Jumping to Solutions

What do you think is the biggest challenge in an Ideation exercise?

Why do you think, most of the solutions fail?

Why does even research does not bring out all the issues?

How can you hold a brainstorming session to build a solution more fruitful and effective?

As we deal with these barriers and many more, we realize that there is a key to at least put ourselves on the right track. The key is obviously driven by the capability of the people working on the problem. But, as long as a conscious effort is made to remember the key, we would not lose our focus.

And, no we are not going to suggest that building a clear objective is the key. Although, we do not deny the importance of building a clear objective, but we are going to delve one level deeper. And we are going to explain it with the help of some examples.

So, what is this key? The key is to understand the underlying systems, components, players and influencers before jumping on to solutions. In other words, it is necessary to first understand what the problem is. 

Right Approach

Wrong Approach

Now, let’s go through some examples:

Example 1:

One of the big problems in South Africa that people were trying to tackle was human-elephant conflict. Elephants used to encroach on farmland and destroy livelihoods. In response, some farmers resorted to poisoning or shooting elephants.

Environment conservationists jumped to solutions for solving this problem. All kinds of modern technology solutions were proposed, and many trialled: Electric fences, RFID tagging, sensors and live-GSM-tracking among them. Most of the solutions failed since they were not replicable, scalable, and/or affordable.

Solution: Elephants run away when they encounter bees. According to this BBC article, early research in Kenya indicates hives can be a very effective barrier, so much so that 97% of attempted elephant raids were aborted. Where satellites, RFID tags and mobile phones failed, humble honey bees proved to be the answer. 

Also note how honey bees also proved to be an alternate source of income! 

Example 2:

Wimbledon had an interesting battle on and off the courts: against the pigeons. Each summer, as tennis players battle it out on the lawn courts, the authorities used to battle and stop pigeons from interfering with the play. Authorities armored themselves with all sorts of modern technology that was available: lasers and radio controlled aircraft to gas guns and ultrasound emitters. Now, we can understand what the courts would have looked like with all equipments, like a battleground?

Solution: Now, if we look from a pigeon’s perspective, all these high tech equipment might be dangerous, but nothing is a match to a bird of prey! Hence, Wimbledon’s answer doesn’t involve anything more high-tech than a bird of prey! A few laps by Rufus, the hawk, around the tennis courts are enough to scare the hardiest of pigeons away! (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13939805)

In India, we solve a similar problem of monkeys using langurs to scare them off!  

Example 3:

One very big cosmetics company in Japan received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty. Management of the company immediately traced the problem to the assembly line that conveyed all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty. 

Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. The engineers worked hard on the first solution that came to mind, using X-ray technology. They devised an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors. Two workers were deployed full-time to monitor all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. They managed to solve the problem but it was an expensive solution.

Solution: The solution was taken to the assembly line and the installation was started. Out of curiosity, one of the workers asked about the installation. On hearing the whole story, he told his engineering manager that the solution was much easier – install a fan- it will blow away all the empty boxes and the assembly line will deliver only full, heavier packages!

Conclusion: As our world is becoming more complex, our problems are becoming even worse! We have numerous methodologies to solve these complex problems, but we observe, increasingly that these solutions are not s effective or efficient as we would have liked them to be! The reason, which we also call the “key”, to get our final solution right to a greater extent is not to jump onto solutions. Some of the examples here might help us in realizing our shortcomings, hence, improving our methodologies and thinking!

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Dissecting Discipline of Designing Experiences

Often I come across different viewpoints on Experience Design discipline about what it is and what exactly experience designers do. The executioner’s (in software business) school of thought is that experience design is the practice of designing technology products and services (each of which is a human experience) based on the consideration of an individual's or a group's needs, tasks, desires, beliefs, knowledge, skills, experiences, and perceptions. Thus, it results into achieving certain user goals and leads to a successful system acceptance by users.

The other school of thought is more at an abstract level that defines experience design as a discipline of designing mental journeys that leaves the customer with memories of having performed something special, meaningful, engaging, with sense of achievement or just fun and entertainment.

Like any other discipline, I think experience design can also be understood as an organized production system that is about creating output in the form of desired experiences using available inputs such as knowledge and ideas, and finally using resources in the form of design processes and skills.

Let’s take an example of thematic restaurants. Today, food is more of an experience rather than a necessity, as only a minor part of the average income (approximately 10 per cent) is spent on food.

Dining is a combined body and mind (sensory) experience and has aspects of culture and society. The body tastes, smells, sees, hears, feels and digests the food. The mind reads the food consciously and unconsciously in the form of activated emotions and memories.

Theme restaurants are cautiously designed to deliver customer experiences by influencing customer’s state of mind with the right ambiance, environment, lighting, music/live performance, and personal service on top of the food served to stimulate emotions like happiness and so on. A great deal of skills and processes are required to accomplish delivery of such desired experiences in the restaurant business.

