DIY young adults, a guest’s offering of

food, music, logistical planning or plain old manual labor

could bring far more meaning to the event than a gift-

wrapped blender.

PHOTOS (CC) via Flickr user Theo


TURN THE CEREMONY INTO A JOURNEY.Once upon a time, most of the family and friends who

might attend our wedding lived in the same town.

Today, they could be anywhere. When our social links

depend more on email, Facebook and Skype chats

than in-person visits, does a wedding ceremony that

expects people to travel from all over the country (or

world) still make sense?

Many couples already hold multiple wedding celebrations

Stopping in several cities that have personal meaning for the couple, or provide easy access for friends and family, makes it easy to turn the wedding celebration

into a series of smaller events with the opportunity for real quality time.

in multiple cities, to better accommodate their far-flung

communities; what if this was formalized? Imagine

replacing the wedding ceremony with a “wedding trip”

that has the couple traveling like a rock band on tour.

An online platform could help the couple and guests

plan an optimal itinerary, and invite friends and family to

contribute a portion of what they would have spent on

travel, to offset the couple’s expenses.

PHOTO (CC) via Flickr user Vademecum


USE TECHNOLOGY TO BRIDGE THE DISTANCE.Given their mobility and technical savvy, it’s no surprise

that many young couples have tried using video

chat technology to include distant friends and family

in their wedding ceremonies —but the results are

often disappointing. Issues of bandwidth, resolution,

layout and sound quality are already issues with live

video chat; combine these with the normal pressure and

confusion of a big wedding, and you have a recipe for

anxiety and distraction.

One potential solution could be a national or international

chain of restaurants or event venues with dedicated

rooms specifically for long distance, big screen video

chat. At an agreed time, wedding guests in multiple

cities could meet at their local location of the chain, and

enjoy a meal and celebration while interacting with

the bride, groom and other guests at the main location.

While less immersive than attending the ceremony in

person, this could be an opportunity to share an

experience with loved ones who might not otherwise

be able to attend —or who might have felt obligated

to, despite being unable to afford it, or uncomfortable

traveling so far.

PHOTO (CC) via Flickr user Christopher Lance


“I would never go to a wedding alone. I tried it once, for an old college friend, but I barely knew anyone and spent the entire weekend having short, awkward

conversations…”

PROVIDE MORE STRUCTURED, NON-VERBAL INTERACTION.Perhaps you’ve attended a wedding where you knew

nobody, as a favor to your partner, or even braved one

alone. The short interactions and forced significance of

the wedding event can sometimes make them as stressful

as the after-party at a professional conference. How

might we design a wedding that minimizes superficial talk,

and replaces it with something more meaningful —even

a chance at genuine connection?

One of the weddings I attended last summer was

followed by a reception that centered on a contra dance:

a traditional group dance led by a caller, who sang out

instructions to participants. The simple moves, high

energy music and frequently shifting partners made

it easy for attendees young and old to quickly get

acquainted, introduce themselves and then carry on with

the dance. In contrast to the more common American

ritual of the wedding DJ and the awkwardly empty dance

floor, it was an inclusive experience with a low bar to

entry, and a communal opportunity to learn something

new. By the end of the evening, every single member

of the party was dancing, new acquaintances became

friends, and a potentially daunting social situation

became a genuine celebration.

PHOTO (CC) via Flickr user Mike Weissberger


WHAT OTHER ACTIVITIES MIGHT A MULTI-GENERATIONAL CROWD BE INTERESTED IN LEARNING TOGETHER?Any sort of structured group dance could work, but so could learning a song together, or working together on a group garden or building project.

These solutions only deal with the wedding ceremony, of course, but a service

design approach could potentially make the institution of marriage itself more

responsive, and more resilient.

- What if couples had the option of taking marriage vows for a finite period of

time, rather than exclusively for the rest of their lives?

- What if relationship coaching became an expected and welcome part of the

engagement process, and regular check-ins with a couples counselor were as

expected as visits to the doctor?

- What if we acknowledged that more than 50% of marriages eventually end,

and took steps to invest the divorce process with meaning and ritual as well?

Individually, any one of these efforts could ease some of the anxiety that

permeates modern marriage, and make it more relevant for today’s socially

engaged but tradition-wary young couples. Taken together, though, they

could start us down a road toward transformation. Social institutions like

marriage have always evolved along with the needs of society —all they

need today is a push, to help them transform as fast as our world is.

