The Value and Meaning of Meta Products

THE VALUE AND MEANING OF META PRODUCTS

by Sara C贸rdoba Rubino

Executive Summary To explore the characteristics of the phenomenon, the first step was to analyze the different terms that refer to it. The definition of a Meta Product was for the first time described: a Meta Product is a system with one or more physical connections that help people to communicate (control, access, modify) with the metadata (representations of information in the actual world through virtual platforms, such as Internet). From the term Ubiquitous Computing, to Pervasive Computing, to the Internet of Things, to Ambiance Intelligence to Digital Ecology to Meta Products, the evolution of terms showed that the user has turned from being passive and unaware, to an active generator of environments. I used the term Ubiquitous Technologies (UT) in the rest of the literature analysis to enclose all the terms and focused on the issues related to linking bits and atoms.

Internet and other digital technologies are trespassing into our physical world.

This is a trend already visible in some products. Nike+, for example, is a joint venture of Nike and Apple to create a running experience in which an iPod and a sensor in the running shoes enable the users to track their running data, get live audio feedback and interact on-line with other runners around the world through their Nike+ account. Like Nike+, other products seem to be heading to a similar direction, resulting into products that are constituted of a combination of a digital, an on-line and a physical part.

Booreiland is a young innovative company based in Amsterdam, dedicated to the design and development of web experiences and corporate identities.

Recently, they have been engaged in the design of services for products similar to Nike+. They call it “designing the physical web” or designing “Meta Products”. This last design activity has brought various unanswered questions to Booreiland, raising their interest to understand why and when the convergence of the physical or the atoms’ world and the digital or the bits’ world should take place in the product- service systems. This interest leaded to this project.

The processes between bits and atoms were the next step in the literature analysis. The physical and virtual worlds behave, think, work and are constructed very differently. This brings a great challenge in terms of purposes and processes for designers. Firstly, the nature of bits allows them to be randomly embodied because they do not have a given structural composition such as wood or paper. Secondly, there are no frameworks available in DTM (design theory and methodology) that touch upon the multiple aspects involved when designing Meta Products.

The project started with an extensive literature analysis. The phenomenon of linking bits and atoms was treated as a trend. According to Liebl and Schwarz (2009) a trend should be analyzed according to two different aspects: invention and diffusion. Taking this in mind, the structure of the literature analysis was first, to explore the characteristics of the phenomena. And second, to explore the relationships of the phenomenon with the real world.

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Why value?... because value and meaning are intrinsically related. SDL states that value is co-created with the user because it is experientially determined by him. So, when we (users) actually use a product and make it part of our lives and our environment, we are having a meaningful experience and we are exchanging value.

Why meaning?... because only meaningful experiences are recognized as valuable. Meanings are links in our minds between words, objects, experiences and the environment that result in the formation of concepts. If the links are weak or inconsistent, there will be no concept formation in our minds; hence there will be no meaning. Therefore, a meaningful thing would be one that conveys the best links in our minds.

To focus on the way people perceive value is the key to develop successful UT applications that may render meaningful experiences. But this brings a multi-layered challenge that involves dealing with complex human issues (individual and social) in order to design applications that truly convey meaning and value. In this regard, the literature analysis followed to explore User Experience (UX) domains. Moreover, a sociology theory was recognized to be relevant to consider in the development of UT. This theory is the ActorNetwork theory that maps relations that are simultaneously material and conceptual (Callo, 1992).

The digital part or the bits are mostly associated to intangible services. The physical part or the atoms are associated to the tangible products. But few approaches are dedicated to the design of both bits and atoms as a complete whole or as a complete system. Moreover, it was found that the professional domains related to the intangible services and the tangible products mostly work in ‘silos’. This situation creates numerous troubles for industries to identify the value of linking bits and atoms in the market.

The difficulty to perceive the value of UT applications in the market leaded me to explore the service world in the attempt to see how services deal with UT issues. Some theoretical analogies were found between the Service Dominant Logic (SDL) (Vargo and Lusch, 2007) and UT issues. SDL considers ‘service’ as a network of ‘value exchange’ where physical products are just one part of the whole system. This implies that the tangible and intangible in service are relational. I suggest that this can very well be applied to UT issues and think of the bits and atoms as relational. The relations will only exist if there is value to exchange.

But value can be something very abstract. Many theorists have given to it multiple definitions but in this report it was concluded that value is the willingness of people to exchange, and also the exchange action per se.

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1. Understand the relationships between actors 2. Define their actions of value 3. Construct meaningful actions

For example, the interactions in a library involve people, their ideas, and technologies. They form together a single network. This can also be seen under the SDL perspective as a network of value exchange. I suggest that a transdisciplinary approach is necessary to integrate the supporting disciplines that deal with the individual and the social dimensions of the users.

From these first ideas a preliminary method was elaborated, tested and iteratively constructed through five focus groups with designers. Time, structure, flexibility, visualization, simplicity, logic, reflection, team dynamics and facilitation were the usability criteria.

It was found that UT, UX and SDL share various issues and unanswered questions. Moreover, most of their principles lack of an operable framework that answer the “How” questions. The most relevant unanswered questions are: How to encourage meaningful experiences? How to co-create value with the user and How to foresee the way value will be experienced?

I suggest that these questions can be answered by integrating UT, UX and SDL domains in an operable way. Therefore, a theoretical foundation integrating these three domains was elaborated in order to develop an operable method to design meaningful and valuable Meta Products. An internal analysis of the company was also performed to establish boundaries and objectives.

The results of the tests and observations answered the questions:

How to encourage meaningful experiences?

A meaningful experience will be encouraged if the designer creates interactions that make sense in the whole network of exchange How to co-create value with the user?

An action of exchange and the willing to exchange is the unit of value. So, to co-create value means for the designer to focus on the peoples’ willingness to exchange.

The first ideas of the method were the result of analogical thinking between the most relevant principles from UT, UX and SDL domains which in sequence are:

How to foresee how value will be experienced?

The way value will be experienced could be foreseen by focusing on the aspirations (including emotions) that lead to actions of exchange.

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empathic skills and experience. However, I consider this method to be just an initiative that identifies the most relevant theoretical principles and abstract logics in literature for the Meta Product design. And not only that; this method attempts to make these theoretical principles operable, so that designers can actually apply them. As any initiative, it still needs further evaluation and a deeper theoretical analysis in some areas. For example, it is unknown if this method would actually help to integrate the production processes of a Meta Product. Moreover, it seems that this method would help to the development of a proper business model, but this is still unknown. Besides, in this project it was not possible to analyze the complete learning curve of the designers. This could eventually re-shape the method and improve it. The scope of this project did not include concept testing of the final outcomes of the sessions. So, there is still plenty of research to do with end-users.

All this was synthesized in a method to design Meta Products. The method is the creative output of the theoretic integration of the foundational principles of the UT, UX and SDL domains combined with creative and design thinking techniques. It is meant to be practical and it is aimed at Booreiland’s designers. The method has two modalities: the Project-method and the Workshop-method.

The first one uses research tools and the last one makes use of the experiences and imagination of the designers. The method has three sections derived from the three theoretical analogies: explorative thinking, generative thinking and constructive thinking. In the first section, the designers have to ‘Visualize the Network’ by finding the actions, actors and connections of exchange in a particular environment. In the second section the designers have to ‘Set a Direction’, which means to challenge the network by identifying the aspirations and dreams of a main actor that can become new actions and new connections of exchange between actors. In the last section of the method, the designers have to ‘Design the Meta Product’, which means that they will embody the connections based on the direction set previously.

In the future, design disciplines will need more approaches like the one developed in this project. Transdisciplinary thinking will be the most valuable asset of designers to cope with the complexity of network-focused design.

Network-focused design will be more and more important as bits and atoms get every time closer. And they will get closer, because we will continue challenging our own limitations of distance, space, time and knowledge. This means that there will be more connections between people, places, products and services. Designers will be in charge of identifying meaningful and valuable connections.

This is a network-focused design method that helps designers to understand how meaning and value is created in order to design successful Meta Products. It is holistic, abductive and iterative. It provides guidelines but at the same time provides the freedom to the designers to use their intuition,

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank Jan Buijs and Erik Roscam- Abbing, my mentors, for their guidance and endless enthusiasm.

I also thank the people that shared their time and valuable recommendations at the focus groups. They are Alper Cugun, Beatriz Fernandez, Jurjen Helmus, Tal Benisty, Jaap Daalhuizen, Jelmer Zijlstra, Miguel Hernández and Elena Sánchez. Special thanks to Anne Marleen Olthof and her 30 students from the HVA.

Menno Huiman and Wimer Hazenberg, from Booreiland, have put their trust on me in this adventure. I’d like to thank them for that and for sharing their eagerness to do great things with me.

Jetze van Beijma, Jelmer Zijlstra and Jornt van Dijk; the guys at the office, I would like to thank them for the nice lunch conversations!

My sister who always believes in me, I thank her enormously.

I am grateful also to my friends in Delft that gave me so many encouraging comments: Alazne, Felipe, Miren, Erik, Lara, Emina, Anahí, Iñigo and many others more! My housemates in Delft were so nice and supporting, and I thank them for that as well.

For all his support, criticism and motivation, I’d like to thank Michèl. I am very proud that you are in my life.

For their inspiring conversations, I would like to thank Alexandra DeschampsSonsino, Harald Dunnik and Sebastian Kersten, Jenny de Boer, Jeroen van Geel and Marc Fonteijn.

Special gratitude to my mother... for everthing.

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Table of contents 0

Foreword Executive summary Acknowledgements Table of contents i. Literature analysis -Abstract -Introduction -The world of Bits --Bits and atoms -The user in UT -Misunderstanding the user in UT --Benefits to the real world --- UT & Service --- UT & Value --- UT & Experience -Conclusion

5 6 7 8 9 10 13 18 24 27 31 33 38 40 43 44

ii. Exploratory research -Introduction -Interviews -General chart of technologies, applications and industries

45 46 47 49

iii. Booreiland -Introduction -The world of the consumers -Trends and issues in the environment -The company -- Opportunities chart -Conclusion

50 52 55 58 60 61

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iv. Framework -Introduction -The framework -Objectives

63 64 65 66

v. Idea generation -Introduction -First ideas -Tests -General results chart -Conclusion

67 68 73 74 75

vi. Synthesis -Introduction -Format -Project- method (version a) -Case summary -Workshop-method (version b) -Conclusion

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vii. Implications and recommendations

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79 80 81 100 102

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References Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3

112 115 118 145

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i. Literature review

Abstract The main conclusions are that UT frequently fail to deliver meaning and value because of the divergence in theory and in practice of the relevant domains; and because the role of the user demands the understanding of psychological, social and cultural human dimensions, which are complex and beyond strict scientific domains. Furthermore, there is a lack of frameworks that integrate the relevant domains to design meaningful and valuable applications for Ubiquitous Technologies.

In this literature analysis the phenomenon of ‘linking bits and atoms’ is analysed as a trend. The characteristics and terms of the world of bits is analyzed. Here it was found that the role of the user both in theory and in practice has changed, from an passive and unaware user to an active generator of environments.

The processes in digital and physical practices are analysed to conclude that the value of Ubitquitous Technologies (UT) is difficult for industries to identify because the relevant domains that are involved mostly work in ‘silos’ and have different mindsets.

From this literature analysis, the need to create a transdisciplinary approach is identified. The Service Dominant Logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2007) was identified as one of the foundations that could help to create a common language between service, ubiquitous technolgies and user experience domains.

The implication of these two findings are touched upon in this analysis by identifying relevant principles between service design, user experience design and Ubiquitous Technologies.

In this section, the user, and how he is being misunderstood in UT is explained. Then, the main issues to identify the benefits of UT in the real world are analysed.

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Introduction “I love my internet and I want to keep on loving it”, this told me a friend that is active on Facebook, Linkedin, Spotify, Twitter, owns a blog and a smartphone.

He has until now various years of history on-line, an intangible legacy of photos, journal entries dating back to the age of 17, almost a decade of designs and everything he has written outside school. Internet is not his pastime, is his lifestyle. Using his own words, he is not as “addicted” to what Internet can give to him (let’s say directions, news and all sorts of handy and entertaining information) as he is “addicted” to what he can give to the Internet. Internet is his creative outlet.

them are arising. The future pictures a new ecosystem of technologies that trespasses the boundaries of monitors and keyboards and become part of the tangible world.

Already in the early 90’s, scientists have shown us a picture of our planet in which better and safer food would stand in the shelves of the global supermarkets, every single product would be tracked and recycled. Human lives would be saved by preventing diseases and medical mistakes; and the overall planet would be permanently updated in seamlessly connected intelligent spaces and intelligent devices3 - technology 24 hours at our service.

The story does not end there, it is actually just starting. Nowadays, the borders of internet, mobile, information, media, computing, navigation, virtual and other related technologies are merging and cross-functionally working1 .

Thanks to Internet becoming the ultimate multi-network service2, new possibilities for mobile devices and the technologies that go with 1 Source: RCR Wireless News- RCR Ecosystems www.rcrwireless.com 2 Multi-network service can be seen as a pyramid; at the top level, a personal communication application consumes various services –second level, (instant messaging, video, presence information, etc.) which are offered by various service providers – third level, which are enabled by various network providers - bottom level. (Tutschku et al. 2007)

3 A smart or intelligent device is an everyday physical object that has been enhanced by (or designed with) the addition of technology. Smart objects operating in smart environments or spaces can respond to users’ preferences or profiles and provide a variety of services to users.

These smart spaces require system software and associated communications infrastructures to interact with smart objects and users. (Roussos, 2008)

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to identifying what constitutes the “new� of this trend and the second one refers to the forces that would drive the trend to be spread and become a social convention. Following these statements, my first assumption is to begin exploring what is happening in the world of bits. In the following paragraphs, the most relevant definitions are described and the conceptual evolution of terms is explained to understand the main issues and the state of the art in the world of bits. The sub-sections that follow touch upon diffusion issues related to the actual world, the user and the market. You will notice that one topic leads to the next one in the same way I explored the phenomena. As I explored one topic, it provided new hints and structure to the next new exploration.

It has been a while since this picture was imagined. Many scientists seeing it as the future dream, many others as the future nightmare. A nightmare in which this technology will restrict our civil liberties, attack our privacy, generate even more pollution and our free-will would be diminished by the predictability of the systems.

Between these two polarized visions there are other perspectives looking at the same phenomena. Bits’ becoming ubiquitous and part of the tangible world gets the attention of many research and practice fields. It is a trend, and as all trends it can be misunderstood particularly when trying to find their strategic or economic relevance. According to Liebl and Schwarz (2010) a trend is a vague silhouette, whose (new) quality and outline has to be identified and evaluated. If a trend is taken seriously, it should be analyzed according to two different aspects: invention and diffusion. The first one refers

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“If there had been no computer, deconstruction could never had happened�

Jacques Derrida

1. The world of bits Terms

There are several terms in the world of the technology that refer to the link of bits and atoms. In this section, the most important terms and their differences are described.

some theorists are indistinctive (Satyanarayanan, 2002), for others such as Lyythinen and Yoo, (2002) pervasive computing is characterized by a lower level of mobility than ubiquitous computing.

In 1991, Weiser introduced the concept of ubiquitous computing stating that it is “the method of enhancing computer use by making many computers available throughout the physical environment but making them effectively invisible to the user”. In 1999, the same author described pervasive computing as the technology that “activates the world, is invisible, everywhere computing that does not live on a personal device of any sort, but is in the woodwork everywhere, makes a computer so embedded, so fitting, so natural, that we use it without even thinking about it.” Also in 1999, the MIT, created the term the Internet of Things as “The vision to create a universal environment in which computers understand the world without help from human beings”.

The term “Internet of Things” though, until recent times, it was associated more frequently in supply chain management for global consumer goods industries.

The terms of Weiser or the MIT have not prevailed as they expressed them.

For instance, the terms ubiquitous and pervasive computing which for

Recent theorists (Plomp et al., 2010 and Enders et al., 2008) differ in the meaning of terms depending on their focus of study. Plomp et al., defines Ubiquitous Computing when the focus is on the interconnectivity of autonomous components in the environment. These components perform specific tasks, sensing the environment, actuators controlling the environment and they are means for user input and feedback. They also extended the term ubiquitous computing to Ambiance Intelligence, in which the focus is on the user. Ambiance intelligence strives for adapting services to the user by manipulating information about the user’s context or preferences. This last term finally evolved into Digital Ecology, in which the focus relies on creating environments which are seen as complete systems consisting of people and digital services provided by the environment.

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In the practice and less official forums, other terms such as the physical web, the web of things or the tactile web are used, most of them referring to devices and real-world objects connected to the internet and to each other reacting to the information of the user in the environment. Booreiland uses the term Meta Products for this type of ubiquitous technology. Since Booreiland is the initiator and promoter of this project, I find important to specify the definition of a Meta Product as a form of ubiquitous technology. In my own words a Meta Product is:

actuators, devices), between the touch-points and the metadata or between metadata and metadata. Figure 2.

Regardless the focus or intention of the terms (and whether they include on-line, off-line or mixed functions), in the rest of the this section I prefer to use the term Ubiquitous Technologies (UT) which comprises all the terms mentioned before and are assumed jointly with their possible applications.

The purpose of this is to avoid narrowing the attention to a specific technology or modality of application and instead to understand their general issues and characteristics.

A system with one or more physical connections that help people to communicate (control, access, modify) with the meta data (representations of information in the actual world through virtual platforms, such as Internet).

From the technical point of view, the terms in UT have almost not changed.

Naturally, technology has improved (internet is more powerful, there are new sensors, new protocols, etc) but in the end, all these terms refer in different ways how to link bits and atoms, either with mobile devices or embedded into other things around us. The implications of this link of bits and atoms are what intrigue me the most rather than the terms per se. The user, for instance, has taken a more important role, with more power and more action. This is the most interesting evolution I would like to continue exploring.

In the next sub-sections the relationships between bits and atoms are explored followed by an indepth analysis of the role of the user in UT. Lastly, the main issues and challenges to identify the benefits of UT in the real world were explored.

Figure 1.

A Meta Product may have different touch-points (sensors, actuators, identifiers, web pages, etc) at different times depending on the intentions of the communication. The communication may be: between touch-point and the actual world information, between touch-point and touch-point (sensors,

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Figure 1. Defintion of a Meta Product: a system A system with one or more physical connections that help people to communicate (control, access, modify) with the meta data (representations of information in the actual world through virtual platforms, such as Internet)

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The communication in a Meta Product:

Between touchpoints & the actual world information

Between touchpoint & touchpoint

Between touchpoint & metadata

Figure 2. The communication flows in a Meta Product.

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Between metadata & metadata

2. Bits and atoms

Moreover, various theorists concur in the fact that the true benefit of the ubiquitous technologies is still yet to be deployed. Oertel et al., (2009) states that organizations are still striving to determine whether and how they can benefit from UT, and that this seems to be attributable to a lack of understanding of the benefits of UT on a basic (strategic) level. In line with this, Fleisch and Tellkamp (2003) state that “so far there is only limited knowledge on the impact of ubiquitous technologies on business processes and how applications based on these technologies can create value for companies”. Oertel et al. (2009) go on claiming that although ubiquitous technologies such as RFID sensor networks and networked embedded are quite mature, widespread adoption has yet to take place. This may be due to the lack of systematic assessment of the potential of ubiquitous technologies to creating value. This may sound similar to the chicken or the egg dilemma; are UT failing to offer real value? Or the real world has not been able to fully see it, and implement prope r business cases? I would simply answer yes to both questions. The world of bits and the real world are greatly challenged to communicate better. The cause of this misunderstanding may have been already explained in 1957 in the thoughts of Alderson: “What is needed is not an interpretation of the utility created by marketing, but a marketing interpretation of the whole process of creating utility”.

The unique linking of bits and atoms opens up numerous possibilities for new interactions (Enders et al., 2008), which are rarely questioned if they bring true value to consumers, organizations or societies. In other words, what would drive this trend to be part of our culture? Furthermore, this linkage brings various challenges in terms of processes. This means that atoms have various development processes and bits some others that may present difficulties when trying to synchronize towards a same purpose (e.g. towards the creation of a new valuable service). The bit world is busy creating tags with more autonomy, better data managers, more reliable sensors, better infrastructures and software, amongst many other things to integrate them at some point into the real world, the world of atoms.

Precisely at this point- the integration to the world- is when many doubts arise not only in research but also in the practice. Most of the current UT research activities rarely deal with real world concerns (Konomi and Roussos, 2006) that extend beyond a user-driven logic, and which can be better interpreted from industry practices. Bob Williams (CSI Consulting Inc. 2008) expressed a common consideration in the industry practice frequently unseen by the academy: “The socio-economic aspects - health and safety, the environment, lawful interception, privacy, security, access to and inclusivity of the technology, the role of government, etc; will all affect the take up of the Internet of Things”.

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“We are entering a world where there won’t be one but two realities...”

Paul Virilio

2.1 Bits and atoms Processes

these interactions will not be executed in the first place, if it is not clear for the person what he or she can do with them. In this section, specific processes are analyzed (a web design process, a hardware/software engineering process and a product design process) to explore what would be needed to find a common process and a common way of thinking for both the bit and the actual world.

The humanity has a long history of shaping atoms (materials) into products.

Moreover, humans have a long history of interacting with tangible products. To develop tangible things implies certain ways of thinking that permeate to the related processes (conceptualizing, manufacturing, marketing, etc). The most basic way of thinking when creating a tangible thing is that the material has a unique spatial location determined by its given structural composition which as well defines its purpose.

