Background
Hewlett Packard, IDSA and Jump Associates arranged the DesignAbout to ensure it was filled with information, compelling discussion and solid outcomes. The team at Jump put together a pretty amazing set of inspirational imagery, exercises and guidelines to use during the breakout sessions. The structure of each track is elucidated below with the outcomes covered in the report section.
Design for the Individual (download report in PDF)
- We will share ideas for how to take into account individual desires, regional challenges and cultural preferences.
- As designers, we will discuss how systems for design, production and distribution need to flex to make individualized, personalized offerings.
- We will offer actions that we can employ to thrive in this new age.
Iconic Mass Customization
Goal: To identify the characteristics of successfully mass-customized products.
- Review images of iconic mass customized products.
- Have a rapid-fire discussion about what makes mass customization successful or unsuccessful for these products.
- Capture the discussion on Post-it notes and post them on the large paper template.
Delivering Customization
Goal: To identify changes in design, production and distribution processes that are needed to support mass customization.
- Pick an iconic mass-customized product from the previous discussion.
- Pick a mass-produced product that is not typically mass customized (e.g., refrigerator, microwave)
- Discuss how the mass-produced product can look more like the iconic mass customized product from step 2.
- Discuss how the company making the mass-produced product needs to change the design, production and distribution to successfully mass customize the product.
- Capture the discussion by writing on the large paper template.
Design for the Masses (download report in PDF)
- See how companies successfully empower people and communities to grow and prosper.
- Develop tangible recommendations for how designers and corporations can discover new value at the other parts of the pyramid.
Image Sorting
Goal: To identify the customers we fail to serve today and explore the reasons these groups have not been targeted.
- Quickly sort a stack of 15 photos into three groups:
a. People my company is currently designing for.
b. People we should be designing for but aren't.
c. People we aren't designing for and likely won't.
- Describe the challenges involved in serving each group. Encourage participants to give their reasons for categorizing different photos in different groups. What makes certain customers impractical or unattractive targets? Cultural hurdles? Spending power? Education level? Regulations? Infrastructure?
- Capture the discussion on Post-it notes.
Product Platform Redesign
Goal: To understand what it takes to serve the other 6 billion people and figure out what designers need to do to meet their needs.
- Have the group choose an image from the second stack (people we should be designing for but aren't). Stick the image in the top right-hand corner of the template.
- Using the cards provided with the principles from C.K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (see below) and get participants to talk about how their companies could design products to meet the needs of the customer in the photo. Remind participants that the principles aren't just relevant to extremely poor customers.
- As the group discusses specific principles, place the cards in the left of the grid and record the ideas that come up on the right.
Tools
Principles of Innovation for Bottom of the Pyramid Markets (adapted from C.K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid):
- Don't just focus on lowering price. Radically change the price/performance relationship.
- Look for hybrid solutions. Blend emerging technologies with existing (and rapidly evolving) infrastructures.
- Plan for cross-cultural portability. Solutions must be usable across regions and cultures to get economies of scale.
- Reduce, reuse, recycle. Industrializing countries cannot sustain Western levels of packaging and resource use.
- Deskilling work is critical. Poor skills and infrastructure can make complex repairs and parts replacement impractical.
- Develop new approaches to customer education. In many regions, access to traditional media is limited.
- Products must work in hostile environments. Fluctuating electricity, unpaved roads and polluted water are common constraints.
- Don't assume technological literacy. User interfaces should reflect varying education levels.
- Rethink distribution. Traditional networks often fail in highly dispersed rural markets and dense urban areas.
- Expect technology leapfrogging. Challenge the limitations of existing infrastructure or circumvent the system.
Design with the Cultural Perspective (download report in PDF)
- We will understand how we can use information about different countries and cultures to make better decisions about design.
- We will illustrate how companies can use design as a strategic advantage in global markets.
- We will chart how to build ongoing cultural knowledge bases that we can draw from over time.
Specific Case Study Examples
Goal: Explore two specific examples in which customer experiences were adapted for foreign cultural contexts.
- Discuss two examples of how global brands enter new markets. Record the conversations using Post-it notes, putting them up on the gator board as they are generated.
a. The first example is a breakthrough Coca-Cola ad made for the Indian cricket-viewing market during the 1990s.
b. A second example is Kellogg's 1994 launch of its breakfast cereal in the Indian market. Prompt cards with images and relevant notes will be provided to assist discussion.