As a Senior Consumer Insights Analyst, JooYoung Oh provides consumer insights that

lead to innovative design strategies. She accomplishes this by identifying patterns and

insights, and translating those insights into actionable frameworks for concept generation.

JooYoung balances intuition and information by approaching each project challenge with

quick hypothesis and rigorous data analysis. She shares her knowledge of participatory

design methods through speaking engagements at design conferences and universities.

Prior to joining Ziba, she worked for Lextant and had her own consulting business, where

she led programs to gain consumer understanding for Fortune 500 companies; past

and current clients include Samsung, Intel, Procter & Gamble, REI, United Health Group,

LGFCU, and Picture the Homeless. JooYoung earned her MFA in Industrial Design from

Savanna College of Art and Design, and BFA in Ceramic Arts at Ewha Women’s University.

CONSUMER INSIGHTS ANALYST

JOOYOUNG OH


WELCOME TO THE FRONT LINEYour couriers, nurses and call center staff know more

about customer service than you do.

By Steve Lee Service Designer


She may be the teacher who stayed late because a

student needed help. He could be the clothes store

worker who called six different branches to secure the

sweater you had your heart set on. The banking clerk

who said “leave it with me—I’ll get this prioritized and

call you when it’s done.” The nurse who broke hospital

rules to take your friend undergoing physical therapy to

the playground, to speed her recovery.

Sometimes the bar for service experiences can be set

so low that a simple common-sense action or gesture

from staff can leave us open-mouthed, and rushing to

the management or to Yelp to recommend them for

promotion. These professionals are the connectors of

departments, the cutters of red tape, and the empathic,

human interface to systems that can seem rigid and

coldly logical.

The nuanced decisions and subjective judgement calls

made by front line staff rarely make it into company

or government policy. But their observations of how

the principles in the handbook translate into service

outcomes is invaluable. Front line employees, in fact,

are often the richest possible source of insight about

customer needs and how to meet them. Here are four

principles for discovering and acting on them.

SEE WHAT THEY SEE.One of the greatest privileges I have as a design

consultant is spending time with the people who will

benefit from the services and products we design.

We shadow them through airports, interview them in

hospital waiting rooms and conduct activities in their

homes. Our clients are eager to hear from the hearts and

minds they want to connect to, and see what insights

emerge about what concerns or drives them.

But we only spend a couple of weeks in the field on any

given project. Front line staff may not have the same

tools or focused time as researchers do, but they spend

all day, everyday with the end users. They see patterns

over weeks, months and years. They observe where

customers get lost and decide to opt out. They see the

grey areas, and they see when and why the rules need

to be broken. Before making any major decisions about

changes to your service offering or policy, make time to

see the current situation through their eyes.

PHOTO (CC) via Flickr user Christiana Care


MEASURE THE TRUE OUTCOME.It has been said that the British National Health Service

runs on goodwill: take away the extra mile that its

nurses, doctors and administrators put in every day,

and the system could collapse overnight. The American

department store Nordstrom is often referenced for

the mythologies it creates around customer service, like

employees who march to the far end of a snow-covered

parking lot to bring a customer’s car to the front door.

By strict accounting, all of this activity sounds terribly

inefficient. What about pushing retail staff to close a

sale in under three minutes? Or a thirty second limit

to phone enquiries at a bank? How about a five-point

communications plan for police officers to succinctly

break bad news to bereaved relatives? Front line staff

often function well and provide memorable experiences

despite such metrics. They see how new initiatives,

efficiency measures and changes to staff and environment

can have unexpected impact on the ground.

As an organization, it’s important to ask yourself what the

real goal is. Identify the experiences you want to create,

and how you want users to feel afterwards. Repeatedly

ask if changes you make to processes, roles and services

are connecting your users to the outcome you want to

provide, or simply obstructing it. Often, you’ll find that

your staff are the ones best able to provide an answer,

rooted in real-world experience. They want to see

their customers again, they want to solve problems,

and ultimately, they want to feel like they are making

a difference. In the process they may create lifelong

converts. They’re the ones to ask about how efficiency

can be married with efficacy.

PHOTO (CC) State Farm via Flickr


DON’T KILL IT WITH RULES.Enable staff to do the right thing. If you ever worked in a

front line service role, whether as a career move or a job

while back in school, you’re familiar with the cringeworthy

training videos and handbooks, the development journals

and the terrible backronyms.