In general terms, web design processes consist of iterative loops of fast prototyping and testing and parallel activities in which ‘real-world’ information is considered as part of the overall process. For example, Booreiland’s design process of a web based solution consists of two concentric loops of iterative activities. The initial concept is created by Booreiland (with internal knowledge and skills). Once a design is produced it can be tested by endconsumers (usage), initiating this way an iterative design process, in which not only the feedback from the users but also the need of updating and maintenance of the content (images, graphics, etc) creates the loop back to design at the same time as usage happens. Figure 3.

Bits, are the basic unit of information in computing systems that have twovalued attributes (yes/no, 0/1, true/false). The physical states of storage (laptops, phones, etc) of these attributes are totally independent, as they can be used for different assignments in the same device. Therefore, contrary to tangible things, As we can see, dealing with bits or atoms implies two different ways of thinking. When developing UT’s these differences may provoke serious difficulties to create coherent interfaces, mediums or touchpoints for the user.

Since bits can be embodied in almost any possible way, it is easy to fall into meaningless objects that do not communicate the right message. For example, touch screens can offer multiple interactions (push, drag, tap, sweep) but

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Figure 3. Web design process. Based on www.booreiland.nl/blog

follows hardware to later be integrated in one final product. In my opinion, the engineering of the system (product integraton) in this framework should not be at the final stage but should be a constant activity throughout both software and hardware engineering. Moreover, this method focuses only on the productivity and response capability of the company and does not contemplate radical innovations. Which may imply that the “bit/atom worry� only happens late in the process.

Web design processes adapt easily to changes in customer requirements or their operating environment. This quality would be very useful to other industries. It is a fact (Kettunen, 2008) that in many industries facing highly unpredictable changes in product-service demands and customer needs, more adaptive operative capabilities are needed. For example, the attractiveness of customization (which is easier to achieve in the digital world) is that markets are more fragmented, where customers may express more individual needs. Hence, these markets are easier to be understood and development cycles are reduced.

Most of the real world processes such as design and engineering processes, follow more or less linear methodologies in which the iteration is less radical (Koller 1985; Andreasen and Hein, 1987; Pahl and Beitz, 2007). The Delft Innovation Model (Buijs and Valkenburg, 2005) considers four defined activities within an organization which happen one after the other creating an overall loop or cycle (see appendix 1). Despite the iterative general nature of the DIM, which allows agile and integral solutions in product design, the processes in the virtual world (web and software) are by far much faster and more iterative and better suited to run parallel tasks than the processes of tangible things.

Unfortunately, many processes in the real world do not adapt easily to each individual consumer need. There are various attempts in DTM (Design Theories and Methodologies) to provide bridges between the diversity of processes in the market, product development and the bit world processes.

Nokia Siemens, uses a combination of Adaptable Design and Concurrent Engineering methods. Adaptable design means that an existing design can be adapted to create a new or modified design based on the changed requirements specifically driven by software and customer developments.

Nokia, can benefit from design adaptability by reusing most of the existing design solutions and production processes to shorten product development lead-time and improve product quality (Tomiyama et al. 2009). The flexible software architecture is designed for easy incorporating of new hardware unit types, based on standardized hardware/software interfaces, avoiding major delays. The result is a scenario (See appendix 1) in which hardware and software developments have their own separate streams. Software

Nokia succeeded in integrating both distinctive processes from an operational point of view. However, the software and the hardware are developed separately and I wonder if small bricks with screens are indeed the best embodiment of the mobile phones, both for the organization and the end-user.

In any case, I believe UT bring new bit-atoms relationships and with them many unanswered questions in terms of user interaction, hence in the overall development process behind it as well.

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“Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it�

Albert Einstein

3. The user in UT

data wirelessly to a PDA or PC, to alert caregivers of elderly patients prone to falling, or help trainers analyze athletic performance.

The most striking aspect to notice in the evolution of terms of Ubiquitous Technologies is how the user has turned from a passive receiver that has no awareness of the invisible computing systems, into an active generator of environments. Nevertheless, the reasoning behind how active and how aware of being active the user should be is still undefined. The design implications of this user-empowerment are also vague. These are some examples of how the user can be active and aware:

3. Lastly, there is a radical way of active user and it can be seen mainly in Social Media. Social media services, such as Facebook or Linkedin, do not really exist without user generated content as the services have no value without it. This movement towards social interaction on online platforms has created a new basis for community (Boase et al., 2006) in which the user is fully active and aware.

1. An active user may be generating an environment by setting his or her own personalized settings, preferences and needs from a variety of given options that are updated based on user’s interaction history and past preferences and behavior in a particular context. For example, various concepts of smart mirrors have been proposed and some partial applications are already in some retail shops. The smart mirror scenario presents a clothing shop in which a customer stands in front of the smart mirror holding a piece of clothing that triggers the mirror to display other suitable garments and accessories. The customer may or may not buy the garments, but he or she can as well upload the proposed options to a personal web account and review them at any time later using another smart mirror at the shop or from elsewhere using any device with internet connection.

The most common approaches in UT (including the examples above) that involve the user have been somewhat Tayloristic4 1: observing, sensing, tracking, standardizing and fragmenting human tasks and behavior into small segments in order to adapt the technology in the most efficient way.

4 System advocated by Fred W. Taylor. In Taylor’s view, the task of factory management was to determine the best way for the worker to do a job. He broke each job down into its individual motions, analyzed these to determine which were essential, and timed the workers with a stopwatch. With unnecessary motion eliminated, the worker, following a machinelike routine, became far more productive.

2. Another type of active user may be generating an environment without any conscious input to the system. For example, some health applications consist of wearable systems that record changes in body posture, and can send

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However, the unpredictability and “mess” of human behavior have made the Tayloristic approach almost impossible to follow, rendering UT systems that fail in real-world situations. As Sengers (2003) mentions, in Artificial Intelligence51 , for example, developers build conceptual models of people, implement these in code, and run them, hoping for a better understanding of what a human experience is like. Furthermore, in human-computer interaction (HCI), developers similarly often build cognitive models of users, allowing software to reason about what users may perceive by comparing their behavior with expectations of human behavior built into the cognitive models. In many of these cases, Senger became frustrated by the fact that her thoroughly calculated models of behavior “always seemed to miss the point and they could never replicate the complexity and richness of natural behavior of humans and animals”.

example, Brandtzaeg et al. (2003) studied how giving the power of decisionmaking may enhance the fun experienced in a user-technology interaction.

Furthermore, they claimed that the level of decision-making authority of the user depends on how well the user can see or understand the possibilities represented by the technology.

There is not a well-founded reason behind this “empowerment of the user”.

In my opinion, human beings have always find pleasure in being amateurs.

This means we engage in certain activities as long as they primarily deliver pleasure. For example, if we are amateurs in an activity such as painting, we like to “act as experts as possible” as long as it delivers a pleasant activity and it does not demand more effort than expected. I believe this principle may happen in different situations and scales in everyday life, if people have the tools to do so. The tools allow amateurs to have a degree of control (to create, change, communicate, etc) over the activity in question.

Similar struggles have pushed other developers of UT to consider the user in different ways, realizing that the most important factors are not the ones the technology can interpret from the user but the ones that the user can interpret from the technology. The act and means of interpreting the technology is what in some UT studies call user-experience. Hence, cognitive sciences, sociology and other fields have become very interesting for UT developers. For

The attention to the user experience in the development of UT brings the challenge to bridge the related fields of knowledge (such as psychology, neurosciences, cognitive ergonomics, among many others) in an operational way. The following section describes how involving the user in the development of UT appropriately is a major challenge. A more thorough explanation of user experience is elaborated in section 4.3 of this report.

5 Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science dedicated to develop them. It is “the study and design of intelligent agents,” Poole, Mackworth & Goebel 1998, p. 1 (who use the term “computational intelligence” as a synonym for artificial intelligence).

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“Reality is more problematic as an idea than as an experience�

Gil Germain

3.1 Misunderstanding the user in UT

the interface between the physical and virtual world; and the second that focuses on the spontaneous interoperation, which means the service discovery in which components can locate a service instance that meet their needs to permit network integration and interaction of smart devices. As we can see, in a technology-driven development of UT, to determine the “what” from the physical world is secondary, and most importantly, it is not clear how to determine the boundaries of the physical world. Without boundaries, there is no true understanding. In various UT applications the boundaries of the real world are defined by forced-fit; this means the technology is tested to determine possible applications in the real world. (See Roussos and Kostakos, 2008; Rukzio et al. 2007; Gebauer et al. 2007). I consider the force-fit approach will most likely provoke unnatural scenarios that will hardly become part of people’s lives.

Not so long ago the major challenge was to formalize human behavior to model the computing systems in order to fit into the real world. Scientists realized that it was impossible to do so, and the challenge became the adaptation of the technology to the human behavior. In the attempt of finding ways to develop UT that adapts to the human behavior, there are multiple approaches that in my opinion, have not reached the appropriate level of understanding of the user and the implications of involving the user in the development processes. In this section, some of these approaches are described.

Some of the examples of user involvement mentioned in the previous section can be classified according to Magerkurth (2004-2008) into two orientations.

System-oriented (system-driven) ubiquitous technologies, which are applications that have the power to “reason” and exhibit automatic behavior; and, people-oriented (user-driven) ubiquitous technologies, in which the applications are dedicated user profiling services (awareness, notification and user interface services for integrating the human in the process). See figure 4.

A similar situation was seen in 1960, when Hollywood producer Mike Todd Jr. released the film Scent of Mystery, in which featured a special technology that added aromas to scenes, it was called the Smell- O- Vision (or Sensorama).

The implementation of this technology roundly failed because the human sense of smell - unlike, for example of rabbit’s, becomes easily overloaded, so it was necessary to completely clear the air of a particular aroma before another was released. Otherwise, the scents all blended together into an indistinguishable olfactory mélange. Even though the creators of the SmellO- Vision technology figured out how to pump out each smell after a new one appeared, the concept was never successful, probably because of the complexity with which humans perceive their environments, where smells are naturally part of the context and not isolated elements linked to cues showed in a screen.

This evolution shows that the UT’s domains turned from Weiser’s technologydriven logics to user-driven logics. A type of user-driven logic can be found in context-awareness theories in UT in which elements such as when, what, where, with whom and in which mood the user is, are key to the development of an application (Brown and Jones, 2001; Dey, 2001; Schmidt et al., 1999).

Kindberg and Fox (2002), define two popular technology-driven characteristics in the process of ubiquitous technologies systems: one that focuses on the physical integration which means the interaction between computing nodes and the physical world through smart devices that provide

27

UT

UT UT

UT

UT

UT UT

UT

UT Figure 4. User-oriented ubiquitioius technologies

UT System-oriented ubiquitious technologies

User-driven perspective is a great step indeed to the development of UT. However, I consider that there is still uncertainty to incorporate “soft” societal issues that are inherent to the users’ perception and hence to the way they experience the UT’s. Furthermore, the UT’s user-driven perspective still has a narrowed technical scope rather than a transdisciplinary. A recent study (Hossain et al., 2008) used the concept of user’s satisfaction of a service in a particular context as a key factor that derives the service selection process in a smart space. They used a user-driven approach to incorporate the user’s context, their ambient preference, interaction history and service reputation (their opinions) to dynamically compute user’s satisfaction of the available media services. However, in their study, the technical perspective was predominant leaving unresolved how to treat the subjective data derived from the user’s input. Moreover, they were only focused on the reliability of predicting the user’s wishes from an established set of options, rather than the reasoning and conceptualization behind those options.

I believe that the UT’s development processes have achieved significant advances to link bits and atoms from a user-driven perspective. With this, a great step towards developing solutions for the real world was taken.

However, the future role of the user in the UT’s development implies that new frameworks and implementation models are required in a transdisciplinary level. According to Klein et al. (2001) the core idea of transdiscipinarity is “different academic disciplines working jointly with practitioners to solve a real-world problem”. Real-world problems always involve subjective issues driven by people’s perceptions, beliefs, behaviors and experiences. Therefore, real-world problems should be relevant to the UT’s development processes and framework models are needed to transgress the boundaries of related disciplines by iterative collaboration between scientists, practitioners, stakeholders and people.

“Science is simply common sense at its best� Thomas Huxley

4. Benefits to the real world

This section presents literature evidence that acknowledges the difficulties the real world (industries, practitioners, markets) to identify, implement and operate UT in the creation of services and products. Furthermore, a strong analogy is found between the market systems and UT’s interaction, which may be the starting point of finding mutual frameworks. A new way of thinking in service design is identified as a possible platform in which UT and real world processes can converge to work in transdisciplinary way as mentioned in section 4.1

market environment can offer a more realistic context for research in UT; in particular it can help frame future work so as to better meet the needs of the real world. Nevertheless, these claims do not specify how UT should be situated neither within a market environment or business process, nor at which point in time of the development process.

Industries have been active in the quest to identify and implement the benefits of UT. Some industries follow a theory created by Goodhue and Thompson (1995), the Task Technology Fit (TTF), which states that performance improvements can be achieved when the capabilities of a technology are aligned with the requirements arising from the task to be performed. There has been proof that this alignment allows a better use of technology and therefore better levels of performance. However, this theory is tailored within particular organizations, and the scope does not cover any user or market considerations outside the corporate boundaries. Hence it misses a market fit that offers the right business case.

One of the things the real world is asking is for ever-increasing volumes of information and more distributed and higher performance systems (Roussos, 2008). According to Williams (CSI Consulting Inc. 2008), it is not the devices per-se but the continuous and dense stream of real-time and updatable data that reflect events in the physical world, which may turn ubiquitous technologies into attractive business cases.

Heijden and Valiente (2002) claim that in the case of mobile technology, the benefits are hard to quantify in isolation, and that the unit of analysis to identify value should be the business process. Konomi and Roussos (2006), support this view claiming that ubiquitous technologies situated within a

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“The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit�

Milton Friedman

4.1 UT & Service

Kotler (1977, p. 8) noted that the “importance of physical products lies not so much in owning them as in obtaining the services they render”. Service design has struggled with the tangible-intangible debate for a long time.

There is a popular debatible vision of the product-service development, in which the intangible service is always surrounding a tangible product (which is perceived to have the most value). In this debate is where I find a second analogy with UT. In both domains the tangible and the intangible try to live together. Moreover, the tangible is challenged. As Germain (2009) claims: “ Less and less do we have to endure those restrictions that constrain us as creatures of space and time. We are no longer bound by our bodies, not politically... or socially... not spacially...” This analogy leaded me to one of the latest marketing studies on service design, the Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) created by Vargo and Lusch (2007). SDL leaves behind the practice of discussing services primarily on the basis of a simple contrast between the material and the immaterial because it results in a neglect of the specific material output from service activities. In simple words, the tangible and the intangible in service design and in UT are relational.

There is no doubt that the market systems have their base in the real world.

A market system has several levels of interaction in the service environment that involve consumers, producers, channels, resources and the market place.

Organizations and industries are slowing recognizing the importance of viewing the overall service environment and its interactions, rather than just focusing on the tangible output (product). By looking at the overall service environment and its interactions, industries and organizations can understand the contexts, the main actors and the real drivers of successful products. This means that the market systems have taken a few steps back to see the big picture. They gradually invite the consumer to be an active part of the creation of services. According to Plomp et al., (2010) service design methods “are now aiming to design service not just as stand alone components, but to be incorporated in services orchestrated by the users themselves”. Analogically, interaction research in UT, frequently aims to empower users to tweak their environments (e.g. ambiance intelligence vs. digital ecology). I believe these two domains can gain from this analogy.

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“Eventually everything connects people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se�

Charles Eames

FP4- Operant resources (knowledge and skills) are the fundamental source of competitive advantage. The ability to cause desired change drives competition FP5- All economies are service economies FP6- The consumer is always a co-creator of value. Value creation is interactional FP7- The enterprise cannot create and/or deliver value independently, but only offer value propositions FP8 -A service-centered view is inherently customer oriented and relational FP9- All social and economic actors (context) are resource integrators. The context of value creation is a network of networks FP10- Value is always uniquely and experientially determined by the beneficiary. Value is also contextual and meaning laden

The SDL defines service as the application of one’s resources for the benefit of another entity. The service-for-service foundation of S-D logic provides the motivation for interaction and network development, in which the creation of mutual value is relational.

SDL also recognizes that the most relevant value is the value-in-use (just as in the virtual world processes). Dixon (1990) recognized that the notion of value became unclear when studying services and leaded other theorists to consider that value creation and consumption were “inseparable”—essentially, to acknowledge value-in-use. The notion of value for Vargo and Lusch (2004b) is that value is always intangible, heterogeneously experienced, co-created, and potentially perishable.

SDL has 10 foundational premises:

I believe that SDL is a way of thinking that may help converge disciplines and practices necessary for the development of UT in a transdisciplinary way.

However, to permeate this logic into the implementation of UT in products and services, it is required to construct operational models and frameworks that currently do not exist. The following figure presents my interpretation of the SDL. To have an idea of how the SDL would look like operationally, I transformed the foundational premises into a conceptual representation. See figure 5.

FP1- Service is the fundamental basis of exchange. The application of operant resources (knowledge and skills): “service” is the basis of all exchange FP2- Indirect exchange of service is not always evident because service is provided through complex combinations of goods, money and institutions FP3- Goods are a distribution mechanism for service provision. Goods derive their value through use.

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SERVICE

Context (social and economic factors) Resource Exchange

$

Figure 5. Representation based on SDL

Actors

“The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live�.

Victor Hugo

4.2 UT & Value

with SDL, value is co-created, leaving behind the risk of false predictions.

Co-creation of value captures “the participation in the development of the core offering itself, especially when goods are used in the value-creation process”61.

UT developments consider the user as an active generator of environments, but still struggle to find the way to do it. Other disciplines have incorporated the user (or consumer) in similar ways (such as marketing and service design). In this scenario, the integration of supporting disciplines (cognitive sciences, psychology, sociology, etc) is a major challenge. Going through all this trouble has a purpose, and it is to develop real solutions in products and services that can be perceived as such by the end-users. Following the SDL, there must be a reason or a driver for exchanging service, and even though the SDL does not explain it literally, I believe that the reason to exchange service is the creation of value. FP6 and FP10 mention correspondently that the consumer is always a co-creator of value and that it is uniquely and experientially determined by the beneficiary. These foundational premises lead me to question what exactly value is and what are the implications of being uniquely determined by the beneficiary? Therefore, I consider important to dedicate this section to understand the term value and the possible relations with other concepts such as perception and experience (both in the UT and service design contexts).

Despite the heterogeneous nature of value experience, studies on user experience design (Shedroff, 2001) state that “the elements that contribute to superior experiences are knowable and reproducible, which make them designable”. And further “What these solutions require first and foremost is an understanding by their developers of what makes a good experience, then to translate these principles, as well as possible, into the desired media without the technology dictating the form of the experience”. Furthermore, Kuniavsky (2003) noticed that user experience design should be extended to concern all aspects of experiencing the product or service, including physical, sensitive and cognitive, emotional and aesthetic relations. A model is done by Tarssanen and Kylänen (2006) in which they tried to comprise all aspects of experience in order to make them reproducible. The model consists of elements of experience offered by a product/service (learning, sense perception, etc) and elements of subjective experience (authenticity, story telling, etc) that converge to generate an “ideal” experience 72 (See Appendix 1). Despite the limitations of operability of this model, it supports the value-inuse of SDL, in which no value exists until an offer is used. Hence, Experience and perception are essential to value determination (Vargo and Lusch, 2006). Due to the intrinsic relationship between value and experience, the following section elaborates solely on experience.

Taylor(1961), defined the term ‘‘value’’ as a judgment of preference by consumers. A general view on customer value theory suggests that consumers perceive value from the rational and the experiential perspectives (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Zeithaml, 1988).

An example of this is noted by Soldani et al. (2006), claiming that users judge the quality of networks, services, and networked applications more and more by the subjective perception of the performance. Later on, this was called Quality of Experience (QoE) (Empirix, 2001), which is a concept comprising all elements of a user’s perception of the network and performance relative to their expectations.

The ambiguity of value stated in FP10 has been a bottleneck for marketers and designers because it is immeasurable, especially at larger scales. However,

6 Value creation should not be interpreted as production (making units of output).

7 The expectations and social/ cultural background that could convey certain meaning of the experience are not included in this model.

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“Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness” Louis Aragon

4.3 UT & experience

mental models is an important component in accommodating to the world.

Hence understanding these mental models may help to create meaningful experiences that convey value to the users.

It is also important to know how mental models are created in humans’ minds.

Human cognition can be characterized as a natural information processing system. To carry out tasks, the human cognitive system combines processes, operating within both goal-driven and perceptually driven (dependent on stimuli of the task) processes. The practical consequence of this is called the “mutual dependency” principle (Cañas, Salmerón, & Fajardo, 2005) which states that the human cognitive functions involved to perform a task will depend on the functions available in the interface or touch-points that provides the interaction. Furthermore, the perceptual, cognitive, emotional and human processes may change during time even when the functions of the interface remain the same. From this, I understand that to develop UT, it must be considered the perceptual, cognitive and emotional human functions (see figure 6) and the interface functions (the touch-points that provide the interactions) as a relational system. This is the reason why many interactions that are designed based on isolated cognitive information turn out to render unexpected behaviors.