Another example could be watching theater, which is another form of immersive experience thoughtfully crafted for audience. The stage performances are scripted around a theme to entertain and educate audience (selective sometimes) by stimulating emotions such as anger, happiness, surprise, confusion, and more.

The two examples mentioned above can help us dissect different aspects of organized experience delivery system.



Core Activity
The core activity is what a customer wants to accomplish as a task or an activity. For example, watching a play in a theater or eating in a restaurant.

The Concept (or the ‘Feel’)
The core concept is the theme that the customer admires and what the product stands for. For example, a concept “Happiness is in small moments of life and must be shared” is the theme of Unilever ice cream brand and is well translated into the design of ice cream packaging and ice cream vending machine designs where in a customer is delivered ice cream when he/she smiles into the face recognition system. See demo

Peripheral Experience
Peripherals are supporting experiences (part of the overall customer experience) to which a customer initially pays extra emphasis. For example, the way seating is arranged, welcoming gesture at the entry, cleanliness, and so on.

Core Experience
Core experiences are activities in which a customer gets involved physically and mentally. For example, taste of the food, dialog delivery of an actor, sound and music and so on. Developing core experience is a skilled job and the output is actively consumed by customers. However, core experience cannot be appreciated without a good theme.

Support Services
Support services are materials such as cutlery, menu, and order delivery that are used to accomplish the core activity.

Such a dissection would help in understanding design and delivery of experiences. In my next blog I will make an attempt to explore how a similar approach can be applied in design for software applications.

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Design Thinking

We had the pleasure to attend a session on "Design Thinking – Looking beyond the obvious and crafting a vision for the future" by Prof. Ulrich Weinberg, who is the Head of “School of Design Thinking” at Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam, Germany since 2007.

First, I will note down some key points from his session on Design Thinking and then I will put in my opinions & thoughts. 

Key points from the session:

Sustainable Innovation

• For a sustainable innovation the process has to start with human needs. When the human needs are understood, then one has to understand how technology can support those human needs. And finally, one has to build the business case.
• Key requirement of Design Thinking is a multi-disciplinary team. This team has to work on an iterative process in an appropriate environment. The appropriate environment for design thinking is a variable space as will be discussed subsequently.
• Multi-disciplinary team is very important and every individual has to understand and rely on the power of team.
• Our education systems have corrupted us in thinking only about ourselves. It has made us increasingly individualistic. But, for Design Thinking to succeed we have to think of our collective success rather than individual achievements. 



Iterative Process

• In the iterative process, it is necessary that no one thinks about the solution in the first 3 steps. The first 3 steps are to:
• Understand the problem
• Observe the users and the problems in depth
• Build a point of view about the users and the problems
• Only, after building a point of view should the team move on to Ideation phase that is like a brainstorming session. The objective is to come out with as many solutions possible. "One has to build quantity before quality."
• Iteration of the whole process is important for the success. Usually, the first prototype is only 60-70% successful after testing. And every iteration refines the solution further.
• Many team members of the mulit-disciplinary team come from a non-creative backgrounds. Everyone has to understand that creativity is in-built in everyone. What is important is to "reactivate the skills" and bring back "creativity from kindergarten" 
• This is also known as building up of Creative Confidence.
• "Failing early and often" is a lesson not just for the failing student but for the team and other observants as well. 
• How to create a flexible working environment? 
• Lots of white boards should be placed. Enough for everyone to play with.
• Movable furniture
• Standing positions for team members has been found to be better suited for such process. It was observed that individuals were more active participants when standing compared to sitting. 
• Information environment - An environment where information flow is very easy.
• What sort of individuals are best suited for Design Thinking process?
• T shaped people: Individuals who are good in the filed they are in, but are equally capable of appreciating and understanding other fields and people from other domains.
• How has digital media helped?
• Design Thinking would not have been possible without the advent of Digital Media. Collecting ideas very rapidly has been possible using this media.

My thoughts & opinions:

• Building multi-disciplinary teams is very important for Design Thinking. But, for most of the businesses this is the hardest part. All said and done, bringing together such a team would be hard for smaller businesses or in fact for anyone except some academic institutions.
• Multi-disciplinary team formulation does not take care of cultural sensitivities.
• How can one solve a problem in India sitting in other parts of the world, by building a team of people who have never been to or lived in India?
• Sustainable innovation also leaves aside the culture and society.
• A solution may be good for user needs, technologically feasible and with a good business case, but society may see it as a threat or the solution may be culturally unacceptable. So, it should be (User Needs + Cultural impact + Societal Values)
• Physical environment seems to be a key component of the whole process. With decreasing interactions in real world and increased interactions in virtual world, it is not clear how to build an appropriate environment in virtual world.
• In one of our projects where we are applying Design Thinking, half the team members sit in US and half are in India. It is a real challenge to create a suitable environment on digital world. 

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