Delivering effective and desirable service experiences

is about flexibility, not rules; autonomy not automation.

Hire well, trust their judgement and arm them with the

tools and principles to act in their customers’ best

interests. Give them license to surprise and delight. We

all enjoy doing the right thing, and the more often

we’re able to, the more loyal we tend to be. Properly

empowered front-line employees may eventually move

up the ladder, taking their experience with them, and

amplifying its effect.

LET THEM INFORM THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.By involving front line staff in the innovation process,

you gain access to a different set of concerns, solutions

and selection criteria, which often leads to ideas that

are more relevant and more appropriate. You get to

tease out the wealth of insights and observations they

possess. You hear new information about their roles,

insights about the shifts they have observed in consumer

expectations, and the key characteristics of successful

and unsuccessful changes.

Your staff, in turn, gain a sense of ownership of those

ideas, which tends to increase acceptance and adoption.

In almost every case, building up new service ideas from

the grassroots makes for more robust outcomes, not just

in the services you decide to implement, but in the ability

(and willingness) of your front line to make it work.

Steve Lee brings more than ten years’ experience to his role as Senior Service Designer

at Ziba. He engages with complex systemic and organizational problems in holistic, human

ways. Steve has worked for clients including United Health Group and FedEx, and holds

a design degree from Goldsmiths College, at the University of London.

SERVICE DESIGNER

STEVE LEE


THE STEAM METHOD OF DIGITAL SERVICE DESIGN

Learning about service environments from video gaming’s premier online marketplace.

By Todd Greco Interaction Design Director


When folks talk about the business of video games

these days, they frequently focus on the battle Microsoft,

Sony, and Nintendo are fighting for supremacy over the

living room. Consoles are a commodity, and their seven

year life-cycle makes it easy to design large experiences

against. That said, quite a lot can happen in seven years,

but any real innovation is on the software side of the

house, while the hardware stays locked in time.

As a technologist (and gamer), the real action I see is

in the PC (as opposed to console) gaming space. It’s

here that hardware gets updated yearly, and innovations

like 4k displays and user-created mods can really

supercharge the gaming experience. Interestingly

though, the real innovation in the PC space hasn’t been

the march towards new hardware or the ability for users

to create new experiences with modified game code,

but rather a change in the service side. Steam is a digital

platform that moved PC gaming from boxed products to

downloadable games, in a way that changed how PC (i.e.

Windows, Mac and Linux) gamers purchased them.

Much has been written about this, but the basic idea

is simple: I can go to Best Buy, buy a boxed version of

Skyrim, and install it onto my computer. In the process,

I get a serial code that I enter in order to complete the

installation. If I get a new computer, or want to install my

new game on a new platform (I use a Windows machine

at home for games, and travel with a Mac laptop for

work), I’m out of luck — the license for that boxed product

allows a single install on a single machine. If I want to

reinstall, I need to dig out the DVD and have at it. The

onus is on me to track the DVD and the installs for every

game I purchase.

PHOTO (CC) Borderlands 2, by Gearbox Software


Steam changed all of that. Now, I log into a single

application and purchase games through that. If I log onto

a different computer, I can see all the games I own at a

glance, and download them to that machine too. Many

also save status, so I can, for example, leave off a game

of Civilization at home, and pick it up again on my Mac in

a hotel room while on the road.

What makes this magical is that there’s a single place

for all of my games. Much like iTunes on the music

side, Valve (the makers of Steam) have created an

ecosystem that’s hard to beat, and continually create

new innovations, like the ability to stream games

between machines so you don’t have to reinstall them.

This helps them stay ahead of their competitors.

Of course, other publishers see this user base and want

in on this action. Sadly, they’ve all done so by creating

their own walled gardens (which is, to be honest, what

Steam did). So now, if I want to play Battlefield 4 (an

Electronic Arts title), I have to install their proprietary

marketplace called Origin, and launch it from there.

Some publishers try to have it both ways: Far Cry 3 is

a game you can buy via Steam, but it installs another

service called uPlay at the same time. Launching the

game from Steam pops up uPlay (which replicates

Steam’s experience) and then requires that you log in

again to play your game. All of this stems from the game’s

Canadian publisher Ubisoft, and their desire to prevent

Valve from getting credit for the game.