Perception is the beginning of an experience which ultimately may be meaningful to the user. In Linguistics, meaning is defined as associative links in our minds between words and objects and experiences that result in the formation of concepts (Johnson-Laird, 1986). According to Davis (2003) experiences are “intangible processes of interaction between people and the world that exist in humans’ minds and are triggered by new interactions”.

Both definitions refer to the humans’ minds as the place in which meaningful experiences exist. In this section, some basic issues related to the human mind (cognitive theories) are mentioned to understand the nature of an experience. It is not intended to explain in depth the cognitive studies related to human experiences but to provide enough support to understand what means the “uniquely experientially determined value-in-use” from the SDL in the UT’s context.

It is proven that everything around us is translated into our own personal concepts or-cognitive models. According to Norman(1983), mental (or cognitive) models are “the internal representations that humans develop of themselves and the objects they interact within the world”. Building

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EXPERIENCE Perception

Senses

Cognition

Learning

Meaning

Emotions

Behavior

Actions

Figure 6. An experience is formed sequentially by perception, cognition, emotion and the corresponding behavior.

heterogeneous network of people, devices and texts, which create a form of stability. This means that it maps relations that are simultaneously material (between things) and semiotic (between concepts) (Callo, 1992). For example, the interactions in a library involve people, their ideas, and technologies. They form together a single network. Actor-network theory (ANT) tries to explain how material–semiotic networks come together to act as a whole (for example, a library is both a network and an actor, and for certain purposes acts as a single entity). ANT seeks for relating different elements together into a network so that they form a coherent whole where actors are combinations of the social and technical. This network is active, which justifies the term actornetwork.

Cognitive theories cannot offer all the answers to all type of interaction problems because there are many other dimensions of human mentality.

Socio-cultural human dynamics, emotions and other non-traditional areas of study, are increasingly becoming more important to involve in order to understand the complexity of human cognition. (Saariluoma, 2005a,b; Calhoun, Teng, & Cheon, 2002). Emotions, for instance, are the internal system that defines the importance (meaningfulness) of something (an object, a person, an experience, etc) to a person and plays a vital role in issues such as the pleasantness of use and acceptance (Norman, 2004; Power & Dalgleish, 1997). However, emotions are highly ignored in the development of UT due to the lack of operational models that could help to deal with their subjective nature. Shedroff (2001) integrated knowledge from various disciplines and trends to understand how meaningful experiences can be created. In his work, he comprised elements from information design, metaphors and storytelling, navigation design, sensorial design, cognitive sciences, interface design, among others to offer a holistic guide to provoke meaningful experiences.

However, ANT is an open building site (Law and Hassard, 1999). It is itself more an inspirational frame than a constraining theoretical system (Singleton and Michael,1993, Star,1991). As an inspirational framework, I believe it has strong principles that fit in the modern challenges of developing UT. Moreover, SDL and ANT seem to have some similar principles; the first one with a clear emphasis on relationships of exchange (economic oriented) and the last one based on relationships of construction (social oriented).

He goes on claiming that experiences could be meaningful when the user expects some kind of feedback or control in the interaction that makes him/ her feel more comfortable or acknowledged. Brenda Laurel in her book “Computers as theater” mentioned already back in 1991 that “action” is what holds our attention and creates meaning, (supporting the value-in-use from the SDL). The user’s participation (action and awareness) may be an important element to generate positive emotions to certain experiences, though it is still uncertain to which extent.

To understand the individual and social dimensions to develop UT is a major challenge for designers. It is a challenge because it creates endless possibilities of interactions within the world in which strict scientific approaches get lost. I concur with the idea of Blythe et.al (2003) which states that “it is essential to build design practices on wider analyses of human nature, activities, and mentality. How such a holistic analysis can be realized is one of the major challenges for modern interaction-oriented cognitive and information systems science”.

A similar statement in sociology, the Actor-Network proposition claims that knowledge is constructed, but the construction is an outcome of a

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Conclusion applications show that we have not quite found a way to make meaningful and valuable UT applications with perceivable benefits to the actual world.

In this section UT were analyzed as a trend. What makes UT new is not the technological capability of linking bits and atoms but the new forms of interaction between the actual world and the metadata (e.g. Internet). As never before, we challenge our world’s constraints of time and space and our own cognitive constraints of accessing and generating knowledge. The technology is there and improving everyday to help us do so. Nineteen years ago the idea of turning our world into an on-line environment with smart applications started. Today technology has improved, namely with Internet, and so this idea comes closer and closer. However, the real forces that would drive this trend to become a truth in our lives are complex and rely in multiple human dimensions.

Furthermore, in the evolution of UT the user has become active, aware and a key role in the development of UT. This brings even more challenges to designers, because strict science will never be enough to deal with the complexity of users and their contexts.

It is necessary to develop a transdisciplinary approach that creates a common language between processes and supporting disciplines that help us understand the users. An important finding was that UT, Service Design and User Experience domains deal with their own tangible-intangible dilemmas.

For instance, UT deal with bits and atoms, Service Design with service and products and User Experience with perception and the context. I believe this is not a coincidence; it is a call for designers to focus on what brings these domains together instead on what makes them different. I suggest that the Service Dominant Logic can help change our mindsets as designers and think of the tangible and intangible as relational. A similar theory called ActorNetwork was found to be an inspirational frame that may complement the use of SDL within the scope of UT. An approach that integrates SDL, UT and UX may help designers to develop meaningful and valuable experiences.

Besides, the link of bits and atoms seems to bring new opportunities to the world but also great challenges to designers. Firstly because the development process of bits and atoms are different. We have a long history of reshaping tangible things. As designers we have learned that a certain structural composition will have a particular meaning and purpose. Things are like us, perishable and vulnerable to physical constraints. So, we seem to understand them better. Bits are intangible; their processes are faster, ubiquitous and multi-tasking. They cannot be isolated because they are always part of a system. To find a way that makes sense to converge bits and atoms is quite a challenge. The lack of proper frameworks to develop successful UT

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ii. Exploratory research

Introduction This section is divided into two parts: the first one consists of a summary of the main findings of interviews conducted with experts related to UT, Service Design and User Experience domains. The questions and topics were derived from the literature analysis. The main objective of the interviews was to get familiarized with the opinions and thoughts of people in practice.

The secondary objective was to revise whether the experts were identified with some issues that were subject of the literature analysis. The complete transcripts can be found in appendix 2.

is becoming mobile and with this, internet is merging with other ubiquitous technologies to create complete service cycles. It means internet cannot be thought in isolation but in conjunction with other technologies to fit into the service environment.

The synthesis of this is the categorization of technologies, applications and industries (some are yet only in the academic world). Figure 7 shows how internet merges with other technologies and the outcome can be several general applications that could be found in different industries. An explanation of each application is presented in appendix 2.

The second part of this section refers to the exploratory research of UT. It was exploratory because there was no real association with a problematic.

Then intention was rather to have an overview of the phenomenon. Internet

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1. Interviews

The interviews intended to be related to the domains found to be relevant in the literature analysis. These are Ubiqutious Technologies, Service Design and User Experience. So, the interviews were carried out with experts from TNO (Co-participatory industrial design), Philips (Human- Computer Interaction), Fabrique (Interaction Design), Momkai (Web design), Tinker. it (Arduino and Internet of Things) and 31Volts (Service design). The questions covered topics related to experience, interaction, value, processes, limitations, user role, interfaces and business models. In the following chart the main conclusions from each topic are summarized.

EXPERIENCES: They are out of the designer’s control, they are related to “real” life and to our emotions.

INTERACTIONS: They are actions that have a particular purpose and that can be controlled by the designer and the user.

VALUE: It is the recognizable relevance of something.

LIMITATIONS: The main limitations lie not on the technology itself but on the professional processes and the social environment.

USER ROLE: The role of the user is of an “actor” in a movie or a theater play, the designer provides him the tools or the “stage” to act.

PROCESSES: When dealing between digital and physical there are two processes: one is more problem oriented (when it focuses on technology) and the other is more strategic oriented (when it focuses on people).

INTERFACE: The interface (of UT) should be the user’s touchpoints of control.

BUSINESS MODELS: Giving control to the user and to empower him with tools to act is a way to find new forms of business in which the user may be willing to pay in non-conventional ways. To find these ways is challenging and complex.

Industries

Figure 7. Internet is pulling other technologies to become mobile, and with this, new applications are foreseen.

Health Sports Automotive High-speed data transport: advanced optical core networks using dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) or hybrid optical network architectures have brought tremendous amounts of flexible point-to-point transmission capacity into core networks

Retail Supply chain management

Fibre-based access technologies, such as ethernet passive optical networks (EPON), permit to deliver this capacity to end users at very low cost.

Internet

NFC or RFID Networks

Information communication Media and entertainment

Furthermore, infrastructure-based wireless communication has experienced a huge diversification of radio access technologies while experiencing a steady increase of capacity. Beyond third generation (B3G) wireless networks comprise highly ubiquitous and very different mobile broadband access technologies such WLAN, HSPA, LTE or Mobile WiMax

Social media Education & Art Home

Near-Field Communication or Radio Frequency Identification is a contact-less short- range interaction between smart devices using writable & readable tags

Data management Telecommunications

Wireless Sensor Networks

MINAmI

Small devices with processing capability that can sense environmental conditions, vehicular movement , humidity, noise levels presence or absence of items, speed, direction, size and so on Nano-integrated platform for Ambient Intelligence application. Memory tags that enable ultra low-power, small, low cost devices that can be attached to all kinds of everyday objects.

Publicity Security

Applications

A. Ubimedia GLS & GPS

Printed Electronics

Augmented Reality

Global Locating System and Global Positioning System: Satellite-based remote asset management and tracking system Printed electronics is an innovative technology in which simple components are created by printing electrically conductive inks (nanoinks) onto surfaces such as plastic using standard printing processes. The technology allows us to create smaller electronic components

Live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment augmented by virtual imagery.

(AR) as a user interface paradigm for interaction with spatial artefacts

B. Smart home C.Wearable sensing D. Identifying, tracking, locating E. Navigation F. Monitoring, controlling, operating G.Toys & games H. Experience enhancers I. Reading & browsing tablets

Conclusion The results of exploratory research are not usually useful for decision-making by themselves, but they provide insight and reflection into a given situation.

It can be derived from the interviews that in practice, the term “experience� is seen as something subjective that it difficult to grasp when designing. The interviews’ results also confirm that there is a divergence in development processes that limits the way UT applications are designed. Furthermore, it was constantly mentioned that the most important issue in this topic is to make the value of UT recognizable to people.

It was found that mobile devices may have endless possibilities. The service environment would consist of a technologies ecosystem in which technology will be embedded in physical objects around us. Mobile devices will help us interact with the environment. Nowadays, the smart phone is leading to provide the mobility for other technologies (hence to new interactions).

However, the smart phone is only one form of mobility and it is probable that an evolution of the smart phone into more industry -dedicated and usercentered devices may occur.

Nevertheless, from the categorization in this exploratory research it can be concluded that the innovations of the Internet are pulling other technologies to cross-functionally work for a variety of purposes. Some of the categories are still in a very early stage (such as the expansion of gaming technology to other types of applications- in healthcare or education, for example). In any case, this overview shows that technologies are becoming mobile and with this, new interactions will be possible. These should be the focus of attention of designers.

The categorization of technologies, applications and industries was the main insight from the exploratory research done in the second part of this section.

It was very difficult to categorize in a strict way or in the same level all the possible applications and industries. This difficulty was due to the newness and fast advances of the technology itself, and the immaturity of certain markets.

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iii. Booreiland

Introduction The purpose of this analysis is to understand and define the current and future competences, resources and strengths of Booreiland in relation with the individual and socio-cultural issues in the world of the consumers, and the trends and issues (UT technologies developments, service innovation developments, etc.) in the environment. Furthermore, this brief analysis intends to setup a strategic estimation for Booreiland to introduce new rules for competing (set the competitive advantage) and to envision new markets (create new business designs). This analysis is based on the conceptual framework for strategy making from Liebl, 2004; see figure 6.

First, the most relevant characteristics of the consumers (the world of the consumer) are described followed by the relational trends and issues in the environment. Next, all these are analyzed by identifying the exisiting relationships between those characteristics and trends and Booreiland’s current strengths (competences and resources) and weaknesses. These relationships reveal as well the opportunities and threats of the company.

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World of the consumer

Competences/ Resources

Trends and issues in the environment

Strategy

Conceptual framework for strategy making (

=trigger/ inspiration for;

=investigate mutual relationships) F. Liebl 2004

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1. The world of the consumer

It has been mentioned previously how the consumers (or users) have taken a more active role in the development processes (including co-creation) of ubiquitous technologies, service design and user experience domains. I also mentioned that this phenomena is relational and involves different human dimensions and socio-cultural reasons behind it. In this section,the general trends in behavior, perception and needs in the world of consumers are described as the general drivers that partly explain how the developments in various fields have evolved and how they might evolve in the future.

a. In search of the authentic

According to modern psychology, authenticity means “owning” one’s personal experiences: thoughts, emotions, needs, wants, preferences, or beliefs. Processes captured by the injunction to know “oneself”. So, authenticity involves both owning one’s personal experiences and acting in accordance to them (Harter, 2002).

Consumers nowadays are in the quest for “real things” from which they can “own” personal authentic experiences. It is not the objects, products or services per se to own, but the experiences (the thoughts, emotions, needs, etc.) that these objects, products or services can create.

c. In control of one’s identity The search of authenticity, as mentioned before, involves processes to know oneself as means to acknowledge the personal experiences that build one’s identity. Nowadays, products and services (experiences) that contribute to create and have control of one’s identity are recognized as authentic (personalized profiles, customized shoes, etc)

b. In search of the meaningful

As mentioned in the literature review, the experience a product or a service renders will be meaningful in the minds of the consumers if the experience enables proper and multiple associations with the context and the consumer’s identity.

d. In search of expressing and creating This is not a new need; human beings have always had a natural urge to express themselves and to be creative. However, ever since the industrial revolution, the role of expressing and creating had been solely attributed to the manufacturer, the press, the broadcasting radio stations, the web manager, etc. Nowadays, the tools for expression and creation are gradually passing to the consumers’ hands, and the consumers are embracing them in such a way that will only make them grow not only in the web world but in other types of services and products.

“Man: a being in search of meaning” Plato

2. Trends and issues in the environment

This section is based on the phenomena analysed during the literature review and the exploratory research of this project. Here the phenoma is explained from a general perspective as trends and issues happening in the environment.

Data (any amount and type) is needed to be stored, up-dated, connected, manipulated, controlled and secured in the most accurate way. Considering this general need, ubiquitous technologies are foreseen to be enabled namely by widespread tagging and networking of objects (such as food packages, paper documents and other type of devices- not only the smartphone). In thirty years from now, a bundle of technologies (such as sensors, actuators but also software platforms that incorporate behavioral algorithms and artificial intelligence) will probably expand from manufacturing applications to the everyday life. These technologies might enable robotic systems (autonomous and semi-autonomous) dedicated to healthcare and home care for the elderly. This phenomena is leading to the following trends that very likely change our environment:

From the macro-environmental point of view, there is a clear need for “infrastructure� that enable scalability of the UT. The focus now and probably more in the next twenty years is and will be on the fields of life enhancement (quality of life), energy, food, security, natural resources management, and society (social cohesion).

Ubiquitous technologies have a place in these fields considering the high demand of efficiency and to challenge physical constraints such as time, distance, location and access to knowledge in many aspects of our lives.

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• •

• • • • • •

More digital content will be literally placed in physical contexts Contextual information provision will be highly valuable for advertising and other types of services that aim to tailor their offers to the context of their consumers (locationidentification and tracking technologies will be the key accelerator) Personalization at the moment is an extra value that attracts more consumers. In the future, personalization of services and products will be a normal part of the offer Off-line and on-line blur. Connectivity will become a given fact, not only between devices and consumers, but between devices as well The apps’ market will grow considerably There will be an increase of dedicated social media for mobile use Augmented reality and virtual reality will be used more and more for diverse types of interactions (searching, gaming, tourism, healthcare, retail, entertainment, among others) Security and safety management will rely largely on intelligent technologies

The main key barriers of implementation rely on the ability of the devices to be maintenance-free, to find the viable business models and to overcome privacy and security concerns.

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3. The company

Weaknesses

Strengths (competences & resources)

Booreiland is a creative office that specializes on web, media and print. It was founded in 2003 by Menno Huisman and Wimer Hazenberg (industrial design and artificial intelligence correspondently). During these years, they noticed how the technologies are evolving and wanted to expand their web expertise to the physical world (objects and services), they like to call this idea: Meta Products.

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3.1 Booreiland’s Brand Identity Statement

In order to continue with the next phase of this project it is important to define the brand identity of Booreiland. Brand identity is the total proposition that a company makes to consumers - the promise it makes. Brand identity is everything the company wants for the brand to be seen as. This will set the boundaries but also the flexibility to carry out projects as long as they fit into Booreiland’s brand identity.

This is the new brand identity statement of Booreiland:

“Booreiland designs meaningful connections that enhance quality of life”

Opportunities

Environment

Consumer

This chart synthesizes the strategic options for Booreiland to approach Meta Products. It is based on the relation between the consumer and the environment and the competences of Booreiland.

In search of the authentic In search of the meaningful

Monitoring, controlling, operating

Health

Marketing tools / Consumer research

Quality of life Media & entertainment

Ubimedia New interactions

In control of one’s identity The need for expressing & creating

Sports

Lifestyle enablers

Social cohesion

Experience enhancers

Information communication

Education & art

Social mobile

Identifying, tracking, locating Contextual information provision

Social media Mobility Gaming

Conclusion with Meta Products. The result would be finding new markets and new business directions. This would set a differentiatior between the other small studios dedicated to Web design. In order to do so, Booreiland should also be constantly updated and aware of the latests advances in technology by establishing partnerships, intellectual alliances and having presence in conferences and related events.

In this section, the conclusions of the literature analysis and the exploratory research were taken into account to analyze the company. The competences of Booreiland were analyzed and mutual relationships between the world of the consumer and the trends and issues in the environment were identified to find a possible strategic direction.

If the strenghts of Booreiland are maximized, the company’s value proposition could be based on social-driven Meta Products. This means that Booreiland could take a strategic turn in which technology will be just an asset and not their core business. Their core business could rely in understanding what people can do with technology and how can their lives be improved

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iv. Framework

Introduction perceived as such, as long as it is meaningful to the user and his network. Bits in UT tend to be embodied to get the best out of their technological aspects can do for the user, even if this does not make sense for the user himself.

UX would approach this situation by analysing the user and thinking on his context to propose a more suitable design. SDL would design a system of value exchange that includes every actor necessary to make it happen.

The integration of the three domains in the design practice would help to have an overview of the elements that make meaningful and valuable UT applications.

The following framework is the synthesis of the main findings and conclusions in the literature review and the exploratory research. It is the foundation to develop a design method for Meta Products. I suggest that to design Meta Products as meaningful connections that enhance people’s quality of life, designers need to follow a transdisciplinary approach integrating the most relevant domains: UT, Service Dominant Logic and User Experience.

In this framework I intended to show an integration of mind-sets between the domains. It is crucial to emphasize that the intention is to integrate ways of thinking into one common language. From research it can be derived that value and meaning are intrinsically related. Value is experientially perceived by the user but co-created in networks of exchange. Value will be only

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Think of connection systems PLATFORM FOR CREATIVE PRODUCTIONS

“Booreiland designs meaningful connections enhancing quality of life”

Think of the real world sensed, identified, tracked, communicated, measured and translated into meta data META PRODUCTS

Think of transdisciplinarity USER EXPERIENCE

How to encourage meaningful experiences?

SERVICE DOMINANT LOGIC

How to co-create value with the user?

Think of the user as co-creator of value Think of the user as a generator of environments Think of meaningful experiences Think of individual and social human dimensions

Think of value in use Think of value is experientially determined by the user Think of exchange of service networks

How to foresee the way value will be experienced?

Objectives Main objective The main objective of the method should be to make the brand promise of Booreiland true:

“To design meaningful connections enhancing quality of life” Secondary objectives The secondary objectives are related to Booreiland’s expectations of the method:

1.

It should be inspiring: This means the method should include elements that foster the innate motivation of the designers (professionals). The method should offer an appropriate platform to trigger their creativity.

2.

It should encourage “design thinking”: This means to encourage practical, creative solutions for the better future. Design thinking is collaborative, iterative and abductive.

Who is it aimed at?

The method is aimed at Booreiland as the main users of the method. They could include in some cases outsourced employees and in some activities of the method some end-users could be involved as well. In these cases, Booreiland will act as facilitator .

The method will be conducted in group sessions where the team dynamics and the mind-set of the participants must be carefully taken into account. The participants should be preferably familiarized with design thinking, however, the method should guide the non-familiarized participants to learn the proper mind-set.

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“To provide meaningful architecture is not to parody history but to articulate it�

Daniel Libeskind

v. Idea generation

Introduction This section describes the idea generation process. The framework and the objectives from the previous section helped to structure the ideas. A starting point was taken based on analogies between the three main domains (UT, SDL and UX) and the rest of the ideas came up through several tests. This means that it was an iterative process of idea generating and testing. The input from one test about one idea, changed the subsequent idea and so on.

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In the following pages this process is described. The relevant aspects of the test-design (goals, participants and topics) as well as the main insights (results) are explained in this section.

