A great example of how companies make use of consumer behavior data is the enormously innovative and influential product design firm, IDEO (www.ideo.com). This firm has developed products for many of the world’s most successful and exciting companies, from the technology leader, Apple, to the venerable consumer packaged goods giant, Procter & Gamble.
While the name IDEO obviously draws from the word idea, it is Thomas A. Edison’s famous observation regarding genius as being “One percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration” that actually guides the firm’s product development process. Preceding every “flash of genius” is a painstaking and disciplined approach that intently focuses on the consumer experience.
Whenever IDEO is asked by a client to design a new product, it turns to a highly effective form of idea generation called the “deep dive.” The “deep dive” consists of a total immersion in the customer experience, requiring IDEO’s team of developers and designers to place themselves in the actual situation for which the product is ultimately intended.
For example, a commission to design a better wheelchair would mean living as a disabled person to learn what it’s like to be dependent on a wheelchair for tasks most of us take for granted. Besides the physical aspects of navigating the wheelchair, developers have to ask themselves: How does being in a wheelchair make you feel? Does the wheelchair provide a sense of empowerment or frustration? What things about the wheelchair are positive or negative? Once the team has been able to experience the wheelchair from a disabled person’s perspective, it can much better address the features and benefits that will be most valuable to the user.
Research tells us that people relate to products from multiple perspectives. Why does someone prefer Brand X to Brand Y—although both brands do, essentially, the same thing? It may be because Brand X enhances the person’s status (as in a designer bag) or reassures them that the product is high quality (as in an expensive appliance). Simply put, people prefer products that don’t just do the job (utilitarian value), but also affect the way they feel (hedonic value). Well-designed wheelchairs must not only get people around, but they must also make them feel good about using them, too.
To illustrate how IDEO takes both utilitarian and hedonic considerations in designing products, consider a recent commission: the redesign of the classroom desk. IDEO was asked by Steelcase, a global company in the office furniture industry, to help them break into the education market. Could IDEO transform the traditional tablet-arm desk?
IDEO’s team began by using the desks and observing them in the classroom setting. They saw that the desks were uncomfortable for larger individuals as Americans have been increasing in weight, that the word “tablet” increasingly referred to digital devices, not just spiral notebooks, and that rearranging the desks in the classroom was noisy, cumbersome, and annoying. Also, with many more individuals going to school and class sizes getting larger, the traditional desks produced a sense of overcrowding, an unpleasant feeling for most individuals.
IDEO created a series of prototypes based on their developers’ experience in the classroom. They then invited students and faculty to test each prototype in the classroom and provide direct feedback. As feedback was received and considered in light of the desk’s role in the classroom experience, the tablet-arm desk was completely redesigned. It was dubbed the Node chair.
“The details betray a remarkable thoughtfulness,” wrote Cliff Kuang in Fast Company. “The seat is a generously sized bucket, so that students can shift around and adapt their posture to whatever’s going on: the seat also swivels, so that students can, for example, swing around to look at other students making classroom presentations; and a rolling base allows the chairs to move quickly between lecture-based seating and group activities. In group activities, the proportions are such that the chairs and integrated desktops combine into something like a conference table.” Clearly, the whole experience of sitting in a classroom had been substantially improved.
In a recent TED (Technology, Education, & Design) Talk, IDEO’s founder and president, David Kelley, discussed how “human-centered design,” or looking at things from the user’s point of view, can solve what may seem to be insurmountable problems. He used Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital’s experience with CT scanning of children to illustrate his point.
The problem had to do with the CT scanners themselves. Although the scanners were remarkably accurate and scientifically advanced, they produced a traumatic experience in young children; as many as 80 percent of children had to be sedated before the scans could take place.
While the scanners delivered a high degree of utility from a medical standpoint, they were woefully lacking in providing a good, or even acceptable, experience for young patients. Doug Dietz, principal designer for GE Global Design, which had developed and produced the scanners, set out to see what could be done to improve the children’s experience.
“We did simple things that got overlooked. I mean, some of the most effective insights came from kneeling down and looking at a room from the height of a child,” recalled Dietz. The huge machines in the impersonal, utilitarian rooms frightened the children. Dietz’s solution was to divert the children’s attention from the machine itself by placing it in the context of an exciting fantasy adventure.
The newly redesigned rooms were dubbed the GE Adventure Series™. The rooms and scanners were specially outfitted to resemble a child’s fantasy adventure—a pirate ship, a jungle, an underwater journey. Sights, sounds, and even smells (such as the piña colada scent in the pirate ship adventure) engaged the child’s attention and turned the scanner into an integral part of the fantasy experience.
The impact of the redesign was dramatic: The number of children having to be sedated dropped from 80 percent to just around 10 percent. What better testament to the importance of the hedonic, or experiential, dimension in product design? Before the redesign, the scanners were just highly sophisticated medical devices; afterward, they provided a delightful experience to children and even simplified the job experience of the medical technicians involved.
Moral of the story? The best products not only get the job done, but they make doing the job a pleasure.
Questions
Where does IDEO get inspiration for its product designs?
What kind of value do you think successful products deliver to consumers?
Why do you think having a product that simply works doesn’t always translate to consumer acceptance?
What is the relative importance of the utilitarian versus the hedonic value of products, as suggested by the work of IDEO?
Do you agree with Edison’s observation that “genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration”? Explain your answer.