In the physical world, it would be as if these publishers all

had game boxes at Best Buy, which could be purchased

at full price ($60)…but you had to go to another store

down the street to actually pick up the DVD.

And that’s the problem right there. Steam came out

first, and so holds the lion’s share of my games. Every

other service that comes out afterwards will only have a

few of them, and will annoy me more than anything else.

PHOTO (CC) Screenshot from the Steam user interface.


Todd Greco is the Interaction Design Director at Ziba. Bridging the traditional gap

between developer and designer, he leads cross-disciplinary teams in the creation of

software and physical interfaces for global clients including FedEx, Intel, Samsung,

adidas and Technicolor. With more than 19 years of experience, Todd is well-versed

in design research and experience prototyping; prior to joining Ziba, he worked

with Adobe to develop Creative Suite 1-4, and helped design and implement the

iShares investment service for Barclays. He has also run his own design studio,

and taught digital design at Portland State University for nearly 10 years. Follow him

on Twitter and Medium at @mrballistic.

INTERACTION DESIGN DIRECTOR

TODD GRECO

Steam set a standard, both with flash sales (“Skyrim only

$9.00 for the next 24 hours!”), and its multiple-publisher

philosophy. The single publisher-driven ones, like Origin

and uPlay, are pretenders to the throne. I use them, but

only because I’m forced to.

What can we take away from this? First, that Openness

is key, at least as it relates to allowing other publishers

into your ecosystem. It worked for iTunes (imagine a

music store that only sold tracks from Sony), and it works

for Valve. Second, you’ll win more people over by thinking

with a user focus than a lawyer/publisher one.

Most of all, though, being first and being good can make

it impossible for even deep pockets to overtake you. No

matter how much EA and Ubisoft dump into their digital

products, they have a steep uphill battle to win the hearts

and minds of gamers. As a consumer, I’m betting against

them, and hoping they eventually merge their libraries into

my Steam one.

PHOTO (CC) Screenshot from the Origin user interface.


THE AUTO DEALER IS RIGHT TO FEAR TESLA, BUT NOT [JUST] BECAUSE THEY’RE ELECTRIC.Changing culture before someone else does it for you.

I’m writing this from the lobby of the service center at

the dealership where just a few weeks ago I picked up

a new Jeep. Since this is an article on the auto industry

you probably can guess comes next: New vehicle, issue

nearly from the start and they expect me to pay for it.

Now don’t get me wrong, in the 3 weeks I’ve had it,

my Jeep has been great car in general and I made the

very conscious choice to sacrifice a few MPG to have

the fun of a 4x4 when buying it. But the reason my next

car will likely be a Tesla is not [just] because they’re a

different type of car, but because they’re a type of different

experience, an experience that would not have my day

start with a dealer telling me to pay to fix a car with their

plates still on it…

View the entire article on medium.com.

PHOTO (CC) via Flickr user Don McCullough

https://medium.com/@teds027/the-auto-dealer-is-right-to-fear-tesla-but-not-just-because-theyre-electric-fcfb43646642


NEST AND THE UMAMI OF USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Good service experience, like great cuisine, is made from ingredients we already have.

By Paul O’Connor Executive Creative Director


If recent news is any indication, 2014 is shaping up to

be an exceptional year for users of smart products

and the services they deliver. Since being purchased by

Google, Nest has wasted no time developing the next

round of devices that will revolutionize your home (and

the ways they can collect data about it), and dozens

of other companies are following suit. We now have an

array of smart locks, smart sprinkler systems and smart

kind of pro-active sensing and customizability that made

Nest a smash hit. Apple is working with designers from

Nike’s Fuelband team to develop a smart watch that

people will actually wear. And cloud-based services like

Evernote, Dropbox and Google Drive are integrating

their mobile and web offerings so seamlessly that you

may never have to sync anything again.

The common thread running through these developments

isn’t exactly advanced technology — the hardware and

software that make them possible have been around for

years, in fact. What connects them is a more nuanced

and rigorous approach to experience design. Companies,

and the designers they employ, are finally getting serious

about interface and integration, and explicitly focusing on

user behavior instead of feature sets and aesthetics. As

a creative director who’s dealt with these issues for years,

I want shout, “It’s about time!” But it also raises some

interesting questions: Why now? And how did we get to

this point?