1. The first ideas

UBIQUITOUS TECHNOLOGIES

connection

systems

To pinpoint where to start, I tried to identify the main analogies between the three domains looking for a way to have a common language between them.

networks of

The first analogy between them is: “connection system- generating environments- networks of exchange”.

The analogy is refers to elements that have a relationship between each other in a context.

The first consideration of the method would be to “Understand the relationships”

exchange

USER EXPERIENCE

generating

environments

Understand the relationships

SERVICE DOMINANT LOGIC

I tried to find a second analogy by thinking on how the elements have relationships in a context. In the Meta Product domain, connections happen through actions (in use). In the SDL, value happens through interactions (in use). And in the User Experience domains aspirations become real through actions (in use).

Using this analogy, the second consideration of the method would be “Define actions of value”

UBIQUITOUS TECHNOLOGIES

connections happen in use (actions)

value creation is interactional

USER EXPERIENCE

current aspirations lead to future actions

Define actions of value

SERVICE DOMINANT LOGIC

UBIQUITOUS TECHNOLOGIES The third and last analogy refers to the manifestation of the actions of value. In the Meta Product domain the actions of value become physical and virtual meaningful connections. In the SDL the actions of value become experiences uniquely perceived by the beneficiary. In the User Experience domains the actions of value become meaningful experiences.

So, the next consideration of the method would be to “Construct meaning”

physical & virtual meaningful connections

value is uniquely experiential

USER EXPERIENCE

meaningful experiences are valuable

Construct meaning

SERVICE DOMINANT LOGIC

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How to make these analogies operational? One way to make them workable is to first understand what type of cognitive effort is required to do them.

Understand the relationships

Explorative thinking The three analogies require a particular type of cognitive effort. Understanding relationships requires “Explorative thinking”; which means that the designers will explore a large and unorganized amount of information. The objectives are broad and vague. The designers will be open to be surprised, to find relationships they did not know exist and to bust their assumptions. Most importantly, they will have the most possible accurate and complete vision of the context using the three domains’ mindsets.

Define actions of value

Construct meaning

Generative thinking

Constructive thinking

Define the actions of value is the second analogy and it would require “Generative thinking”. This means designers will make use of their creativity and imagination. They will use abductive thinking to find new relationships. Iterative thinking will be also required to reflect on the exploration they did before.

From these analogies, I generated the first ideas of the content and sequence of the method. I ran some tests throughout 5 sessions about diverse topics and different participants from various backgrounds, which I call “designers”.

The last analogy is Construct meaning. This one requires “Constructive thinking”, which means that the designers will construct new interactions by reframing the new relationships to fit into the actual world.

A summary of each test is presented in the following pages. Please note that only the results and insights that required an improvement or a change are explained here. Full descriptions of the test can be found in the appendix.

“I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong�

Benjamin Franklin

2. Tests Five focus groups were conducted. The basic modality was to work as a team and follow the preliminary activities of the design method based on a given topic. The topics varied in every session in order to avoid taking decisions that would only concern to issues related to a particular topic and not to the objectives of the method. Another reason to have varied topics was to ensure the method allowed flexibility.

The participants were mostly related to design practices and web development. They were encouraged to think-out-loud and to reflect on the way they performed the method.

Test Topic

Participants

1 2 3 4 5

Urban delivery

2 industrial designers, 1 artificial intelligence professional

Social enabling in multicultural contexts

2 industrial designers, 1 aerospace engineer, 1 photographer

Flap toy

1 product designer, 1 industrial designer, 1 artificial intelligence professional

Personal life planning

1 artificial intelligence professional, 1 programmer, 1 innovation manager, 1 industrial designer

Social enabling -Clubbing

30 interactive media students at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam

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Test 1 TIME (T) STRUCTURE (ST) LOGIC (L) VISUALIZATION (V) FLEXIBILITY (FL)

Test 3

(T) Lack of time control (ST) Too broad, lack of boundaries

(T) Less divergence, better time control from the facilitator point of view but not from the designers

(V) No visuals, just lists of words

(ST) Setting actions in a time line helped control too much divergence

(F) Team leader- no facilitator- did not work well because the designers needed more guidance

(ST) Focusing on one action in the beginning helped create boundaries

GENERATION (L) No criteria to categorize the ill-connections

(C) Focusing on all the actors made impossible criteria

(L) Formal testing was not possible (C) Desired experiences were the criteria to elaborate the scenario (S) Definitions such as “desired experiences” need more practical examples to be understood

(T) Goals were given to the designers before each section and that helped control their time, but still it was unclear what kind of end results should they manage their time for (L) It was confusing to ask the designers to find a problem and then an opportunity: they suggested one or the other, not both

TEAM DYNAMICS (TD) FACILITATION (F)

(L) Instead of finding a problem the term changed into “challenge” which was clear for the designers

(L) Trying to find money flows made them lose track and could not seem to integrate this into the ideal scenario

(S) Tems as desired experiences, resources and interactions were too complex and there were many different interpretations

(ST) Evaluation to check the potential of a Meta Product is too late (step 14) (S) Desired experiences was changed for emotions and the word interaction was not used anymore but instead they answered questions about senses, cognition, emotion and action

CONSTRUCTION (TD) Overwhelmed and unmotivated designers

(T) Examples of the deliverables were shown to the designers so that they had an idea of how they should manage their time. However, the examples were to abstract and distracting.

(ST) Evaluation to check the potential of a Meta Product was maybe too late (step 14)

(FL) To find an ill-soultion might be too problem driven and may block new opportunities

CRITERIA (C) SIMPLICITY (S)

Test 4

EXPLORATION

(ST) No explicit iteration or evaluation with the explorative part

REFLECTION (R)

Test 2

(S) It was too complex to make so strict matches between desired experiences, technologies and interactions.

(L) It was redundant to make an ideal scenario and then another scenario with the Meta Product

(F) The facilitator was not involved and this helped the whole process to be clearer and better time control

(ST) There was no clear iteration to the explorative part

(TD) The facilitator did not handle properly a tense team dynamic. This provoked some blockages and misunderstandings

Test 5 (T) Time varied depending on the tools used.

Guided brainstormings and more explicit instructions helped the designers be more efficient. Time also decreased depending on how good they did “the homework” to get to know the context better or if the team knew already about the topic (L) Focus on one actor and one main action and the rest are subsequent levels of relationships

(L) Instead of jumping into an ideal scenario they generated ideas for the how to question and then developed a “new network” making a clear iteration with the explorative network (ST) The emotions, perception, cognition and actions were summarized in “aspirations” generated by answering the how to question in a guided brainstorming (C) The new network functioned as the design guideline or criteria that contained experience elements and connections of exchange to develop a scenario (ST) The focus on designing a Meta Product was clearer by translating the new network into a Meta Product diagram (L) The perceptual elements (senses) of the experience were separated in this section.

3. Conclusions The following are the overall conclusions from a usability point of view:

TIME

The method needs to have different levels of divergence and constraints depending on the agility needed and the type of project in question that will determine whether it is a time restricted session or a full project

STRUCTURE

The structure based on cognitive efforts (explorative, generative and constructive) was successful.

However it is necessary to structure for each section the goals, the descriptions and deliverables clearly so that the designers can create their expectations and manage their skills and time adequately

LOGIC

In the explorative part a current network of actions, actors and their relationships of exchange should be visualized. The generative part should follow by challenging this current network and developing a new network based on the main actor’s aspirations (cognitive, emotional and behavioral). The constructive part should translate the new network into a Meta Product and define the perceptual elements (senses)

VISUALIZATION FLEXIBILITY

The visualization is very important. The designers should use large sheets and elements that encourage them to move element freely in the physical space. Code colors or shapes might be necessary to make the deliverables clearer Though the structure should provide clarity and boundaries, the method should also enhance the free input of the designers

REFLECTION

The three sections should be encourage iteration and abductive thinking

CRITERIA

A filter just after the explorative part should be included to determine the Meta Product potential of the network. The criteria should be based on aspirations and connections of exchange visualized in the new network.

SIMPLICITY

Even though the networks may look “messy” the three sections must reduce any unnecessary complexity such as redundancies

TEAM DYNAMICS

The team dynamics should be taken care of in advance by promoting a good team environment or other team-work techniques (particularly if freelancers participate)

FACILITATION

The method should have a facilitator that must take the role of an active leader in the team. This role may change during time as the designers get familiarized with the method

The following are the overall conclusions from the content point of view:

Understand the relationships

Explorative thinking

VISUALIZE THE NETWORK (actions, actors & connections of exchange)

Define actions of value

Construct meaning

Generative thinking

Constructive thinking

IMAGINE A NEW NETWORK (aspirations and connections of exchange)

DESIGN THE META PRODUCT (interactions)

The most challenging part during the tests was to Define actions of value. In this part it is where the exploration to the current network is analysed by the designer and abductive thinking takes place. In this second part is precisely where the designer must reach empathy and visualize connections of

exchange based on the main actor’s aspirations. This means that if exchange is desired, the actions are of value. This sets the direction of the Meta Product.

Imagining a new network and visualizing it correctly is also crucial to construct meaning.

vi. Synthesis

Introduction In this section, the Meta Product Design Method (the method) is presented. The method is the outcome of the creative activity of analyzing the opinions, comments, tests’ results and personal intuition under the theoretical framework and the objectives stated before.

1. Project-method

The method has two modalities:

2. Workshop-method

The Project-method is an extended version which includes in-depth research, iterations and divergence in the creative process. Therefore, timing should not be such a strict constraint when using this modality. The time needed for this modality would depend on how smooth the tools are used prior to the sessions. For example if observational research is done or context mapping.

This version would be suitable when:

• You are looking for “really new” Meta Product innovations • You need to reduce the risk of failure on large scale Meta Product projects • You have a high level of uncertainty about a Meta Product direction • You have a large team of collaborators (more than 15 working on the same project)

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The Workshop-method is a shorter version derived from the Project-method version. It is mainly conducted using personal experiences and prior knowledge to exercise empathy.This version functions as the starting point to explore a Meta Product idea. It is meant to build upon a specific given structure so that it speeds up the process. The maximum time to conduct this version would be 3 hours. It is recommended when:

• You have a strict timing constraint • When you want to play with an idea and discover its potential

1. Format The Meta Box is the chosen format of the method. One box contains cards with the instructions and supporting materials such as post-its, markers, large sheets to write on, loose figures to move around (people, organizations, etc) and other inspirational material, such as emotion flashcards.

Cards Project-method

large sheets emotion cards

pieces markers

Material

post-its

Cards Workshop-method

In the following pages a description of both the Project-method and the Workshop-method is presented. The underlying reasoning behind every section and steps is also described to give a better idea of the synthesis process from research and tests.

2. The method Project version The Project- method consists of 14 cards:

1. General introduction

Visualize the network

2. Goal 3. Steps 4. Check-list 5. Description of steps and tools 6. Example

Set a direction

7. Goal 8. Steps 9. Description of steps and tools 10. Example

Design the Meta Product

11. Goal 12. Steps 13. Description of steps and tools 14. Example

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“Reality is nothing but a collective hunch�

Lily Tomlin

1. General Introduction This is the result of research, observations and tests on how to design meaningful connections with Meta Products.

The background is the convergence of the most relevant principles behind the Service Dominant Logic, User Experience and Ubiquitous Technologies into Meta Product designing. A selection of design thinking methods and tools gives structure to the 16 steps of this method.

There are three sections. First, you will explore the real world and its networks. Second, you will generate ideas for new and better networks.

Lastly, you will design a Meta Product.

Visualize the network

3. Steps

1. EXPLORE THE CONTEXT 2. IDENTIFY THE MAIN ACTION 3. IMAGINE HOW RELATED ACTIONS HAPPEN IN TIME 4. IDENTIFY THE ACTORS INVOLVED IN ALL ACTIONS

2. Goal In this first section, you will follow 7 steps that will help you explore the big picture in the actual world. You will identify the connections of exchange that happen between people, institutions, products, and services.

The goal of this first section is to identify a challenging system of connections, which will be the design problem to tackle in the next sections of this method.

It is very important to let know the designers why they will be doing the steps in each section. So, before starting the method an explanation of the goal helps them get into the mood and mindset.

5. SHOW THEIR CONNECTIONS OF EXCHANGE 6. IDENTIFY A CHALLENGING SYSTEM OF CONNECTIONS 7. TRANSLATE THE CHALLENGE INTO A HOW TO QUESTION

7. 1 CHECK-LIST

4. Descriptions

1. EXPLORE THE CONTEXT: Think of a situation, an event or a fact that happens in the actual or the virtual world.

State it in one sentence.

Eg. Clubbing

2. IDENTIFY THE MAIN ACTON: Write one sentence in first person explaining the main action in that situation.

Describe also who is “I” Eg. I flirt in the club. I= Lloyd, 23 years old, introverted personality, doesn’t like sports...etc

3. IMAGINE HOW RELATED ACTIONS HAPPEN IN TIME: Continue writing in first person, and now think what happened before the main action (go backwards), during and what may happen after the main action Eg. I communicate with my friends, I check the location, I park my bike, I pass the bouncer, I see a nice girl, I approach to her, I FLIRT IN THE CLUB, I ask her email...etc

4. IDENTIFY THE ACTORS INVOLVED IN ALL ACTIONS: Think of who else besides “I” is involved in those actions? It can be people, institutions and even products and services Eg. Mobile phone, friends, email/ google, clubs, bike racks/ etc.

5. SHOW THEIR CONNECTIONS OF EXCHANGE: Draw arrows to show how they exchange resources (knowlege, skills or anything that is perceived as “exchangeable”) Eg. The club pays for exposure on google maps and I get the location by browsing... etc

6. IDENTIFY A CHALLENGING SYSTEM OF CONNECTIONS: See the whole map you did and identify one connection system that could be better (or solved). Think of the cause and effect between connections Eg. I choose the wrong club and the filrting goes wrong because I have nothing in common with the girls there

7. TRANSLATE THE CHALLENGE INTO A HOW TO QUESTION: Synthesize the connection system into a How to question Eg. How to know which club to go where I could flirt successfully?

7.1 CHECK-LIST: Revise if your how to question has Meta Product Potential Answer whether it challenges current time, location, distance or knowlegde constraints

Once the designers see the “whole”, they start “abductive thinking” in steps 6 and 7. Abduction has been described as “the logic of what might be”, “the argument of the best explanation” but most of all, it allows the creation of new knowledge and insight to explain the connections. It is here where the designers should reveal connections between apparently unrelated elements and identify explicit and implicit relationships. To be able to see the network in its full “big picture” it is very important that the designers have proper instruments to visualize the network.

In the first steps, the designers start to think in actions - such as in user experience design. When they go from step 4 to 5 something very important happens: a form of value is implicitly revealed by understanding the connections of exchange related to certain actions. Why are they willing or not to exchange becomes is the underlying key to understand value.

To “explore the context” might sound overwhelming to the designers. So, the steps from 1 to 5 guide to the creation of a particular concept map (a network). Not “any concept map” but one that shows actions, their actors and how they exchange resources in relation to one main action and one main actor, over time. To create empathy, and to not lose the focus on the main person, it is suggested to write in first person (I) and to create a persona of it. Other personas can be created for other important actors if necesarry. The layer-type concept mapping will guide the designers through their “sensemaking” process. Klein, Moon, and Hoffman (2006) define sensemaking as “ motivated continuous effort to understand connections in order to anticipate their trajectories...”

The checklist is necessary at this point to see which is the Meta Product potential. This is a functional filter to foresee which kind of direction will be taken when answering the How to question later on. The more positive answers, the more connections the Meta Product may have. This quick filter helps refine the How to question.

It is also important to show the time required in each step, so that the designers make a quick mental plan and establish their expectations.

However, timing largely depends on the level of specificity required in each particular case.

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5. Tools

6. Example

RECOMMENDED TOOLS STEPS 1,2. Talk streaming, brainstorming, sensitizing STEP 2. Personas STEP 3, 4, 5. Breakdown, brain-mapping, system-mapping Design ethography, contextual inquiry, cultural probes, context mapping, observational research, body-storming STEP 6, 7. Assumption busting, forced conflict, challenge thinking, wishful thinking, abscence thinking

In the appendix you will find a compendium of tools and their explanations.

A large physical space where they can freely draw and place loose shapes and post-its is very important to help them organize the content. It may happen that a “mess� is created because many elements in the network are multi-related.

Particularly when the connections have multiple perspectives, are complex and have strong cultural roots.

Showing an example of the deliverable of each section gives an idea of what they must do without wasting time on figuring out how to come up with an end result. The following is an illustration example. It may look different and much more complete than this.

Example of deliverable for section 1 Visualize the network

PERSONA: Lloyd (22) Chemistry student Personality: Introverted Thinks first then acts Avoids conflicts Values: Respect of privacy Earn respect from others Likes and dislikes, looks, favorite objects... etc.

1. EXPLORE THE CONTEXT

Urban clubbing 2. MAIN ACTION

3. RELATED ACTIONS IN TIME

I communicate with my friends to go out

bad club selection

opinions about selecting a club friends

I check out the location

time money Me

Me email facebook phone twitter

service 6. CHALLENGING CONNECTION SYSTEM

Club webpage

I flirt in a club I park my bike

I pass the bouncer

I look for her contact information

I see a girl

Me

I approach her

I invite her a drink

Bike racks Google maps

4. ACTORS INVOLVED

Me attention

I ask her out

Girl

Strangers around

5. CONNECTIONS OF EXCHANGE

Girl Club

Bar Me

akward silence

interruptions

“How to know in which club could I meet my love-match?”

7. HOW TO QUESTION

“A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving�

Ayn Rand

Set a direction

7. Goal In this second part, you will develop the design guidelines for a Meta Product. First, you will generate ideas to answer the How to question created before. Then you will make a new network that ideally answers that question.

You will also think about the desired experiences and the connections of value.

8. Steps 8. BUILD THE ASPIRATION

9. IMAGINE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN TIME

10. IMAGINE THE ACTORS INVOLVED IN ALL ACTIONS

11. DEFINE THEIR CONNECTIONS OF EXCHANGE

12. DEVELOP THE NEW NETWORK

9. Descriptions and tools

8. BUILD THE ASPIRATION: answer the How to question by thinking what would be the ideal answer for “I”. You can use this framework to brainstorm: for every action and how, try as many times as possible to be more specific. (You can do it also multiple times with different keywords to generate more ideas, combine them, etc)

9. IMAGINE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN TIME: Imagine what would happen before and after the final aspiration.

Make a timeline.

Ask: What would I do?

How would I feel doing that?

10. IMAGINE THE ACTORS INVOLVED IN ALL ACTIONS: Who else besides “I” is involved? New people, new services...?

11. DEFINE THEIR CONNECTIONS OF EXCHANGE: draw arrows to show how they exchange resources (knowlege, skills or anything that is perceived as “exchangeable”). Ask, why would they be willing to exchange?

12. DEVELOP THE NEW NETWORK: using steps 8 to 11 develop a new network.

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This is the generative section of the method. Step 8 guide the designers to generate ideas to “reframe” or answer the how to question. A structured brainstorming helps to build the aspirations. Here, it is very important to have a suitable attitude for generating ideas (particularly when working in a team).

Aspirations are future experiences based on the unit of value: actions. The intention is to clarify the meaning of those actions in the network by defining their relationships and the emotions that they should render.

In steps 9 till 12 the designers continue “reframing”. Old and new elements and connections happen in a new time-line. New associations may emerge in each step bringing implications to all the other steps. So, this is the most iterative section in which constant reassessment of the how to question and aspirations is required.

This is a holistic approach because it includes the aspirations of the main actor and the network that can make them possible.

When the designers suggest that the actors are willing to exchange their

resources by performing certain actions, they are actually foreseeing how the value will be experienced.

Furthermore, to think about how they will be exchanging their resources in the future is already the first step to build a suitable business model.

The challenge of this section is to truly think “out-of- the-box” and break the mental models from the intial network. The initial work has been done in steps 5, 6, 7 and 7.1 that would already push the designers to think of new meanings.

If the designers are not familiarized with expressing feelings or assigning emotions, they can use the feeling flash-cards from the Meta Box with keywords and facial gestures.

Not everything that the designers do would be relevant to consider. So, a process of prioritizing connections will inherently be done. The system that have a coherent cycle and best answers the how to question will be the chosen one for further development.

10. Example

RECOMMENDED TOOLS STEPS 8,9,10: co-designing, participatory design, guided brainstorming: the Kilping method.

If you get blocked, you could also take 5 minutes extra to make another creative technique to trigger new ideas. Absurd questioning, for instance may do the trick STEPS 11,12: concept testing, opportunity costs analysis, storytelling, system-mapping

In the appendix you will find a compendium of tools and their explanations.

The example should look very similar to the first network, but this time the feelings or emotions are attached to the actions. So basically the new network shows actions, emotions and connections of exchange.

Example of deliverable for section 2 Set a direction (the new network)

How to know in which club could I meet my love-match?

8. BUILD THE ASPIRATION

customized profile

Me

options ideas

I ask for advice where to go

Communication service

Gender preferences age interests picture

Friends

information about me & particular friends

Me

profiles

where are they going

Clubs

Advisor

my decision

+feeling enthusiastic +because I know I’ll find my lovematch

I feel condifent

I feel confident

I get into the club

Advisor

address Clubs type frequent Potential visitors love-matches

11. CONNECTIONS OF EXCHANGE

I choose the best option

recommended my decision clubs Me

Me Profile maker

I feel understood

I feel curious

I feel motivated

I feel excited

I communicate with my friends to go out

I create my profile

+ give a sign to get advice + from anywhere I want +in one quick step

I feel optimistic

I would

9. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN TIME?