- Questions to bear in mind for each example:
a. What assumptions about the product or the market did the company bring to the table?
b. Which assumptions ended up getting challenged or rethought?
c. What were the main factors in the company's success (Coke) or failure (Kellogg's)?
Discussion of the Customer Experience Model
Goal: To explore the basic model of customer experience and explore how it can be modified to work effectively in different cultural contexts.
- Label the circles on the template as shown in the facilitator's version
- Using the experience model as a vehicle, have a discussion about what it takes to create customer experiences for different cultural contexts. Walk through each component of the experience model. For each one, pose the following questions:
a. What are the challenges we face in translating the part of the model to other cultures?
b. What are some solutions or concepts that can address these challenges?
- Capture the discussion with Post-it notes and post them on the large paper template next to the most relevant touch point on the experience model. For solutions, use different color Post-its.
Design for the Flat World (download report in PDF)
- We will briefly summarize these forces and the effect that they are having.
- We will identify how those shifts change the way designers create.
- We will characterize directions we can pursue and outline plans for how to implement them.
- We will use these forces to help us design for the other six billion.
Understanding the Forces
Goal: To get a physical sense of the forces flattening the world and to discuss the people and situations that the theory of flattening fails to account for.
- Each team will be divided into pairs (or a group of three if there's an odd number).
- Each pair will get a large template with a list of Friedman's 10 factors on the left and a circle on the right.
- Inside the circle, one member of the pair draws and describes a product they have worked on.
- Discuss ideas on how the product could change to account for each of the forces.
- Capture those ideas in the white space outside the circle using pictures and descriptions.
- For the last 5-10 minutes, each pair will share its results with the rest of the team.
10 Forces That Are Flattening the World
(adapted from The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman)
Democracy
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, a global view of the future emerged. The spread of democracy allowed us to think of the world as a single space.
- Transformation of the Eastern bloc and the end of the bi-polar world erased decades old divisions.
- Democracy has successfully replaced dictatorship in Latin America.
Web Browsing
Internet-based platforms set a common standard for information. Netscape, the first mainstream browser, gave people easy access to images, data and communication tools.
- Information from any source could be designed for a single browser screen.
- Point-and-click interfaces and forms simplified information exchange.
Work-Flow Software
Common software applications and standards allow data to be exchanged between diverse programs.
- Internet standards: XML, data description language and SOAP, related transport protocol enable digitized data to be exchanged between software programs.
- PayPal created a money transfer system through e-mail addresses.
- Microsoft Word's international versions use an identical interface.
Open Sourcing
Deliberately flexible systems, such as Linux, benefit from a free labor force of engineers that continually improve and build upon the product.
- Google Earth's open applications enable individuals to create custom map-based tools.
- The online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, allows visitors to edit and create entries, building a common knowledge base.
Outsourcing
A whole new range of tasks can be digitized and outsourced. Data-driven services like tax preparation and medical recordkeeping can be performed better and cheaper remotely.
- The Y2K bug was fixed by thousands of Indian engineers.
- Freelancing developers and designers around the world create and maintain Web sites cheaply.
Offshoring
Relocating business processes and manufacturing overseas has become commonplace. Moving entire factories to China has had little effect on product quality.
- Offshoring also occurs between Western countries: in 2003, DaimlerChrysler built the first Mercedes-Benz factory outside Germany in Tuscaloosa, AL.
- Customer support call centers in India.
Supply Chaining
Highly efficient IT and logistics systems link distribution and manufacturing. A sale at a retailer in Ohio can trigger a production line in Thailand.
- Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, was able to supply hurricane-stricken areas faster than the federal government.
Insourcing
Companies are bringing specialized subcontractors in-house to handle core aspects of their operations.
- The Ford Motor Co. used UPS engineers to redesign its North American delivery network, streamlining logistics.
Informing
Wide-ranging search engines allow anyone to independently mine unlimited data.
Wi-Fi and VoIP
Wireless access and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) act as "steroids," eliminating the final barriers in connection. Virtually any device can link from anywhere.
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