The best explanation is that the current revolution in UX

is a response to consumers’ shifting priorities. Average

purchasers of smart devices and digital services have

ceased being satisfied with new functions that are poorly

delivered in a pretty package — we’ve developed a taste

for accessibility and sensible workflow, and we’re not

going back. Blame Nest or Apple if you want, but the

story of a better alternative ratcheting up the bar for an

entire category is not new. Look, for example, at what’s

PHOTO (CC) via Flickr user Gregory P. Smith


happened in the way we eat and talk about food over

the past few years.

A NEW TASTE THAT’S BEEN AROUND FOREVER.Umami, the Japanese word for the mysterious “fifth

taste”, shows up on the menus of countless restaurants

these days, and in the Food & Wine sections of

newspapers around the world. But “umami” is actually

a much more straightforward concept than its exotic

name and newfound popularity might suggest. Just

as our tongues have receptors for various sugars,

and register their presence as “sweet”, they’re also

sensitive to a class of compounds called glutamates,

found in everything from seaweed to anchovies to a well-

seared steak. The sensations they produce are not

new—humans have hungered for these rich, savory

flavors since prehistory—but our understanding of

where they come from has altered the way we cook.

In a similar way, the widespread demand for better user

experience isn’t because of a recently realized need,

nor are designers employing some magical combination

of skills and technologies to address it. We’ve always

valued coherence and thoughtfulness in the products

we use, whether it takes the form of a nicely weighted

hammer, or a logically laid-out car dashboard. The

difference today, in both cuisine and user experience,

is that our expectations have evolved, and we finally

have the vocabulary to describe them.

The real lesson of the “umami revolution” is that you

don’t need a new ingredient or even a new technique

to improve an experience. The LA-based chain Umami

Burger has been capitalizing on this culinary trend

for a few years now, but the ingredients in its signature

burger—shiitake mushrooms, roasted tomatoes,

Parmesan cheese, caramelized onions—have been

around for centuries or longer. Even the “umami bomb”

dishes created in some high-end restaurants are just

intentional combinations of existing glutamate-and

nucleotide-rich foods. Chefs (and savvy home cooks) are

taking advantage of an improved understanding of

what underlies the experience, and not just going off in

search of new flavors.

PHOTO (CC) via Flickr user Joselu Blanco


THE INGREDIENTS ARE ALREADY THERE.The relationship that talented designers have with user

experience is a lot like that. The individual components

that make a Nest Thermostat delightful to use are familiar,

but combined in a way that maximizes accessibility and

personalization. The same goes for all of those digital

services, that succeed not because of a new technology,

but the intentional application of existing ones. The

“umami” of good user experience is not embodied in

a single feature or aesthetic flourish, but in a quality

shared by its details: a context-sensitive menu; a physical

design that suggests how to use something unfamiliar;

an interface that provides clear feedback to every

user action.

This is a big part of why good user experience can be

more elusive for established companies than small

startups. For the former, there’s a long history of relying

on new features for competitive advantage, and of

viewing “design” as a purely visual tool — just as fine

dining was once defined by exotic ingredients and

beautiful presentation, rather than technique. When I

say, “It’s about time,” I’m echoing an understanding

that permeates design-driven startups, who’ve come

to realize that consumer tastes have been evolving for

decades, and that the ingredients are already in front of

us. A company clinging to the notion that new features

are what sell and design is all about presentation risks

looking like a fussy 1970s steakhouse in modern day

Manhattan: bland, failing and out of touch.

Paul O’Connor is executive creative director at Ziba, working across various industries

including consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods, healthcare and education.

Paul’s previous clients include TDK Life on Record, Lexmark, Logitech, Nike, Sirius XM,

Procter & Gamble and Wrigley. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Art degree in Industrial Design

with honors from the University of Illinois at Champaign–Urbana and spent a year abroad

at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle, England.

EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR

PAUL O’CONNOR

In addition to its radically redesigned interface, much of the appeal of the

Nest Thermostat comes from a simplified, common-sense installation process.

The Original Burgerparmesan crisp, shiitake mushrooms,roasted tomatoes, caramelized onions,

house ketchup

PHOTO (CC) via Umami.com PHOTO (CC) via Flickr user Gregory P. Smith


EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE IS NO LONGER ENOUGH

By Mattias Segerholt Brand Discipline Director

Customer service that’s true to your brand is what resonates with today’s savvy consumers.


New Seasons does not judge you.