I get advice to go to the “love-match” location

I approach I make contact the area with the suggested person

Me

Me

Answer

question

Club

Advisor Advisor

10. ACTORS INVOLVED

location

location

Potential love-matches profiles

“Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations�

Alfred Adler

Design the Meta Product

11. Goal This is the last section of the method. Here you will have to translate the new network you made into a Meta Product. To do so, you have to define the data and the metadata. Then you will have to design the appropriate touch-points in between according to your design guidelines that includes actions, experiences and connections of exchange

12. Steps 13. IDENTIFY IN THE NEW NETWORK WHICH WOULD BE THE DATA, THE TOUCHPOINTS AND THE METADATA

14. MAKE A DIAGRAM SHOWING THE CONNECTIONS AND COMMUNICATION

15. DESIGN EACH CONNECTION

16. MAKE A FINAL PRESENTATION 94

13. Descriptions and Tools

13 iDENTIFY IN THE NEW NETWORK WHICH WOULD BE THE DATA, THE TOUCHPOINTS AND THE METADATA: Identify in the new network which information in the actual world (data) will be sensed, tracked, measured, controlled, categorized, interpreted by a medium (touchpoint) and turned into virtual information (metadata)

14. MAKE A DIAGRAM SHOWING THE CONNECTIONS AND COMMUNICATION: Show in a diagram how is the communication flow of the data, touchpoints and metadata. Include the end user and involved actors.

15. DESIGN EACH CONNECTION: Answer: What and how should I perceive? (A light, a sound, a new device with x characteristics, which technology?

Touching, looking, smelling, passing by, squeezing?). Remember to follow the new network (actions, emotions and connections of exchange)

16. MAKE A FINAL PRESENTATION: show the Meta Product concept, you can include shapes, graphics and material suggestions.

The method guides to design services, and other elements.

This is the constructive part of the method. The designers made the new network in the section before in order to avoid sudden leaps to technological proposals that might not fit the context properly. The new network included actions and emotions, that now will be embodied. So the perceptual element of the experience will be here completed.

actions

and connections between people,

The action is the starting and the end point of the new network. Actions performed by the actors create the network; this way, they “generate� their environment.

Their willingness to exchange their resources through those actions and the way they prefer to do them, is a service principle that answer many user experience questions and at the same time, guide to the creation of a suitable business model.

In step 13 analogy thinking will be made to classify the right elements of the network into data, touchpoints and metadata. While doing this it may be that the network missed some elements that here are revealed. So, this suggests that constant iteration between this step and the previous section is important.

In step 14 the designers synthesize the new network into a Meta Product diagram. The diagram will help the designers visualize where the interactions and communication flows are.

This method is a true mèlange of analogies between SDL, User Experience and Meta Product principles. So, it is hard to pin-point where one starts and where the other ends. However, in this last section, is where they all converge into a Meta Product concept.

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14. Example

RECOMMENDED TOOLS STEPS 13, 14: Break-down, system mapping

STEPS 15, 16: Storytelling, story-boarding, role-playing

In the appendix you will find a compendium of tools and their explanations.

In the two final steps it is very important to consider the proper visualization techniques that will accurately communicate the Meta Product concept in the context. The following example shows a story-board, but it could be an infographic or other type of visualization.

Example of deliverable for section 3 Design the Meta Product 15 + 16: DESIGN CONNECTIONS & FINAL CONCEPT

13 + 14. DIAGRAM DATA

TOUCHPOINTS

METADATA

I

other people

“matcher”

other people’s decisions

“club advisor”

which club are they going

my decision

“match locator”

which club am I going

question

“match advisor”

love-match location

I

“match advisor”

clubs

I

Case summary

The following is the summary of the application of one of the tests. The purpose of this is to give a better idea of the type of results achieved.

were new actors included. For example, a “profile maker” and an “advisor”.

11.

There were also new connections of exchange. Bart exchanged his time and details to get “a customized profile”, he exchanged his location to get a “recommendation”, and the club installed the technology to track Bart’s location and give him advice and received back a guaranteed visitor. And so on.

12.

The new network included new actors, actions and connections of exchange based on aspirations.

13.

The elements of the Meta Product were identified. For example the data in the actual world in the new network was ‘Bart’ (his preferences, interests, age, etc), the other people (other interested people as Bart, their preferences, interests, etc). The decisions about where other people go, was also data in the actual world. And so on.

14.

The Meta Product diagram was made with the information on step 13. The data in the actual world from ‘Bart’ communicated with a touchpoint called “profiler” which translated the information into the metadata called “profile”. The data in the actual world of ‘other people’ communicated with a touchpoint called ‘matcher’ which translated the information into the metadata called “potential love-match profiles’…

15.

The final scenario presented the design of whole system. This included screenshots, text and devices. It was called the “wise-match”. The story board narrated the following: “Bart is at home wondering where to go. It’s been a while since he had a girlfriend or a date and he feels ready to go back into action. But, he doesn’t know which place to go. He goes on-line to wise-match.com and creates his profile. Some seconds later, he gets a list of clubs. The list was done by matching his profile to other frequent club visitors and other profiles that will go that night to the club. Bart also ‘publishes’ his decision so that more possible matches can make their decision to go to the same club too. When he gets into the club, his location is being tracked so that when he asks for advice to the Wise-match device, he gets a direction to go. The direction will not show specific profiles but just a match-zone where his possible lovematch is.”

1.

Explore the context: urban clubbing 2.

Main action: I flirt in the club Main actor: ‘Bart’ 23 years old, introverted, likes video-games, the opinion of his peers are very important 3.

Related actions: the related actions in time begin by ‘Bart’ communicating with his friends till he has a date outside the club with the girl 4.

The actors include people, products and services. In this case the most important actors in the action “communicating with his friends” were email, facebook and sms, himself and his friends. Other important actors in the “flirting action” were the club, the girl and the peers.

5.

The connections of exchange were all sorts of skills, knowledge or things that are given to receive something else in exchange. In this case, some of them were: Bart exchanges money to communicate with his friends through sms but also exchanges time and cognitive effort to browse on the Internet for a ‘good’ club.

6.

The challenging system of connections in this case, was found at the beginning of the time line causing a negative experience in the main action.

The challenging connection was that during the communication with his friends there was no proper criteria to select the club, and the effect was that Bart did not have anything in common with the girls in that club (hence, awkward silences) 7.

The how to question was: “How to know in which club I could meet my love match?”

8.

Bart’s aspirations were built. The final aspiration was “I would give a sign to get advice from anywhere I want in one quick step, feeling enthusiastic and confident that I will meet my love match…”

9.

The actions and the emotions derived from these actions were imagined in a time line before and after the final aspiration. For example, I create my profile feeling excited, I communicate with my friends to go out feeling motivated, I ask for advice feeling curious, etc.

10.

To make those actions real, there must be actors. In this case there 100

“If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it�

Albert Einstein

2. The method Workshop version As mentioned before, this version is derived from the Project version. There are also 3 main clusters of explorative, generative and constructive thinking. There are no new topics, but just short-cuts to reach the synthesis of ideas.

1. Introduction

Explore the actions

2. Choose a topic 3. List of topics 4. Define a main action 5. Describe the main persona 6. Build the aspiration blocks

7. Visualize the network

Set a direction

Design the Meta Product

8. Identify the Meta Product 9. Design the Meta Product

10. Examples

102

1. Introduction

4. Define a main action

This is the short version of the Project-method. There are 7 steps that will guide you through exploring the context, identifying dreams and aspirations to create a new network of connections that will be transformed into a Meta Product

Write a simple sentence in first person explaining the main action you find most important or interesting on the topic you chose.

Explore the actions

Example: “I transport my baby with product ”x” Time: 10 mins

5. Describe the main persona Draw a persona (or use a puppet from the box) and paste post-its with descriptions about his/her personal details, values, personality, likes, dislikes, skills...

2. Choose a topic It will take only 5 minutes to choose a topic from the list below. However, the topic can also be the current product of a company, a design brief given by a client, a webpage or any other general interest

Goal: Get to know well the person who makes the main action Time: 15 min

6. Build the aspiration blocks Write down on the big sheet what would the persona (I) love in this way:

3. List of topics

Health Media/Entertainment Lifestyle enhancing Information communication Education Social enabling

Monica would love to MAIN ACTION (WHAT) + WHERE + WHEN + HOW + FEELING... + WHY Keep on asking as much as you can What?, Where?, When? , and How? to get as many specific ideas as possible. Write the answers on post-its and paste them on the blocks. Try to make the tallest tower and make the best combination!

Goal: To generate as many specific ideas as possible that show the dreams and aspirations of the persona in relation with the main action.

Time: 20 min

Set a direction

7. Visualize the network Draw arrows around each final “what, where, when, how, feeling and why� and show who else is involved (remember it can be new people, new services, expressions, other products, etc). What do they exchange?

Goal: To visualize a connection- system map that shows how knowledge, skills and emotions are exchangeable. The network will be the design guideline for the next two steps.

Time: 20 min

Design the Meta Product

8. Identify the Meta Product

9. Design the Meta Product

Identify in the network which information in the actual world (data) will be sensed, tracked, measured, controlled, categorized, interpreted by a medium (touchpoint) and transformed into what kind of virtual information (metadata)

Answer What should I perceive in each connection? Take the main aspiration you did in step 6 as a guideline. Make a story-board or an infographic explaining the final Meta Product concept.

Goal: To have an overview of the Meta Product system

Goal: To define a Meta Product concept

Time: 20 mins

Time: 30 min

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9. Examples The deliverables might look very similar to the ones from the Project method.

However, due to the time constraint in this version the deliverables may look less thorough and more sketchy.

The physical construction of the aspiration tower is an important element here.

The designers will make use of tridimensional blocks on top of a large sheet where they can freely draw the network.

Persona

Actions, aspirations, network

Conclusion know if the interactions we design might be perceived as meaningful? In the second part of the method, the generative section, is where we find answers to these questions and a way to deal with the ambiguous elements of human dimensions (cultural, social, psychological, cognitive) that are involved in an experience. So, the method implies that to encourage a meaningful experience, the designer has to see the whole network that provides meaning to individual actions and connections of exchange. The willingness of the actor to have a particular new connection of exchange comes from his/her aspirations and dreams. The actions performed to exchange are the unit of value.

All together, the designer create the guidelines to design a Meta Product that offer meaningful connections by fulfilling aspirations and dreams that make sense to the whole network.

The method in its two modalities provides a rich guideline through the challenging task of designing a Meta Product.

The basis relies on literature and exploratory research. The input of experts and designers was also an important element that helped to give structure to the method.

What makes this method special is that it combines ways of thinking, other methods and tools. The mind sets in literature and practice from Ubiquitous Technologies (UT), User Experience (UX) and Service Dominant Logic (SDL) were identified to be the key elements to design meaningful and valuable Meta Products. They were carefully analyzed to find a common language between them and to achieve operability.

The first ideas of the method were the result of analogical thinking between the most relevant principles from UT, UX and SDL domains which in sequence are:

The method starts with an explorative section that forges to synthesize the world into actions and connections of exchange, visualizing this way a network. This network is then manipulated, confronted and challenged to find better actions and connections of exchange.

1. Understand the relationships between actors 2. Define their actions of value 3. Construct meaningful actions

According to User Experience domains, only meaningful experiences are recognized as valuable. In the SDL, value is uniquely experiential. But how to foresee the way value in a Meta Product will be experienced? How to

106

From these first ideas a preliminary method was elaborated, tested and iteratively constructed through five focus groups with designers. Time, structure, flexibility, visualization, simplicity, logic, reflection, team dynamics and facilitation were the usability criteria.

How to encourage meaningful experiences?

A meaningful experience will be encouraged if the designer creates interactions that make sense in the whole network of exchange How to co-create value with the user?

An action of exchange and the willing to exchange is the unit of value. So, to co-create value means for the designer to focus on the peoples’ willingness to exchange.

How to foresee how value will be experienced?

The way value will be experienced could be foreseen by focusing on the aspirations (including emotions) that lead to actions of exchange.

For designers is not new to think on user-centered design. But with this method, it is not only about the user, or even about his context, but it is also about his network. A network built by him and other actors in order to exchange value. An introductory term of this could be “network- focused design”. Now bits cannot be embodied randomly or followed by what’s just technically possible. The designer now embodies connections that have to make sense in the network.

Moreover, this method offers a practical overview of how such a holistic approach can be worked out in practice. As Sterling (2005) said, “Design is not science”. He was referring to the lack of testable hypothesis or experimental proofs in design practices. The challenge is not to use strict scientific approaches but to reach proper transdisciplinary, iterative and abductive approaches to deal with the multilayered nature of a meaningful and valuable Meta Product. This method provides a way to overcome this challenge.

vii. Implications & recommendations

Implications

Implications

for theory

for practice

UT, SDL and UX in theories normally operate in silos leaving unanswered questions that could be filled by their proper integration. The significance of this method is that it crosses domain boundaries in an operable way. From research it was identified that UT are struggling to be truly meaningful and valuable. One reason behind this, is the lack of suitable frameworks. With this method, the particularities of a theoretical domain can work within a strategic framework. The framework is based on the transdisciplinary integration of other relevant domains.

In practice, Booreiland will use this method to design Meta Products. With this method, Booreiland will expand its technical-driven perspective to a more strategic one.

The method is intended to be conducted as a Project, or as a Workshop. The theoretical background is left “hidden” and it intends to give practical guidance to design a Meta Product. The method can be conducted in a short time frame which makes the method flexible for practice. Both versions are aimed at designers. Designers could mean industrial, interaction and service designers, but also other types of engineers and professionals.

Furthermore, theorists from the three domains, but particularly from SDL, tend to provide us with “logics” or “mindsets” but leave us without any framework to apply them. This method takes a step further from the mindset to the actual implementation.

The most important implication in practice is that this method can be used by UT, SD and UX practitioners. This method allows practitioners to adopt a new mindset that will make their domains converge to design Meta Products.

To design a Meta Product (or other type of Ubiquitous Technology) has never been approached –to my knowledge- from these corners (SDL and UX) at the same time. This brings the need for further theoretical validation.

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Recommendations

Limitations

It is recommended to Booreiland to create proper tools and mechanisms to remain updated with Meta Product technology. Mastering and understanding the technology should be a given fact in the eyes of the client. Most importantly, Booreiland should create proper tools and mechanisms to keep fresh knowlegde, insights and inspiration from the people, situations, events in the world. They should practice empathy techniques and remain alert within the fuzzyness of the human dimensions.

This project was limited to validation by doing 5 focus group sessions. The topics and the participants were different in each session. This decreased the possibility of getting biased results. It was avoided to consider issues that were only related to a particular topic or participant and the focus was on the usability and theoretical application. However, team dynamics was a very important issue that may have had an important impact on the overall results.

Furthermore, the sessions were performed only as a “workshop� version (only in one case there was some research behind) due to the short time available.

New usability issues may arise if the method is conducted in a long term project. These issues could not be foreseen in this project.

It is also recommended to take the MetaBox (or the method) a step further. The MetaBox could be a Meta Product itself and provide connections to knowlegde and user insights at a distance or with large amounts of users.

Booreiland should also be aware that they are the facilitators of this method. It might happen that freelancers invited to conduct the method will need some time to get familiarized with it.

The learning curve of the designers could not be projected in the development of the method. It would require a larger scale and other measurements that were not included in the scope of this project. The learning curve could potentially change some usability and practical issues of the method.

It is highly recommended to evaluate the results of the sessions. The scope of this project covered usability and theoretical implementation but did not covered evaluations of the outcomes or proposed Meta Product concepts.

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Suggestions for further research

It is suggested to do further research on the effect of the method on the creation of business models. In this project it was implied that designing on the basis of value exchange would make it easier for identifying the proper business model. But this has to be further studied.

It is also suggested to do further validation on the interactions proposed in the final Meta Product concept and the experience they render. This means to make prototypes and concept testing.

Further research could focus on the extention and integration of the Method into organizational structures that include not only designers, but clients and stakeholders.

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• • • • • • • • •

www.booreiland.nl/blog www.nearfield.org www.nfc-forum.org www.webofthings.com www.ipso-alliance.org http://blogs.cisco.com/virtualworlds/ www.hitech-projects.com/euprojects/amigo/ www.roomwareproject.org www.service-design-network.org

Appendices

Appendix 1 Product Releases

Hardware Engineering

(including architectural development)

Systems Engineering/

B

A

A

2

1

Future Assets (including architectural development)

2

2

B

A New hardware variants

Learning

Time Concurrent Engineering

Responsive Capability

Adaptive design & concurrent engineering process of Nokia- Siemens. The cycle is created by the utilization of current assets which evolve during the product development into new future assets.

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evaluation of product use

Fuzzy Front End of Innovation New product Development Muddy Back End

distribution promotion & sales

evaluation product launch

product in use

Product Use product use strategic product direction

market introduction evaluation of product

product

evaluation

manufacturing strategic situation of the company

evaluation internal analysis product design

technology development

product development

market development

generating search areas

search areas

internal analysis of bottlenecks

design brief

evaluation search area

evaluation ideas

generating product ideas

Environment

Delft Innovation Model

external needs analysis

external analysis

CHANGE

EXPERIENCE

LEARNING

SENSE PERCEPTION

INTEREST

Experience pyramid from Tarssanen and Kyl채nen

Appendix 2 A.Ubimedia Ubimedia is a concept where media files can be embedded in everyday objects and the environment. The user can access those files with his/her personal mobile phone simply by touching the physical objects. This enables access, for example, to video or audio files related to the physical object in question. The structure of media is changing from standalone media objects (photographs, audio tracks, books) to collections of related media objects connected by hyperlinks. These hyperlinks may bridge digital and physical objects as well; hence the term ‘physically-linked hypermedia’.

New RFID memory tags embedded in the environment and in physical objects in the environment are a way for Ubimedia to occur. The user can access the media with his/her mobile phone just by touching the memory tag. The purpose is to facilitate the access to media related to physical objects: for instance, music files can be provided as a bonus on a concert ticket, a movie trailer can be downloaded from a movie poster or assembly instructions can be found on furniture as a video.

The user can access the content but can also take the content with him/her on the personal mobile device. Writable memory tags extend the application possibilities as users can themselves produce content to memory tags; though this last option requires more sophisticated infrastructures for data management, security and privacy.

The operational ecosystem for Ubimedia requires mobile devices that facilitate interacting with memory tags and tags that are easily detectable in the local environment even if embedded in the environment and different objects in the environment (Kaasinen et al., 2009).

Barton et. al from the Mobile and Media Systems Laboratory of HP Laboratories in Palo Alto, predicted already in 2003 that the people themselves will ultimately decide how will they use new communication technology and that most of it will be entertainment-oriented. In various newspapers and conferences it has been also predicted that the revenue in Ubimedia will mostly come in form of data about the customers’ context and other behavior. This is because the customer’s have a very limited will to pay for internet-related services.

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B. Smart home Traditionally home automation, consumer electronics, mobile communications and personal computing were strictly separate domains all having their own industrial companies, with their own business plans, standardization efforts and form factors. By introducing the networked home, also called the smart home, this traditional separation of activities is no longer valid. In such a home, several pieces of equipment are connected by using the same infrastructure, the technology is completely integrated into the environment and people can freely and interactively use it.

However a great limitation for this project is the lack of interoperability between different manufacturers, equipments and the absence of compelling user services are a great constraint for market development.

The Amigo project develops middleware that dynamically integrates heterogeneous systems to achieve interoperability between services and devices.

For example, home appliances (heating systems, lighting systems, washing machines, refrigerators), multimedia players and renderers (that communicate by means of UPnP) and personal devices (mobile phones, PDAs) are connected in the home network to work in an interoperable way. This interoperability across different application domains can also be extended across different homes and locations. The Amigo project is a joint effort of fifteen European companies and research organizations in mobile and home networking, software development, consumer electronics and domestic appliances.

See: Amigo Project- taken from www.hitechprojects.com/euprojects/amigo/ amigo.htm

C. Wearable sensing Wearable sensing may present the most non-invasive form of identifying, tracking, locating and monitoring. It can be suggested for continuous health monitoring and long-term behavior modeling in sports or other physical activities.

There are few developments in niche markets and the academy, however Nokia has development the Nokia Eco Sensor. The concept consists of two parts – a wearable sensor unit which can sense and analyze the environment, health, and local weather conditions of the user, and a dedicated mobile phone. The user will be able to choose which sensors he or she would like to have inside the sensing device, thereby customizing the device to their needs and desires. For example, the user could choose to setup the device as a “personal trainee�. The sensor unit is worn on a wrist or neck strap made from solar cells that provide power to the sensors.

NFC (near field communication) technology will relay information by touch from the sensors to the phone or to or to other devices that support NFC technology.

D. Identifying, tracking and locating

One of the most demanding industries in this application is the Supply Chain Management. SCM requires real-time, updated global visibility of the physical items and processes.

One of the main players in this industry is EPC Global. Electronic Product Code™ (EPC) is an emerging system that uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for the automatic identification of consumer products.

EPC has the potential to be used on many everyday consumer products as they move through the supply chain - from factories through distribution centers and into retail stores. The improved information in the supply chain will help speed products to the shelf and insure they are available when consumers want and in the quantities they need. Removal of expired products will be easier, and prompt removal of any recalled product will be facilitated. In addition, checkout times for customers could be significantly shortened. www.epcglobalinc.org/public/ppsc_guide/ A major limitation in this industry is the cost-efficient and highly pricecompetitive nature in which the implementation of EPC has been a challenge and therefore it has not taken off as predicted. Only in high- price goods EPC has established a solid market

E. Navigation and location

For the automotive industry, smart systems of navigation are very attractive.

In fact, the car may become the ultimate mobile device itself, comprising entertainment, business and social connectivity, maximum safety through intuitive and intelligent navigation systems and other systems to measure the efficiency of fuel consumption and driving styles. An example of this is Eco:Drive from Fiat, a computer application that helps improve the users’ driving style in order to use less fuel. The integration between the car information and the computer application is a simple USB memory stick.

Another example of navigation can be seen in mobile devices (such as the iPhone) that can be transformed into a geographically smart accessory with location-aware business logic that can decide what contextual content the user will most want to access, based on the user’s location and perhaps also on his or her preferences and schedule. By combining location data with other key pieces of the user and Web information, the mobile Web 2.0 will enable the users to interact with one another and with the mobile Web itself in an “immersive” contextual environment.

For governmental instances, navigation systems may introduce important benefits for traffic management. Augmented reality, for example is a supporting technology to visualize and interact with the real-time traffic data on-site.

F. Monitoring, controlling and operating

The health sector may be very interested in the technologies that allow real-time and remote monitoring. However, other industries that have 24 hour operations, such as manufacturing and security management may find good chances in UT. There are few applications in these last sectors, especially in the manufacturing sector, in which the solutions must adapt to the manufacturing platform.

In the health sector, radio bracelets can inform physicians of a patient's medical history almost instantly. An RFID chip stores the wearer's data, which can be accessed by a hand-held computer or laptop. Treatment and administrative procedures are made more transparent and economic through this technology; it also makes patient identification more reliable.

Another monitoring example in the health sector is the AirStrip OBserver Suite, which is a collection of robust, dynamic software solutions that allow healthcare providers in a variety of practice areas anywhere, anytime access to critical information that can improve patient safety and strengthen communication between healthcare professionals. A specific application is AirStrip OB™ that has been introduced to the iPhone. AirStrip OB links individual mobile devices to a central AirStrip server with HIPAA-compliant authentication, giving obstetricians remote access to live views of delivery room data — including fetal heart tracings, contraction patterns, vital statistics and nursing notes.

G. Toys and games

There are multiple possibilities for entertainment and gaming. Toys for ludic or educational purposes can make use of NFC, WSN and other technologies.

Sniff dog is a physical toy dog that can withstand the rough and tumble of everyday play and activities. Through the use of RFID technology, Sniff can identify close objects to trigger behaviors that are expressed through sound and vibration.

An alternate reality game (ARG), is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants’ ideas or actions. This type of gaming (using AR and other technologies) is still under development and main players such as Nintendo are busy trying to make the gaming experience even richer than the reality.

ABC, Channel 4 Television in the U.K, and Australia Channel 7 will launch the “Lost Experience,” a revolutionary interactive experience based on the international hit television series, “Lost”. Working together, more than 30 broadcasters from Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific and the Middle East released clues with new information regarding the mystery and mythology of the island featured in the series. Fans looking to solve the puzzle found audio, video, and text clues in locations around the world, along with an online community in which to connect and collaborate with others helped them win.

H. Experience enhancers

Brand experience is “the key� in many sectors, such as in publicity (marketing), retail, tourism and education. For example, the shopping experience will be a mix of social media, user profiling and unlimited access to options. The customer can make trade-offs and on-line trials, ask the opinion of others and have easy access to multiple options and even cocreate the final offer.

BMW Z4, made use of augmented reality to enhance the experience of driving a BMW and to convey a particular emotion to the brand.

In museums, educational environments and tourism, the experience is becoming also very important. AR and other technologies are offering assistance and interactions between the teachers and the students, the collection of a museum and its visitors, the touristic attraction and the traveler

I. Reading and browsing

With the development of E-paper and the increasing potential of Internet, the industry of information communication is changing. New business models and interactions are arising threatening the structure of traditional means of information communication such as TV and news papers.

A new multi-purpose device is iPad (some people say it is the big brother of the iPhone). It performs many things, from displaying HD movies, TV, color screen web browsing and playing games. Apple arguments that it delivers a unique browsing, reading and media experience. Whereas the dedicated eReader such as the Kindle from Amazon is the combination of relatively large data management and the traditional way of reading books and newspapers (it is still unclear if the purpose of Kindle considers the experience as an important issue).

INTERVIEWS Interview with Jenny de Boer TNO Information and Communication Technology Business Innovation

In web and service design there is a tendency to “empower the user” via the interaction and control of their services, which exactly is the role of the user when co-designing?

A lot of users are cannot co-design because they are not used to it. I think user generated content it is not actually co-designing because the users are just given a tool to upload whatever they want, but for us co-designing has also the challenge to get the community active to create a product and that they get engaged with and use it.

Your work is based in co-creation or co-designing, what does it mean?

Co- design can be also named system design. How the stakeholders behave, how the context is, the market and all the things around the product are so important that leaves the development of the product as a tiny part of the system design.

…How do you get these users to be active?

I select the people that are “capable” by just talking to them, but also if the users feel lost or do not have the mind set to co-design you can also give them a set of options to choose from, to reflect upon. And it happens in every phase of the process. This is also a way of co-designing.

It means that not only the user but the stakeholders can really make the product or service their own, and it is not just something that we invented and try to convince them that it will do their lives better or will receive some benefit, but that it is something they completely see the need of having it, making it or using it.

What is an interaction? What is an experience?

In which part of the development process do you involve co-design?

I think an interaction is more about what you do and an experience is more about what you feel about what you do.

In co-design we let people interact with certain technologies so they can experience what the technology can do for them. For example, what we did in Namibia, we did a demonstration of a basic interaction to a group of people and then we let them do it themselves, they could make a text message and then see it on the web for example, and once they have that experience they can be able to think how can they apply it for themselves.

What we call co-design not only involve the end-users, we involve other stakeholders as well.

You can do it in different phases. The first one is creating the strategy and conceptualization in which you can bring all the stakeholders that should be and can be involved and create the commitment to develop the rest of the project. What we do is we sit all together for one week with the whole team. Then we have the design and implementation phase. Here we do the same with other phases but with the objective is to determine technical requirements and things related of what is possible in a particular country and what are the skills of the people and also user requirements in order to implement the ideas and solutions, and we do it in one iteration basically.

Then we have the impact and evaluation phase, in which you evaluate how this first design cycle went and how can you go further and how it will look in three years for example.

But where are the needs of the people? For example, why do you think it is necessary to send a text message and see it on the web or show on-line data in a physical way like the Meta Products? Do we really need that or is it happening just because the technology allows it?

I think it is a bit of both. We need it because first of all we always have an urge of change but we also get frustrated by it because change can happen in lots of ways, we could also say lets stop all this and go back to the old ways, 127

I don’t see that happening. Then we look at other solutions, and one of these solutions is trying to take out the on-line data into physical ways, the thing is that with every technology development we try it and eventually we see oh this really useful! or ah this is how we can really use this!, so we’ll see.

Which elements do you think limit or condition how an interaction and an experience is perceived?

Well I know that many of the interactions that were proposed at the university for example, are still not possible technologically.

I think if designers do not understand what the technology can do, they come up with bad interactions or interactions that are not possible.

Also, in emerging markets or developing countries to design ICT products requires taking more small steps than for example here in the western society, because we are more experienced with technology already, so we can see the benefits more easily even if it is something new. If you are not experienced with technology it is very hard to do so. And of course most of these countries are more collectivistic than goal driven so the social behavior and relationships are very important to consider when designing a product. The implications of the social issues sometimes are more important than the actual product.

way of co-designing the process goes slow. But one of the things to make projects scalable is to get a large stakeholder like an institute involved. What we do beforehand is to make scalable models and then try to find partners that already have a customer base or infrastructure or a network. Anyway, you can scale your product but you can also scale your impact. It means that sometimes the scale of impact of a product can be larger than the product itself, because it can make other organizations or companies change their behavior and mindsets.

When do you know the value your product offers? And what would be your definition of added value?

Definitely value is identified when the users and stakeholders get to experience the product or service, that’s why we co-design, particularly to create this value together so that they can recognize it. Actually, we believe that a product that is co-designed it will be adopted more successfully than one that wasn’t, because they will see the benefits more clearly.

So in this sense added value doesn’t mean much to me, value is value.

With user-generated content, the last phase of the design process extends to the hands of the user. Do you consider this “after-usage” can be reproduced in other products and services? How would you consider this in your development process?

…What do you mean with “interactions that are not possible”?

Well I mean a combination of a lot of things, time and capabilities. For example, if the “ideal” interaction for the end-user requires building new codes and this means it will take two years instead of three months. I think this is a limitation that designers should cope in the same way as they approach the users, and try to understand them and ask them questions and observe them, the same way designers should approach technology and the technology people. In the long run you should try to achieve the “ideal” interaction, but in the short term, you can also make a difference if you consider making small steps by finding a middle point between the current technology and the ideal interaction.

Well if there is actually a need to continuing the design process by the endusers then, it can all be thought and seen in the co-design process, by asking them etc. so that the users can continue their own design loop afterwards.

How do you see the future of Internet?

In order for the internet of things to happen as many scenarios picture them, scalability is a great challenge.. how do you think we can overcome this challenge? How do you cope with scalability issues?

What I expect that developing regions most likely will be a big part of the internet evolution. They will skip the fixed lines and the computers, they cannot afford them any way so they will go for the mobile phones. Therefore, I see that more interesting potential applications for mobile internet can come up especially in developing countries. And generally, mobile internet will be more integrated in your life, internet coming more to you instead of you going to it.

In my projects we’ve achieved only small scales because especially in this

Recently, there is quite some research dedicated to stop using “black boxes” 128

(e.g iphones) as interfaces and to bring on-line data to physical forms? Why do you think this is happening?

I think the use of black boxes has to do with costs, if you can have something that has the combination of satisfying people’s needs but that is also affordable then people won’t mind if it is in the form of a mobile phone or another brick.

Since 1991, the “Internet of Things” has been a popular term in the last 10 years but it hasn’t really taken off as expected (smart devices in smart environments connected to the web, sensing and reacting to the users and to other devices) Why do you think this has been so slow? How do you think the internet of things will evolve?

Who’s the owner of all this? It is very nice just to predict that but, many of those systems and projects are deployed in different countries but all by different organizations. There is no big project, no Orange, no Google, no Vodafone are willing to join forces to develop it, to make it cheaper, one platform. It is not really a technological problem, it is economical and a social problem.

Interview with Dr. ir. Maddy D. Janse Department Human Interaction & Experiences Sector Digital Lifestyle Technology of Philips Research

How would you define an interaction?

I have a very abstract definition; an interaction is between two entities, two structures that have a relationship between each other that dynamically changes. So an action by one of the elements causes a reaction by one of the others, that causes in return a reaction with others and it goes on and on like this. Whether it is a technical interaction between two software systems, or whether it is an interaction like communication in human exchange or whether it is between humans and systems. It’s always about these reactions of two behaviors which are always dynamic in time it’s never static.

How would you define an experience?

There is a lovely confusion. For me, there are two meanings to experience.

Experience is now the new word for usability, and how one is satisfied by dynamically interacting with a product a system or a service. And basically is a new fancy word.

The other meaning is a very personal thing that I do, or in which I am the master. For example, being interviewed now is an experience for me, and how that is designed? yes we are designing it together because we are doing it, talking together so, basically life is a continuous experience. This would be more a definition from literature and common sense and what people use in daily terms. But there is now the technical term of “experience”, which is basically a new word for what in the old days was “usability”, “easy of use”, but we had to go a little bit into a higher level.

.. Why? I think there is one difference. The classic usability definition is basically operational, like how long does it take, how many hours do people make, you know, very strict. Ease of use goes one step further, it means that when you look at something or encounter it for the first time, you can just walk at it and start using it. But now we are more into the design of total eco-systems, in which there are totally different services, different devices. You might not even use all of them, maybe only one. So you are going to pick out yourself basically and that makes it broader. And that is why usability is rather mundane as a term, and we needed a new term, so now we got experience.

But if you look at the professional domain of user-system interaction and you

want to make “experience” operational and you want to evaluate it or test it, then you come back to the old usability type of things. But for designing I think it gives you more freedom, to be more experimental and creative. I mean when you design only for usability, your constraints are strict, and sometimes they have to be strict. If you talk about medical systems or an airplane, then you have matters of life and death, then you have to be strict.

But if for example when you design something in the entertainment domain then it is a matter of people liking it or don’t liking it, it is very hard to measure that in advance. To create an “ideal”.. when it is individually different, I think you have to give people options to create their own experience within the environment you provide.

In web design, service design and other fields there is a tendency to “empower the consumer”, via the interaction and control of their services (such as user-generated content) and co-creation. Some people even claim the role of the designer will disappear in the future and the consumer will be given the power to create his/her products. Where do you think is the right place for the consumer?

Co-creation has been done in all design endeavors I would say. Except sometimes it goes a bit faster sometimes a bit slower. Well it depends on what do you mean with co-creation. On one hand it is basically a team of designers that is trying to create something, on the other hand you can use the user.. you could talk to your client or the user or whoever you’re designing for, every period of time and call that co-creation. You could also call it user-centered design. Co-discovery is basically a first analysis, that actually comes from educational psychology, from the 50’s, which means that two students that are seating together they can help each other figuring out a problem in which one student learn from the other and they dare to ask questions a bit more because they’re not alone. It has been developed as an evaluation method for usability testing and early concept evaluation. And now it is coming back also in the “experiences”.

“Everybody will be an expert”, of course not. You have to realize most people are not so clever, the less you know the less you understand that you don’t know, the more you know the more you understand that you don’t know.

What is really going on is that everybody thinks that they can be experts. You can see it on blogs or news, it is a social phenomena. But the real experts won’t disappear, I mean if you are able to do a heart surgery by using the web as a guideline… I think that would go too far. I mean everybody can write a book with a text processor, but between readable and just placing text there’s a big difference.

Furthermore, I think what really limits this visions is that we only have 24 hours a day, from which we work 8 hours, sleep 8 hours, we need to eat too and do other things, in the end people won’t have the time or the energy to be engaged in creating their products. Maybe for hobbyists, they will be engaged and have the patience to understand the technology, for example to make their own CNC machine and make their own creations. For the rest, even if it is easy, they would try it and say, well and so what? For example, I am from a different generation and I was taught how to sew and make my own clothes. That requires some skills, knowledge and patience, it is nice to know how to do it, but in practical terms do you think I still do it? Of course not, it is not vital for me to make my own clothes and I just buy them, and I think it will happen in similar way with this trend.

In any case, you should not underestimate the cleverness or the stupidity of people.

“Pervasive computing” has been a popular term in the last 10 years but it hasn’t really taken off as expected (smart devices in smart environments connected to the web, sensing and reacting to the users and to other devices) Why do you think this has had this pace? How do you think the internet of things will evolve?

If you talk about the IoT, in the widest definition it means that all the objects in our environment are connected via the network. So that from here from my mobile I can talk to my coffee machine, etc.. so the point is that we’ve enabled all these possibilities with our technology but what will people pick up from this? What can be really sensible. And it will be different in different societies, and I think it is a big adventure and an incredibly interesting challenge. But we have to put it a bit into perspective, for example, look at the telephone, you cannot live without a telephone anymore right? But if in 1850 you would have asked, wouldn’t it be nice to have this thing that you talk to and talk to someone from far away? They would probably had answered, come on what are you talking about? I’m quite happy the way I am. The first idea proposed was to bring classic music to the masses. That was the original idea of running out that new technology, and you know what happened, it became something totally different. So it takes a couple of steps before the real features are being taken, and sometimes they can be totally different as the technology people or the designers realize.

In 1988 it was predicted that in 2000 we wouldn’t have a TV because we would do everything through the internet. Sounds good but you have to

make a distinction, I mean the technology moves, technology is there to bring innovations, you cannot do them without it, and there are always people who are thinking, oh this would be nice to do and that concept, and then they also think that other people will think the same, and that is not always the case.

It takes some time, sometimes after 20 or 30 years, before… you know these concepts have to be revised and to be tackled to pick up. I have another example, the patent of the microwave oven is from 1940 or 1941, I think, and I was leaving in the US in the 70’s and I got acquainted with all kinds of people who were working in the food processing industry and also in companies who produced equipment for food processing. So there were ladies there who were being taught how to demonstrate what the microwave could do. The oven looked like an autoclave, a big brick, and the only thing they knew was that you could heat water in it and that you couldn’t put an egg in it. And that was about it. So that was in the 70’s when it started like this. Then in the 80’s some advanced kitchens already had them. But only in the late 90’s was when the whole food processing industry had the recipes ready to be usable in the microwave and the cutlery that could go into the thing, and basically it took 50 years before that was a common item.

So the smart home is the same type of thing. The Amigo project, basically was a software project, and we were looking at an open-source software that could be used to make a home network and in that network you could hang in all your devices, so the Internet of Things within the home and between homes. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to use new buildings and you don’t have to remodel your house because you can do all with software in a computer. And the examples that we are coming up with, you know like the refrigerator being control and sends a message to AH, your diet is being watched, or when you get sick and the system notices and calls someone to get an ambulance, and so on, standard examples that are around already for the past 20 years. But if you then see how difficult it is for the mindset of normal people, I still cannot explain this to people outside this high-tech environment. My first university degree actually is in agriculture, and I had to give to give a presentation the other day at the Agriculture university, and I tried to explain about the smart home and they couldn’t really grasp it. And they are highly educated people, all with academic degrees, but of course I know it is not them. If you go to the average AH customer, they would think you are totally nuts!

So I think it is a matter of time. One problem at this moment is that certain elements of the system of the smart home you can already buy, like lighting control, security of your house, etc, that’s all there, but they don’t talk to each other, they’re individual islands. So you first need industries to understand what the standardization and open-source software can mean, before they can

really see the economic advantage.

Is the economic advantage the main value? Or which is the real value of IoT? No, no, there should be applications that are really interesting for people. But we haven’t been so creative yet.

Which are the implications of having these “black boxes” like the iPhone, that once you disconnect them, they mean absolutely nothing? Do you think we’ll have more of these black boxes around us?

I think you cannot have too many black boxes, because we only have two pockets. I think there are two ways to look at it. One is that many of the services will go to one of the boxes, so that it will be only one box that you carry with you, and in the end you won’t even have to carry it with you because you have your fingerprint or other bio-identifier that everywhere you are it should work, so why would you have to carry a black box. So that would be part of a solution approach, technical people are working on it, I would say everywhere in little pieces. There are a lot of problems to face, like privacy, security, a real personal privacy, identity theft..all the problems we know, but I assume they probably can all be solved in the future.

The other thing is that if you look this “black boxes” as a topic of sustainability means that everything you use be able to be reused again and should not use unnecessary energy or special resources. Then it is a requirement to start something about it because it is not sustainable. I don’t think it is a matter of people being fed-up of these black boxes, I don’t think they will.

But responsible organizations like academia, governments, industries and so for, should do research and come up with ideas in a sustainable way before people do get fed-up.

Do you think technologies are converging or diverging?

It depends on which industry you’re talking about. You have to see it in a higher level and then you need both converging and diverging. But, for the very good potential developments you need basically standardization. It is ridiculous that you cannot use the same mobile phones in China as in here, for example, or to carry the stupid power plugs and adaptors. And with computers is even worse, you barely have an apple talk to a Windows machine.

…Why do you think that?

…But if the people don’t see the need?

It is industrial interest; everybody is defending their own way. But in the long term, this basically blocks further development. Standardization, at least for Philips is very important, because it means you can have based on one platform all kinds of different manifestations of your product without having to re-design and re-do all kinds of things. It also means that people can merge their own applications into it. And it is not only at the user level important but also companies who are merging buy totally different software architecture not only at the system level, but at the user interface level, you can feel that.. and in the end there is a huge problem. Imagine in the IoT, if I have a Philips coffee machine hanging in my home network and I want to change it to a Braun coffee machine, but this one doesn’t talk to my home network… In the audio system we still have that. That’s why we need standards.

Then you have to create the need. That’s what we’ve been doing all the time.

There was no need for an automobile but now we cannot live without it, we didn’t have the need of mobile phones and we now cannot live without them.

So we have to create the need and it takes time.

Which elements do you think limit or condition the interaction with the digital environment?

It is not the technology. It is just that we as humans don’t see any need for it, because we are happy just like this.

…but then why do we buy an iPhone and many other things we don’t need?

Well we do it gradually, very gradually, I mean, imagine if I live in a two floor house, a very nice house and I have four telephones spread into my house, but with the smart home system I do not need all those four telephones because when I get a phone call in the kitchen I can walk to the fridge and answer there or when I pass by the television, the microphones will take over the telephone call and it basically just follows me, it’s quite handy, because I can do everything hands-free. But I am living alone of course, so that’s not so difficult, but when you get multi-users it gets more complex. Though it is quite handy already the way it is now because I can have a phone always close to me and “flop” answer, I think it could be very useful and I think it should be developed something like that.

…Why? Because I think that there will be many situations in the house in which people will see that the smart home is very convenient.

Could you describe in a general way your development process (for example the Smart Home project)?

Well, it depends at which stage of the process within the organization.