At this beloved Portland-based supermarket, most of

the produce—arguably the finest available outside of a

farmers market—is organic. Much of the beef comes from

grass-fed cows, and the seafood display gives details

on how and where every item was caught. The beer and

wine selection skews heavily toward Pacific Northwest

producers, and includes plenty of organic options. But

head one aisle over and you’ll find Skippy peanut butter,

Oreos, Coca-Cola and other familiar products of mass-

market America. And most important, you’ll find staff

who are equally enthusiastic about all of it.

This is not by accident. New Seasons is a business

defined by an unwavering set of values since its first store

opened in 1999, and everyone knows it. Founder Stan

Amy describes the store’s philosophy as “interdependent

prosperity”: the idea that monoculture is no more

sustainable for a business than it is for a garden, and

a diversity of options is ultimately healthier. In terms of

service, this translates into stores and staff that value

informed choice above all else. New Seasons is famous

not only for transparency in labeling (indicating, in some

cases, the exact farm that grew those tomatoes), but staff

who can rattle off that information on the spot. They’re

also exceptional at forging customer relationships based

on that knowledge, and the interest they share in food.

Historically, “good service” has been a matter of diligence:

if the store is laid out sensibly, returns are easy, and

staff are required to go the extra mile, then service will

be good. But increasingly these attributes are par for

the course. Heightened competition, and customers who

know all about those competitors, have raised the bar

for service across the board. Today, the real differentiator

is not “good service” but “true service”—a customer

experience that reflects the brand philosophy of the

company behind it.

In many ways, this is nothing new. Before the megamart

came along, we bought fruit from the fruit seller, meat

from the butcher, and bread from the baker. Each of

these sellers were passionate, informed professionals

who wouldn’t hesitate to tell you what they thought about

everything they sold, and relished the chance to steer you

toward the right purchase. It was great service because it

reflected the beliefs of the business.

PHOTO (CC) via New Seasons


Somewhere along the line, this connection between

purpose and action got lost. The butcher, baker and

fruit seller got consumed by the supermarket, the

supermarket grew, and the companies that owned them

expanded and merged. The purpose-driven customer

relationship was replaced by an efficiency-driven one, and

“good service” in most supermarkets today boils down

to fast checkout. These days, the quality of the service

experience is primarily determined by how quickly it’s over.

A handful of retailers have successfully pushed

against this trend, in the supermarket business and

elsewhere. Nordstrom, the legendary department store,

trains its associates to “use good judgement in all

situations,” fostering a service culture of attention

and responsiveness. The Apple Store encourages

customers to touch and interact with technology, and

deploys a legion of casual/smart employees to make

discovery and purchase miraculously low-friction. Even

Whole Foods’ abundant, slightly paternalistic shopping

experience reflects a philosophy of high expectations

and high ideals. Each company has a legion of loyal

customers, who come back repeatedly not just for the

products, but for the ability to interact with a brand that

aligns with their own philosophy.

The key to getting “true service” right—and the imperative

for customer-facing business of all types—is to be as

transparent as possible about your values, and to never

stop seeking new ways to convey them to the customer.

For New Seasons, this can be felt the moment you walk

into one of their stores. The signage, the labeling, the

diversity of products, and the knowledgeable, engaging

staff are all expressions of a coherent philosophy. It’s a

philosophy that resonates particularly well with shoppers

in the greater Portland area, but the underlying idea,

that behavior should reflect ideals, is nearly universal.

That idea is both simple and revolutionary. It asks that

companies make introspection a foundational part

of their service design process, analyzing what makes

them unique from other companies, and especially

their competitors, before deciding what kind of good

service makes the most sense. For some brands, it

will be curt, efficient and thoroughly competent. For

others, it will mean bending over backward to listen

to every word the customer says, and acting as an

empathetic host. These, and many other approaches,

all have the potential to be great service. The trick for

brands today is to decide which kind of “great” is

right for them.

Mattias Segerholt is the Brand Discipline Director at Ziba. His holistic approach to brand

building has uncovered the relevant aspects of brands for clients such as Sharp, CitiBank,

New Seasons Market, and long-time Ziba client Procter & Gamble, ensuring that

subsequent design efforts are not only relevant to the customer, but consistent with the

brand’s promise. Before joining Ziba, Mattias was a Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy,

where he led teams that provided brand-integrated product considerations for

Starbucks, and a roadmap for Target’s next generation of retail concept stores. Mattias

has an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and a BA in Graphic Design and BA in

International Studies from Oregon State University.