Designing a system or creating a product at the front-end is being done a lot, but only like 2% gets really to the end. In that case, how do you get started?

I think there are three combining approaches that iterate in the mind set.

One is can I define a problem which would be served by this product? The second part is to know what are the interesting parts of the technology which will be the carrier to do something. And the third one is my only intuition in fact. The three of them combined.

Of course this is in the ideal case of having all the freedom in the world. But anyway, these three elements that are very important. For example being at Philips or at other companies that have a technology and they also think they have a market, so they think they have a problem that has to be solved, you have to analyze both. Whether you are more scientifically oriented- analyze a lot and do, or if you are more a designer oriented- do a lot and analyse later, both are valid methodologies.

Where would be the end user involved in those processes?

Well we basically work with user-centered methodologies. Which means that if you do have a problem or you call it a need-problem assigned, taken from the psychology domain, then you start investigating the problem by looking at how people are doing it now, organizing focus groups and many other techniques to work with the user.

Then you come up with some concepts and mock ups. Then you go back to the users in more strict methods than in the beginning. After that iteration you will see if the end-user and your project fit together. But there is somewhere in the process, and it is at the late concept phase I think where there seems to be more constraints. If you have such luxurious resources as Philips Research it might not be a problem, but I wonder if other companies can do it as well, but in the end there are always constrains of time and costs, etc.

Basically designing is problem solving, and that means to know what is my goal, what do I have, what are my constrains, what are the best approaches to it, then try them, evaluate then try again. Basically a problem solving model.

What can go wrong with the internet of things? Which would be the implications?

There is a lot of validation needed. It’s like using your TomTom and not using your brains anymore and ending up in a canal, ok yes there will be stupid accidents because you always have a human in the loop. Humans are very reliable and very good but not at certain things, so you have to think about these things and them, if they have fatigue or can panic or lose attention, etc. It is easy to say that an error was caused by a human factor, but actually the human is part of the whole system architecture, and for all the software and hardware components you can make the specification rather clear.

Although they miss a lot a well. In the case of humans you can also have clear specifications, but not as clear, and there will be always unexpected things, and you will have chain effects.

…Do you have a way to deal with this unexpected behavior?

We try, but we still have to do a lot of research. And it depends on the type of system, for example if you see the real critical systems such as medical systems or in control and command- defend systems, airplanes, automobiles, and so on there a lot has been done. But probably these are not the type of systems that will go first or straight into the Internet of Things, because it might be way too dangerous or risky.

The other thing is that the whole network cannot handle it, I am not sure, but imagine if there is a big disaster in the Netherlands, an attack or a water flood.

And the idea is that we will be all be warned via our mobile phones, do you think the mobile network will handle that? I doubt it.

On the one hand we trust the technology so much but we have to think of real big things in which it might not work, especially if we want to implement large systems where it becomes really a matter of life or death. Ok if you want to process your vacuum cleaner it is then not risky.

In order for the internet of things to happen as many scenarios picture them,

scalability of implementation is a great challenge. How do you think we can overcome this challenge? For example how to scale up the Smart Home project?

In principle my technical colleagues for example of the Smart Home project Amigo, thought it to be scalable. So that if you had that system in one home you could have it in many other more at the same time and be connected via the internet. The basis of this is to design the scalability using the current infrastructure that we have. But, I don’t know if we really try that how it would work, but the technical principle is scalable.

But there is a social limitation, and it is determined by the way people live. Not everybody wants to be connected with the whole world. I mean for example, some people have a huge social network others a limited one, isn’t it true that the average social contact of a person is of 10 people or so, so not thousands right? I think that if you would have a connected automatic home environment it won’t go further than being connected to 5 or 10 other households.

I think we live in a contradiction of mindsets. I will mention an example, look at the ants, they have a totally sustainable economy in one colony. The colony is never to grow, it is a stable colony and everybody has their tasks totally arranged. If you look at human society, it is kind of the same although we are not sustainable and that’s the answer. We, as the ants, have our little clusters, and that’s it, we can’t handle or need more. But the other mind set is of course the technology which enables us to travel everywhere in the world, and get every sort of information and at some point people are sorting what they need out for themselves, because there is only so much that we actually need. I think we have to focus on that and on the different types of clusters the human society is creating, and the different “presentation” of the clusters that we have had from the old days. For example, in the old days you had a particular contact with the people in the street and your friends from your neighborhood, now you have virtual contact with people that are far away, but even if you have a list of 200 virtual “friends” you normally only have contact with a few.

Interview with Jeroen van Geel Sr. Interaction Designer at Fabrique

How would you define a service?

A service is an environment of touch-points and one of those touch-points can be a product, which in overall create the offer.

How would you define “experience”?

An experience is an association of events that you live in a moment, but also includes associations of other experiences in the past How would you define “meaningful experience”? It has all to do with the context. The more a product is able understand the context in which the user will interact with, the more meaningful an experience will be. Awareness is also very important, to acknowledge a meaningful experience as such, the consumer should be aware that he is experiencing something. It is like a child, when you’re a child almost every experience is meaningful because you are aware of everything around you, everything is new and surprising and you pay attention to small details that make things very interesting; as I said in the presentation at the TU, we should never forget how to keep being like children.

… How can design help us with this?

Well design can provide the tools to do so, for example I’ve mentioned this before, and storytelling is a good way to make experiences more meaningful.

Imagine that a product talks to you “like your father” instead of like a stranger that wants something from you, you would feel identified and the experience would be more meaningful to you. This sort of tools, and many others we can provide to help consumers have meaningful experiences.

According to Harter (2002), authenticity means “owning” your personal experiences: thoughts, emotions, needs, wants, preferences, or beliefs.

Processes captured by the injunction to know “oneself”. So, authenticity involves both owning one’s personal experiences and acting in accordance with to them. People are in search for more “authentic experiences”. How would you define an authentic experience?

This is a very tricky question, we could just get lost into semantics, because I guess, for example when designing a space for the airport, was an authentic experience the one with the chaos and waiting lines? Or the one we designed afterwards with no waiting lines Fabrique is familiar with both industrial design and web design processes.

I see that you develop visual identities in which both on-line and real-world interactions are created and integrated for one brand. How do you make both processes coherent? Yes there are clients that have a physical product that is extended to the web and how we approach this is by going to a higher level, a strategic level above those and ask us who is the company, what’s the real message they want to communicate, who are their customers and what is it needed to make it happen.

How do you reproduce meaningful experiences in products and services?

Which elements do you think condition or limit the way an experience or the added value is communicated and perceived in product design? How do you cope with these elements?

First of all, we don’t design “experiences” we design interactions. We can try to design the elements of the interaction with a product according to what the user perceives, feels and needs. But every user will have a unique individual experience we hope we can make it valuable, but we can never know 100%.

How would you define “added value”? Could you provide an example? Added value is when you get something you expected and even more. It is something extra that has to be surprising and unexpected, and it is perishable. For example, some time ago, when you asked for a coffee and you got a cookie with it, it was something surprising that made your coffee even better than you expected. Nowadays, the cookie with your coffee is expected, but now there are other ways to bring the surprising extra value, for example by knowing that your coffee comes from a unique place somewhere in the world, or that it is organic, or that complies with fair trade standards, etc.

Context: it really depends on the environment/context in which the product or service is used. You don’t always know this, and even when you do it can be difficult. So good research is really important here. When you design for an airport you need to observe how people behave. When you design a mobile device you have to test all possible scenarios.

Content: You can design the best digital product ever, but if the content is crap it will not work. Content is more important then anything else. Ugly websites with great content are being used, great looking websites with crappy content are being ignored. So from the start you have to work together with the client and understand what content they have or help them create the good content.

Design: What we design. How we design it. If it works properly. If it is something totally unexpected, new, or a pattern people now. This is something you have to do right. And knowing your users helps. Telling the right story in

the correct language.

In web design and service design there is a tendency to “empower the consumer”, via the interaction and control of their services (such as usergenerated content) and co-creation. At Fabrique, which role does the consumer play in your development process?

We always design with the user in our mind, that is the strength of our company. Especially our interaction design team are user advocates. This means that at the start of a product we do as much research as possible, and throughout the project we keep the user in our mind.

We make personas, do user tests, card sorting, street interviews, etc.

changing per client, customer, year, etc. All we have to do is keep an open mind and recognize the touch points and after that see how things come together.

To be honest I don’t really see it as a web experience, but more as becoming a part of our daily life. I will not tire you with the 100th discussion around ubiquitous computing, but that’s where it goes.

“Pervasive computing” has been a popular term in the last 10 years but it hasn’t really taken off as expected (smart devices in smart environments connected to the web, sensing and reacting to the users and to other devices) Why do you think this has been so slow? How do you think the internet of things will evolve?

How and when do you incorporate co-creation in your development process?

When you mean co-creation as in trully involving the users in the design process: that would be in the form of street interviews and card sorting sessions. We do occassionaly sketch concepts with stake holders, but those are mostly our clients.

It is common that the “digital” and “web” is associated with “free” in the minds of the consumers; and despite the arising of creative business models there are still challenges to find the real business cases in digital services. Which challenges affect Fabrique (or its clients) and how do you cope with them?

Over the years it has become clear that certain business models work... Like selling stuff on the web. But our biggest challenge at the moment is social media. We know it is important. We know people want to communicate with (people behind) brands. But we don’t know how to measure how much you must invest and what this means for revenue.

Internet is becoming more mobile, and with that it is extending to physical objects and real-world situations. How do you think the “web experience” will be in 10 years considering this scenario? How is Fabrique dealing with this trend? How do you think the “product and service experience” will be in 10 years?

Mobile generation – everything, everywhere Augmented reality – being able to put an extra layer of interaction over everything around us.

Multitouch Personal informatics – we find it ever more important to get personal data But what we mainly do is think in touch points. And these touch points are

Technology is always slow to evolve to a point where we find it normal. I think some interesting steps are being taken, which we now call personal informatics. We are still exploring what is interesting… it will get there eventually.

There are these two perspectives from the ubiquitous technologies fields. One insists on making technology invisible, leaving the consumer totally ignorant of what is going on. The other perspective insists on empowering the user and enabling them to create their own environments, totally aware of what is going on. What is your posture among these two perspectives?

It totally depends on the context, the product, the objective, the user. I mean, there are situations, for example, again in an airport, in which the aim is to make the passengers completely aware that they are going through a metal detector and that they have to pay attention of what they do and don’t do. On the other hand, you want them to be relaxed in some other spaces and that means it is better let them be unaware of complicated processes that may just stress them.

Momkai 9th April, 2010 Harald Dunnink Sebastian Kersten

1.

How would you define “experience”, how would you define “meaningful experience”?

H: I think it is the sum of all your interactions. Lets say if you have a car, the experience is getting into the car, starting it, traveling to somewhere, getting there. A true meaningful experience is just more than just the sum of all your interactions. …what do you mean with “more”?

What we often see, in our own profession “experience” is a word that is kind of trendy and it is coming a lot of focus on it for example from advertising agencies; and somehow it can become into something “shallow” or something that affects your senses with big visuals for instance. But in the end there is no purpose for you to be there or being part of that experience.

You often see a brand that often offer an experience and you wonder if they do that just to keep the consumer busy, or an agency busy, or do they just get money. But in the end, what do we get out from it? Just a way to spend time? In a meaningful experience there must be some sort of relevance that’s often you see missing.

2.

Which elements condition or limit the way an experience is communicated and perceived? How do you cope with them?

H: You have always limitations, lets say money, time or your own knowledge or the theme you work with, your network, all these limitations together build up your framework. You should go beyond what you thought you could do within this frame. I don’t know why but it reminds me of football; many people can do all the tricks, but the difference is to do just the right one on the spot.

And the same things in the same mix build the framework from the users perspective. If we make something for a certain audience they will have a certain level of understanding and knowledge. If it’s for children, we don’t use difficult words, or don’t make it too flashy if you want them to concentrate.

Within what do they know we try to think of things that would trigger them.

3.

Is it possible to reproduce meaningful experiences? (Could you provide an example?)

H: A technical person is always structured and is always looking for a solution.

A project manager can see how the whole project is going and has a global overview. A designer should be focused on empathy, that you can place yourself as being someone else, and we are work from that perspective. And when we design, we think of what would be the best for the user and the client and throughout the process we become aware that we can be the firsttime user and reflect on how do you feel when you enter to a webpage etc.

4.

How would you define “value” in digital experiences?

H: It is a mix of “relevance” from the users’ point of view, from ours and from the client’s. Value can be the level in which you can be engaged with a project and learn from it. And of course in the end should always go back to the user to determine value, and ask why he or she should be there using this? For example in the project of the Royal Air force, they were seeing the project like a modern trend to do. It was about communicating that there are a lot of professions there, not only like pilots, which are a cool profession, but also like doctors, or people working on the planes and all that.. And we told them if you want a meaningful experience and real value for your audience you should provide genuine information on one hand and give them a sense of real emotion… that there is pride by working there. And we always stayed away from any glorification of violence what so ever, our armies are not based on that, they are focused on defending and helping and so on. Anyway we found value by bringing a sense of pride to the project without any relation to violence. It was a moral discussion among us. But that’s part of it. So we said yes of course they have weapon systems and the weapon systems are kind of cool in a technical side, and we could show that, but never show one gun firing or anything like that. It didn’t work in the end, and now they have rockets flying there. And I hate it. The point is that the value for them was the visual aspect and for us something different.

5.

How do you think “value” is perceived by the end-user? Is there a difference between value in digital experiences and value in tangible products?

S: The best example of a meaningful experience creating value is Google Maps because you have a great company with a lot of data on users, companies, etc. and with that they created this free app that everybody can use. And they make money by people using it. For them it is a commercial value, but the users have free maps, they never get lost again and if they want to find something, it’s there and they just have to type it in. This is a pure digital

translation of real life, in 2d in your phone or in your computer, that’s the value.

6.

At Momkai’s, where is the consumer and which role does the consumer play in your processes?

H: Well mostly you have to make use of talent of empathy, placing yourself in the situation of the consumer, especially within interactive design, but it is the same for someone that design doors for example, he has to think if it has to be lower or higher if people are shorter or taller, etc. That way of designing is something that has to be in you as well I guess. There are ways to become better at it, and that’s by talking to people and always trying to find their perspective. Within our team we also do it, and talk a lot, trying to see things from the technical side or from the client’s side. There are ways to open it up.

You have to look around, be interested in what’s happening around.

8. Not only in web-design, but in service design (including products) there is a tendency to “empower the consumer”, via the interaction and control of their services (such as user-generated content). How do you see this trend evolving?

H: We could start our own agency and start making this because we could afford a personal computer and with that there was already a democratic approach.

On the other hand the way we operate is that we create a platform or what we call a stage, like in a theatre, for someone else to do the play on stage. So for us there wouldn’t be much difference between the end user or our clients, because it could be that the users step onto the stage or the client gives a show to an audience. But in the end is a theater, that can have one person backstage or a hundred.

S: So the designer stays a designer and the developer stays a developer, and we give all these tools to the user to organize their own content. So if you say the user is becoming the designer in the whole process I think there is always one level above that and that is the platform we build to allow the user to be the designer. So the main roles don’t really change, at least not in the way we do our projects.

H: Indeed at some point as a designer you see that users are doing things by themselves, and they can upload good films on you tube. But then you see the real directors that are experts, who are looked up to as a reference. So within this glorification of amateurs, because that’s what these users are, you get a renewed appreciation for professionals.

S: The director is the master storyteller; an amateur uses some stories and puts them together within some limits. The directors and the professionals keep inventing stories and things for other to use their creativity and to share

their experiences and memories etc.

H: People can paint already for some centuries, and that was already a democratic approach to a creative process, but there are just a few painters that we actually see as artists. So I think it is the same now, the difference is that now more people are joining in.

7.

Can you define in steps the general way you develop a project?

H:We can work for a client directly, or together with another agency that can be advertising, communication or 3d agency. We make the concept design, or concept interpretation, this means someone can have already an idea and we have to make the right interpretation of it. We make concepts of the interface, in sketching to have a look and feel, it is not very strict, and the client can be part of it. Then we have a functional design in which we build drawings and the operational part of it, and we question everything with each other in the team. After that we go into interface design which is a more complete stage of detailing to finally go into the technical realization. In every stage there is a lot of reviewing, within the team, sometimes with the client.

Some designers do testing with the audience, we don’t. We just have a strong focus on empathy…

S: What happens with tests groups is that then you tend to focus on what these test groups say and most of the times they don’t see the big picture and make comments on a small button this and that.

H: I think we’re stubborn enough to say “this is going to work” and to know when people can learn to interact in different ways. We do have long interviews with our clients, and if we cannot get enough information about the end user from them we go into research. But we like to keep it small, I think if you have just the right people in your team, with few people you can actually go faster and tackle all these things better.

S: The whole interface business is still very young, and in an experimental phase so there is no good or bad, or there is no ultimate interface, or an ultimate way to do it. So we use our experience and we play the role of the users, and using our internal knowledge.

H: And yes we do some sort of testing and asking to our clients, but our work is not based on that.

8.

Do you think the current “digital experiences” or the “web experiences” miss something? Do you think they could be better?

H: We could always go further. I think that we always want technology to go faster, cheaper, everywhere, etc..

S: It’s always about the relevance. An experience can be very relevant to the

moment it is happening, besides the technical advantages. Maybe it is not necessary to have all these technical things. Nothing is really missing in that sense. Yes, in one hundred years everything will be better in that sense, but that’s not the point, it is about what do you want to communicate now.

H: We think and work within the current limitations and we find the challenges within them. But we are in the here and now and we try to make a difference with what we have.

S: That makes you very creative, to work and be challenged within those limitations. Working without them I think pretty much nothing would have happened.

9.

It is common that the “digital” and “web” is associated with “free” in the minds of the consumers; and despite the arising of creative business models there are still challenges to find the real business cases in digital services.

Which challenges affect Momkai (or its clients) and how do you cope with them?

H: Open-source and free are different things.

S: Yes for example Google Maps is free but it is very clear how they get value in return by giving it free. So Google gets information so that they can provide better information to other people, it’s a two-way connection. There are also smaller initiatives that have value, and app like Layar for example, they connect the real world…like... the ATM layar app to help people find ATM’s in the neighborhood. I guess they get paid for that. And that’s a very good example of combining data and allowing users to use it for free, but there is also a nice business model behind it.

H: Why is it that people are investing so much in Twitter? Even though they don’t want to use the advertising business model, otherwise they would have done easy money. There is a real value of having a large user database, and the possibilities of using it.

S: Twitter is a hard example because it is a startup that still is not clear what are they building up too, but eventually we’ll see real money coming out of this.

H: We had the same question of course in a project we made called Nalden. net. There was this guy blogging with a very good creative vibe and we sensed this was a talented guy, not necessarily the most creative guy himself but very creative to put spotlights on creative people, connecting them, and giving them a stage. He was doing that in a blog, we’ve never done that but we decided to work with him. But he didn’t have any money so what we did was to find a way for him to live from this, to make the blog his day to day job and monthly income, and his main focus. By this we would guarantee our theatre stage would turn even better by having this talented client focused on

it every day. We had total creative freedom, still of course being user oriented, and created a way to make this guy earn a living from this without putting large banners and compromising the design. So we found a lot of advertising with great photography, great artists, painters, and stripped them off the commercial messages and really tiny in the corner said whom this was from.

In the end people wanted to download the advertising background, so we let them do that, and this created even more value both for the people that liked to have the artwork and for the advertisers who could reach inside the computers of the people even without internet.

10.

Internet is becoming more mobile and with that, it is extending to physical objects and real-world situations. How do you think the “web experience” will be in 10 years considering this scenario? How is Momkai dealing with this trend?

We are small, but we noticed that we can make a difference in the digital domain. A whole wide variety of things are happening with this mobile internet. It is impossible with the size of our agency to do everything but we know our own limitations. We have to do experimentations of interactions that are mobile, which are completely different than apps, and that fits us and are making a difference.

11.

Recently, there is quite some research dedicated to make more integrated ways to interact with on-line data into physical contexts and criticize the use of “black boxes” like screens and smart phones. Which implications do you think converging more services and technology into one of these boxes have? Do you think this will grow?

H: Well we wish every thing was connected. When we started, I didn’t like people saying we do websites, because that sounds very narrow. And we wanted to be in every interaction that happens with internet. Then we started seeing wireless TV’s and then the smart phone and many other things…

S: I think having everything in one device can be very good if I know I can have the control to interact any time and whenever I want with who ever. And of course with internet, if everything is connected and I am watching some pictures on my black box maybe it is not very comfortable and I can just transpose the pictures to the big screen next to me and so on…

H: I think there was a similar discussion a hundred years ago when the debate was if objects should work right away or if they should be “filled” like with oil, or electricity. In this case it is just another layer. There are many things that mean nothing without electricity, such as the black boxes without internet, but does that mean that they shouldn’t exist?

12.

What can go wrong in these scene of the Internet of things?

S: The user should decide which kind of control and information he or she wants from the system.

H: For example, you can turn down the system in the car that makes the sound when you don’t wear your seatbelt if it annoys you.

Of course, this makes you think what happens when things break down and you don’t have a clue of what’s going on. What if it can become so big that you lose control, it’s like the financial system, it became so complex that even the people that made it up cannot understand it anymore..