BRAND DISCIPLINE DIRECTOR

MATTIAS SEGERHOLT


THE NEW SERVICE ECONOMY: BETTER > MORE

By Cale Thompson Creative Director

Making meaning for users takes more than an abundance of options and features.


Every business wants to mean more. Whether your

organization is a young startup or well-established,

deeper engagement—designer-speak for ‘making more

meaning for users’—is crucial. The way to get deeper

isn’t necessarily with more, though… more offerings,

more technology, more messaging. There’s too much

already. The way forward is better. But improving

relationships with your customers isn’t easy, and there’s

no shortage of businesses vying for time and attention.

Committed engagement is hard to achieve, and so

is improved overall experience. But that’s exactly what

organizations need in order to deliver great services and

ultimately mean more.

Today many of us have more relationships than ever

before, but whether they’re with friends or business

contacts, few are as deep as we’d like. When it comes

to service providers, we already know how we want

our experience to be: we learned it from our barbers,

hairstylists, doctors, postal workers, teachers and any

number of other service professionals. These tended to

be one-on-one relationships, with consistent attention

applied over time that deepened and enriched our

exchange. Lately, new businesses focused on getting

back to better relationships through more personalized

or specialized “service” (sometimes shrouded in the guise

of its sexier sibling, “sharing”) seem to be everywhere.

Lyft and Airbnb are a long way from the people who take

care of our hair, though. Let’s take a look at how our

economy got here.

BEHIND THE “NEW” SERVICE ECONOMY The service revolution is actually older than most people

know. The idea of monetizing services rather than

simply selling products has been driving big business-

to-business offerings for over a generation. See the

ongoing success of Rolls Royce in selling the service

of propulsion, rather than jet engines: the 100+ year-

old internal combustion specialist leveraged its existing

relationships with airlines and turned their hardware

business into a service offering, which made more

financial sense for everyone involved.

Then came the consumer wave, with startups like Netflix

and Uber. These companies help people get new

value from existing, often underutilized assets. Second

generation service economy players like Car2Go are

actually creating new value, not just maximizing

PHOTO (CC) via CitiBike Press Kit


existing potential. That’s where our fondly remembered

barber comes into this: all these developments point

to big opportunities for other sectors to forge higher

quality relationships with customers through new or

improved services.

GETTING TO BETTER, DEEPER RELATIONSHIPS Scratch the surface, and you’ll see that most of the

revenue of the new service economy now comes from

monetizing the relationships between people. eBay

made it possible transactionally, by letting us sell things

to people anywhere easily; PayPal and Square continue

to push the boundaries of digital payment. Uber and

Airbnb have made multi-billion dollar business models out

of turning our neighbors into livery drivers and hoteliers.

The sharing economy’s not just for big-ticket items, like

transportation and housing, either: Pley applies Netflix’s

subscription model to Lego blocks, while Lacquerous

does the same for high-end nail polish.

The service economy revolution isn’t done, not by a

long shot. Most of the big players thus far have created

new connective tissue, putting people and existing

assets together in new ways using technology that’s only

lately gotten ubiquitous. There’s more work to do, and

much of it will be hard. David Gray writes in Everything is

A Service, “Unlike products, services are often designed

or modified as they are delivered; they are co-created with

customers; and service providers must often respond

in real time to customer desires and preferences. Services

are contextual—where, when and how they are delivered

can make a big difference. They may require specialized

knowledge or skills. The value of a service comes through

the interactions: it’s not the end product that matters,

so much as the experience.” Not just any experiences,

though: better experiences.

Cale Thompson is a creative director at Ziba, providing relevant and compelling insights

that inspire, inform and affect innovative products and services. Cale works with multi-

disciplinary teams to generate insights about behavioral patterns and cultural trends, and

works collaboratively with clients to solve design problems in new ways. He has led

service design and innovation projects at Engine, a design and innovation firm in London;

and also lead a Microsoft research fellowship in East Africa designing solutions to help

scale microfinance. Cale is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and The Delft

University of Technology in The Netherlands. Follow him on Twitter @caleryder

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

CALE THOMPSON


STORE YOUR SNOWBOARD IN THE CLOUD

Spotted by Cale ThompsonCreative Director


Take a necessary but not particularly fun task, update

it with better UX and a flexible usage model, and you have

Zipcar, Uber, eBay or dozens of other wonders of the

modern service economy. It’s completely unsurprising,

then, that two different services would pop up almost

simultaneously to fix the way we store our excess stuff—

a huge chore that becomes even more irritating in the

dense, transit-dependent cities where it’s most needed.

MakeSpace and CityStash both promise to store your

belongings without you ever having to leave your house,

and both cater to urbanites: MakeSpace in NYC,

CityStash in San Francisco and DC. They also employ

very similar service structures. Create an account, and a

stack of plastic bins arrives at your front door. Once filled,

sealed and picked up, the bins are stored away at an

undisclosed location for a monthly fee, to be redelivered

(for a fee) upon request.

PHOTO (CC) via Citystash.com PHOTO (CC) via Makespace.com

At first blush, it might seem like an uphill battle to

convince customers to leave their possessions in an

unknown place, but the past few years have created

plenty of precedent: young city dwellers are already

comfortable staying in someone else’s house (Airbnb)

or driving someone else’s car (RelayRides), so this

level of digitally-enabled trust isn’t so far-fetched. And

in fact, both MakeSpace and CityStash make good

use of the idea of “cloud storage” for physical stuff in

their marketing messages.

Learn more about these services here:

MakeSpace

CityStash

https://www.makespace.com

http://www.citystash.com


INDIA’S ANCIENT, DURABLE MODEL FOR GROCERY RETAIL

Spotted by Carl AlvianiEditor


India is modernizing at breakneck pace in many ways, yet

its citizens—even affluent ones–still overwhelmingly prefer

to buy groceries from traditional markets and independent

vendors rather than supermarkets.

As a recent Economist article points out, it’s not from

lack of options. Indian supermarket chains like Reliance

Fresh, Big Bazaar and Spencer’s operate hundreds of

stores throughout the country, but despite offering great

selection, air-conditioned comfort and slightly lower

prices, still account for only 2% of the nation’s food and

grocery sales.

The elusive advantage that traditional markets hold

appears to be service-based. Independent sellers

pick through produce to make sure it’s of consistently

high quality, adjust their inventory to fit the seasons

and holidays, and form relationships with customers

and their families. They’re also nearby, which is a real

advantage in areas with crowded roads and struggling

transportation infrastructure.

The lesson may simply be that one size does not fit

all. Conventional wisdom has long held that as countries

modernize and grow more affluent, they demand the

kinds of services rich countries already enjoy. It may turn

out that a wealthier India doesn’t resemble England,

America or Malaysia at all in its service preferences—it

resembles a wealthier India.

A long way from the supermarket, at The Economist.

PHOTO (CC) via economist.com

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21625799-modern-food-retailing-has-struggled-win-customers-indias-old-fashioned-merchants-long

Ziba Design | 2015 | Excerpts from Ziba’s Flipboard Magazine 39

WHAT’S THE FUTURE OF THE SERVICE ECONOMY?

Whatever the future of service holds, it’s safe to assume technology will both shape and support it. So far, technology has contributed greatly to delivering improved service experiences, but it has also created disappointment for customers. In fact, when it comes to seamlessly integrating technology—making gadgets and apps support person-to-person interactions, or improve experience long term—brands are just getting started. Thoughtful technology integration stands to be a win-win proposition: better for businesses and their consumers.

As companies shift toward this digital future, we’ll see more holistic brand experiences emerge. Consider what has happened at Nordstrom. Historically, the retailer has delivered service according to one rule for staff members: use best judgement in all situations. Lately, though, those clerks and stockers have been armed with mobile checkout capabilities (thanks, Apple!), and the archaic POS registers have been replaced by friendlier, interactive tablet alternatives. As the tools of delivering service changed, so too did Nordstrom’s. In the process of updating their strategy, they selectively integrated aspects of interaction and product design.

Recently at Ziba, we faced a related challenge: How do you use service fundamentals and technology to shift the chore of shopping for new glasses into a delightful experience? We worked with our partners at Luxottica to find the answer. The result was an integrated, in-store brand experience called the In.Sight Center. Ziba’s service-driven retail model informed every aspect of the experience, including the thoughtful integration of technology that proved equally valuable for staff and customers.

More and more often, brands call for comprehensive strategies like this—complex, but seamless for end users. And as our world becomes increasingly complicated, so too will brands’ problems —and our solutions.


Thank You