S: But this is part of evolution, we create tools. This is one of them to enhance knowledge and interaction H: Yes but it is always to make these questions, and it is always useful to try to find an answer to this, but this will never mean that we will just stop. For example, we were questioning ourselves the other day, mhmm everybody is always cheering at Google, but what if it goes the other way, and they have all our data and they’ll have more. But then we thought we decide all this, we decide and allow them and are aware they use our data. Of course there are always ways that can go wrong, but I believe it will never be like getting us blind and we will always have the right to make decisions.

S: It’s all about how to keep the control. If we allow computers and such to control our worlds, well we are doing it ourselves. Or if you have a device at home that monitors everything inside your house then it’s ok but if the government makes a law to get into your home, then we don’t like it even if the government are the representatives we chose. So in the end we always have control. And we all should keep a sharp mind to be in control.

13.

Since 1991, the “Internet of Things” has been a popular term in the last 10 years but it hasn’t really taken off as expected (smart devices in smart environments connected to the web, sensing and reacting to the users and to other devices) Why do you think it has had this pace? How do you think the internet of things will evolve?

S: I think it will be about how intelligent things need to be and how connected things need to be.

H: Yes its will be more about sharing data, and it is about the human in the end being able to interpret the data and the other way around.

On one hand you always want things to go quicker, on the other hand I don’t think it has gone that slow. Because in the end we still have to make it and test it and scale it and see if people want to pay for it… and yes it is an easy thing to think of, but to make the whole world to change into a connected world it just takes time.

S: And people have to learn to use it. You can make the greatest things and put them around but if people don’t see the use of it, then it has no meaning.

… and how does this learning process happen?

S: It is a mixture of people learning, and the technology and commercial issues, someone has to pay for it…

H: … there is this diffusion curve, you know, from the books, where you have the early adopters that are not a lot, then sometimes it goes into the mainstream.

S: In real life, things work differently, especially with large amounts who have all to understand it and integrate it in their lives, and that doesn’t go that fast.

And the technology just wasn’t there for a while before. Now there is this great thing happening with the apps in the smart phone, which is a platform to connect a TV or a stereo or whatever to it, so now you have a whole bunch more people that are able to do that, so I see it more of a start of that picture of the Internet of things. Google in 5 years will be even better getting our information and we are going to use our data for the past years and then connect your twitter and facebook and all your data, all together into this apps and then I think we will start seeing more real smart devices, because they will really have your history and then they will really know you.

Tinker.it Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino 29 March, 2010

1.

Experience, interaction? Is there a difference (semantics) How would you define them? Is there a difference between them?

The difference is the level of involvement I would say. An experience is something out of the control of the designer; you cannot actually design an experience. An experience is felt, lived and out of control of the designer. An interaction is something with you can aim for and that you can design. The underlying principles around both are very very different, the role of the designer is very different in each of them. Some claim that they can design something to experience this or that in a space for example, but actually that experience is out of your hands, because maybe the person interacting with it is very sensitive to sunlight or whatever other thousand things. But designing an interaction is the most empathetic way of thinking what would people might experience.

2.

How would you define an integrated experience? “Technology is everywhere but integrated experiences are few and far between” What do you mean with this?

First let me give you an example of lack of integrated experience is perhaps the phone calendar function. What I want is something that knows where I go what I am doing, but it never works. The calendar function is in something in mobile phones that nobody uses but still designers include. It actually means integrating my expectations of the technology, so I would expect the calendar on my phone to do these things but it doesn’t so I don’t use it.

3.

Why do we need to show online data in physical ways? Why do we need an Internet of Things?

I’m thinking about innovation and future things. Because we could say that we actually don’t really need anything more, we could be pretty content with what we have right now. It’s the same as Ford said, if I’d asked people what they needed they would have said – faster horses…. So right now the IoT aims to physicalizing data is being driven by this idea that perhaps, just perhaps we have enough screens and maybe we want to be aware of information in a really tangible way that can manifest in any form or device.

So our ability to switch on-line should not as important in the future because

it must be so easy and integrated that then being off-line will have more importance. One of the things I really like at the moment is 4Square, the game, whenever you go to a certain location you can say “I’m checking into this venue” but you can also say “I don’t want to be public”, which means I am making a statement of voluntarily being off-line.

4.

How would you define the Value of the IoT? Added value? As designers, How to reproduce value?

Value is a complex concept that has multitude of faces, but perhaps in the overall scene of the IoT there is value in the possibility that it gives us to measure, manage and being told if what we are doing is less efficient than something else. Especially when the effects are in larger scales, such as the consumption of energy, for example. So when this value is recognized it actually changes behaviors… if I can know how if I take two minutes less showering than usual I can actually save resources. Another similar value but in an individual perspective is “personal informatics”, the IoT offers a possibility not only to measure and track my personal information, but to act in intelligent ways. So for example how much I run, how much sugar in my blood, how much energy I consume... and gives the intelligent tools to make good decisions about ourselves.

5.

Since 1991, it has been predicted that the Internet of Things would be already a fact by now, this has not happened yet, why do you think this is? In your opinion which are the main reasons for the “delay” of the IoT to take off?

It depends which picture you’re looking at. If you look at the barcode, it was an idea that came out in the 1940’s to identify things, but it took until 1980 when Wal-mart made obligatory for its vendors to include a barcode on the products themselves. RFID tags have been also for a while in the world of logistics, and also in retail, security and transportation and we will see more of that. The big challenge for the IoT is to really enter in the domestic world and that is due to the different mind sets the people have towards technology outside their homes and inside their homes. Inside their homes they want to do things the way they’ve been doing them for a long time, and are making the separation from the outside world. They are perfectly happy making dinner in old fashion ways or just playing with the kids etc.. and will not like anything that feels intrusive. So for the IoT I think this will be an area that will be very hard to crack in. And unless people are able to see real advantages and value of the IoT to get inside their homes, they will mainly reject it, because just the pure concept of our homes per se in our heads, are not smart places are not

technological environments

6.

“Help people understand the creative potential of new technologies”/ In web design and service design there is a tendency to “empower the user” via the interaction and control of their services (such as user-generated content) and co-creation. Which role does the user play in your development process? And afterwards?

We want to stop the top-down design, which we believe it just doesn’t work.

Instead we try to lead people to understand the possibilities of the technology for themselves. And it can be as simple things as tracking your cat, or measure what you eat because you’re on a diet. The challenge is to make the people to use the technology for their very unique needs. Because there is no mass market for this kind of needs then we just forget about them, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there.

We are making a large research project, with real people, to see if it is possible to stop being the owners of our knowledge and create tools to educate people and experiment in their homes.

I think there is a big confusion about the design role, yes everybody can put dock-tape on the door knob if it breaks, but that’s not the kind of design role we are talking about, that’s just simple problem solving. But we have to keep that in mind, because the role of the designer is to see further and not only the unique personal need but to place him or herself in a certain context and decide which tools are the best for the people to create their own projects.

7.

In the “experience of the IoT” how to know how aware, how active, how much control the user should have?..what would be the implications of devices talking to devices without the awareness of the user?

I think that with everything that exists right now, keeping people in the dark is just a bad idea. Enable people and empower people with things they couldn’t do before can have two approaches one is top-down which is creating all these things that have the risk of falling into “Disneylandzation”. The other way, which I internet has done, is the bottom-up, in which the people have more ways to be engaged, and the level of engagement can vary because of many reasons, because I don’t care about tracking my cat, or I belong to this or that association, or the grandmother is not interested in a certain thing, etc, so to understanding their level of engagement and to understand how technology can have an impact on their way of engaging.

8.

There is a lot of talking about of what we could do with the Internet of

things, all wonderful things, but do you think it can go wrong? How? And how could we prevent it?

When you’re talking about data, it’s all about security. How can we secure our data to all the possible uses? And of course it can become so big that we could hardly grasp it, right now we don’t complain too much about giving our information in order to buy online or to reach certain things, and we just wonder what’s happening in the background.. but again I think that with education all these things can be avoided and people will know what can be done and what shouldn’t be done. Education is underestimated, nowadays our technology education sucks, and with proper education we could avoid many of the fears we have of the IoT to become true.

9.

Is technology converging or diverging?

I think it should diverge. Because converging basically means that everything will end up into “cell phones”, which we can see that already happening.

However, what the IoT is trying is to make devices and things communicate in relevant ways, which means diverging. I think in the end that will come natural.. maybe in a year I would change

10.

In order for the internet of things to happen as many scenarios picture them, scalability of implementation is a great challenge.. how do you think we can overcome this challenge?

It has already reached large scale in some isolated products…and it’s slowly happening. Like the ipod and Nike combination for example and other products. The key I guess is to find the right business model and to cope with the market rejection. Many of the IoT technology right now are still very expensive to make or implement in large scale, especially if what is needed is a particular interaction, such as the Nabaztag, it would have been easier for the creators of Nabaztag to apply all that technology into a black box and probably it would have been cheap, but their point was to show to the world that we can interact in different and better ways with technology. I think now the scalability of the IoT depends on how you do your job as a commercial enterprise and how do you engage with the market you are in.

11.

What do you think is necessary to make open-source platforms a good business case? (The developers are the main target? And they represent to have a profitable beginning but as they become experts they forget about buying “support”)

The interesting thing about open-source is that people can build things on top of it. And that’s where the business case is. Yes you can make your own Arduino, but why would you even bother? I don’t see the controversy here, because it is an accessible way to create business and to build business on top of business. Besides, I see it more as a socio-cultural innovation that is necessary to expand in order to improve our technology education and to create awareness, and I support the use of Arduino, or other open-source hardware and software because at the end of the day Tinker receives the benefits of the awareness created in people’s mindsets, and they understand what we do.

Interview with Marc Fonteijn 31 volts

How would you define an experience?

It’s a tough question. I think an experience is not a choice, you know, it is not like you have it or you don’t have it. You have more vivid experiences or meaningful, but an experience is a part of life.

How would you define a service?

There are a million definitions of service.. you can approach them as An economic product that is not tangible. You can talk about services from the perspective that they are time-lapsed, as opposing to products that are static.

What do you mean with time-lapsed?

Well when you buy a product in a store an that’s it, it is a one time transaction, but when you take the train to Utrecht it is the process from getting the bus, buying the train, waiting in the platform, seating in the train…etc it is a process.

Our relationship with a service is longer than with a product. A service is not pre-produced you cannot have a stock of service. But you can make a billion of these bottles in China that are just lying the in the warehouse. But with a service is the moment when I interact with you or with iTunes, that is the moment when service is created.

How would you define added value?

If you go back a hundred years ago and look at a local bakery store, for instance, the guy that was running the store knew exactly who his customers were and how to serve them the best. He already had a connection with them, so he knew what it was useful and desirable. He didn’t make bread that nobody wanted. And what has happened in the last years through industrialization is that organization has focused on standardizing processes, making things manageable and efficient. That created a situation where we deliver services that are standardized and very efficient in an organizational point of view, but if you look from the customer’s point of view you can question if this is actually what the customer want. It is desirable from the organization point of view because it is efficient and easy to deliver, but is it desirable from the customer point of view? So, we’ve tilted to the wrong side of the open balance. Talking about added value is actually the base of the things like.. is this a service that I really want, is this something that makes me happy, is this something that enriches my life, is this something that does what it should do? Those basic things -that we kind of forgot, if they were basic (and they are basic) the reason why we call them added value is because we have forgotten them. But we

shouldn’t even think about them. Look at the internet providers right now they are delivering crap services so they can be easily improved and call that added value, and just do what they should do in the first place.

You developed services using “structured design process”.. what does that mean?

A lot of non-design people have a misconception about creativity and design; they think they’re a bunch of crazy people doing creative stuff getting their inspiration from random things. Design is an approach, design is a process and we do it in a structured way. You want to deliver something and the way to guarantee that, is that even though we don’t know in the beginning what will come out of the process in the end for sure it will be desirable for you and a solution to your problem.

Which you do think are the limitations to deliver an experience?

For service design in order to succeed, people have to believe this is the way to go. Finding this people is the biggest limitation. Getting large corporations and explaining to them what we do and why this is important, and getting the key people that actually have the power to change things to believe in service design is the biggest challenge.

Another limitation is the short term thinking of our times, try to make a manager to understand that if you use a design process maybe you won’t pay off in three months but maybe in three years.

In web design and service design there is a tendency to “empower the consumer”, via the interaction and control of their services (such as usergenerated content) and co-creation. At 31 volts, which role does the consumer play in your development process?

Our role as designers has changed compared to ten or 15 years ago, we are not the experts, the user is the expert. The people that went to bakery store 100 years ago they were the experts, they knew what they wanted and they could tell that to the local bakery. It is still the same only what has happened is that organizations are now unreachable and they can do what ever they want.

So we are pulling the user back to the expert position. We are facilitating and giving them the tools to make them heard and get the important things out of them.

How and when do you incorporate co-creation in your development process?

You still need someone to make the translation of what people want. For example, Ford, if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have answered “faster horses”.. But the thing is that he actually gave them faster horses!. So it is not giving literally what people want or say they want but understanding what is it that they really want.

Wasn’t a bit contradictory the project of the touch table from Microsoft? ...Because you had the technology (the table) and you tried to find applications Well, we saw how people used the technology and it was never about the table itself but for example about the chairs around the table or about the light in the environment. And if you talk to the people using the table you understand the second layer of how people understand libraries nowadays and project how they might change in ten years.

It is common that the “digital” and “web” is associated with “free” in the minds of the consumers; and despite the arising of creative business models there are still challenges to find the real business cases in digital services. Which challenges affect Fabrique (or its clients) and how do you cope with them?

I don’t think things on the internet are free, but they are paid just in a different way. People are willing to pay only in different ways, and they should be explored. For example, I run MobileMonday event and it is free. People don’t have to pay anything, but what happens is that the fact that the event is so accessible, it attracts a certain crowd and that crowd attracts certain sponsors and advertisers and there the business model is built. So the business is to have the right people at the event, and they pay by actually being there. Their time and their presence create value for us and we can monetize it through different ways, and one way is to get sponsored. We must let go the idea that we only pay in money, but we also pay in time and attention.

Internet is becoming more mobile, and with that it is extending to physical objects and real-world situations. How do you think the “web experience” will be in 10 years considering this scenario? How is Fabrique dealing with this trend? How do you think the “product and service experience” will be in 10 years?

31 volts is not really related to any technology, we are not internet or mobile or The internet of the future, we will not even notice it. Some years ago people were talking about off-line and on-line. Nowadays this difference is becoming blurry. For example, on-line identities. You have an online identity lets say linked in and your off’line identity just now who you are.. and nowadays

they can not be sepatated, it is your identity. Only that in one moment is your business card, the other moment is your linked in profile and another moment is your twitter. So you already see that people are just talking about identity, not about online identity is it just who I am and I want presence in different medium. And internet is just a medium. And with every medium we event we found different ways to express our identity.

Could you describe your development process?

It is like writing a movie. You have a lead character which is your user and you try to make his desires tangible in a story. Technology is never a goal in itself. So it may be that we made a project for the ... and for instance they have a lot of data, and people and the question is how can merge those two to make the data manageable in the best way. So we would like to create open API’s, but it is not like we just saw the technology but also the capabilities and possibilities that are available for the Rijkwaterstraat and their needs.

Where in your process is the usage or consumption phase? Normally in product design is at the back end and frequently ignored..

We always start with “what do people really need?” our goal is not to design a couch, but our goal is to make people relax, and it could be that the answer is a couch, but it can be a lamp or music. So instead of having the user at the end as a “consumer” we change the user to the role of “producer” of the things he really wants.

Designers have become more and more the translators, understanding people and translating that into businesses. But I don’t know in 20 30 50 years we will have our world organized in a way in which the user is the designer at the same time. He will be able to express his needs and create his services and his products. The role of the translator will become obsolete. The fact is that if we have to translate right now is because users don’t have the right tools and the organizations are not flexible or open enough, they are too slow to actually quickly react and understand what people want. An example is 3d printers, you need a specific product just for you, we can’t do that right now, but in 30 years you would go to a website and draw or click and print and the next day will be in your mailbox. Imagine API’s for physical products and services, in which the user will be able to create on the spot whatever you want instead of being dependant.

“Pervasive computing” has been a popular term in the last 10 years but it hasn’t really taken off as expected (smart devices in smart environments

Cost. Right now to create a new service is always based on an existing service Somehow will find technology that will help us to reduce the cost up to a level in which everyone will afford it.

Meaningful experience

TNO

“I think an experience is more about what you feel...”

Phillips

“Experience is now the new word for usability, and how one is satisfied by dynamically interacting with a product a system or a service. ...basically it is a new fancy word.The other meaning is a very personal thing that I do, or in which I am the master. ... being interviewed now is an experience, and how that is designed? we are designing it together because we are doing it, talking... so, basically life is a continuous experience”

Fabrique

“An experience is an association of events that you live in a moment, but also includes associations of other experiences in the past. It has all to do with the context. The more a product is able understand the context in which the user will interact with, the more meaningful an experience will be”

Momkai

“I think it is more than just the sum of all your interactions. In a meaningful experience there must be some sort of relevance ”

“An experience is felt, lived and out of control of the designer”

Interaction

“I think an interaction is more about what you do...”

“...an interaction is between two entities, two structures that have a relationship between each other that dynamically changes”

“...we don’t design “experiences” we design interactions. We can try to design the elements of the interaction with a product according to what the user perceives, feels and needs. But every user will have a unique individual experience we hope we can make it valuable, but we can never know 100%.”

N/A

“designing an interaction is the most empathetic way of thinking what would people might experience.”

Tinker.it “it is not a choice...an experience is a part of life”

31Volts

“...a service is the moment when I interact with you or with iTunes, that is the moment when service is created”

Value

Limitations

“Value is identified when the people and stakeholders get to experience the product or service, that’s why we co-design, particularly to create this value together so that they recognize it”.

“The implications of the social issues sometimes are more important than the actual product. Also..If designers do not understand what the technology can do, they come up with bad interactions or interactions that are not possible”

“...there should be applications that are really interesting for people. But we haven’t been so creative yet”

“...the limitation is not the technology. It is just that we as humans don’t see any need for it, because we could be happy just like this”

“Added value is when you get something you expected and even more. It is something extra that has to be surprising and unexpected, and it is perishable”

“It is a mix of “relevance” from the users’ point of view, from ours and from the client’s”

“...perhaps in the overall scene of the Internet of Things there is value in the possibility that it gives us to measure, manage and being told if what we are doing is less efficient than something else. So when this value is recognized it actually changes behaviors” “...is this a service that I really want, is this something that makes me happy, is this something that enriches my life, is this something that does what it should do?”

“Context: you don’t always know this, and even when you do it can be difficult. Content: You can design the best digital product ever, but if the content is crap it will not work. Design: What we design. How we design it. If it works properly. ”

User

“What we call co-design not only involve the end-users, we involve other stakeholders as well. Co-design can be also named system design. It means that not only the user but also the stakeholders can really make the product or service their own” “...you could talk to the user and call that co-creation. You could also call it user-centered design.

It has been developed as method for usability testing and early concept evaluation. And now it is coming back as “ user experience”.

Process

“The first phase is creating the strategy and conceptualization... all the stakeholders should be there... Then there is the design and implementation phase... the objective is to determine technical requirements . Then the impact and evaluation phase, in which you evaluate how this first design cycle went how it will look in three years” “...there are three combining approaches that iterate in the mind set. One is: can I define a problem which would be served by this product? The second is to know what are the interesting parts of the technology which will be the carrier to do something. And the third one is my only intuition in fact. The three of them combined”

“We always design with the user in our mind. This means that at the start of a product we do as much research as possible, and throughout the project we keep the user in our mind.

We make personas, do user tests, card sorting, street interviews, etc.”

“...there are clients that have a physical product that is extended to the web and how we approach this is by going to a higher level, a strategic level above those and ask us who is the company, what’s the real message they want to communicate”

“you have to make use of talent of empathy, placing yourself in the situation of the consumer, especially within interactive design”

“we create a platform or what we call a stage, like in a theatre, for someone else to do the play on stage. .. it could be that the users step onto the stage or the client gives a show to an audience. But in the end it is a theater, that can have one person backstage or a hundred”

“We want to stop the top-down design, which we believe it just doesn’t work. Instead we try to lead people to understand the possibilities of the technology for themselves”

“Enable people and empower people with things they couldn’t do before. The internet has done that, it is the bottom-up approach”

“We are making a large research project, with real people, to see if it is possible to stop being the owners of our knowledge and create tools to educate people and experiment in their homes”

“...getting the key people that actually have the power to change things to believe in service design is the biggest challenge.

Another limitation is the short term thinking of our times...”

“...we are pulling the user back to the expert position. We are facilitating and giving them the tools to make them heard and get the important things out of them”

“... It is like writing a movie. You have a lead character which is your user and you try to make his desires tangible in a story.

Technology is never a goal in itself”

“You have always limitations, lets say money, time or your own knowledge or the theme you work with, your network, all these limitations together build up your framework. You should go beyond what you thought you could do within this frame”

Interface

N/A

“...you cannot have too many black boxes, because we only have two pockets...many of the services will go to one of the boxes, so that it will be only one box that you carry with you, and in the end you won’t even have to carry it with you because you have your fingerprint or other bio-identifier that everywhere you are it should work”

Business models “...we believe that a product that is co-designed it will be adopted more successfully than one that wasn’t, because they will see the benefits more clearly”

“...for the very good potential developments you need basically standardization. It is industrial interest; everybody is defending their own way. But in the long term, this basically blocks further development”

“...what we mainly do is think in touch points. And these touch points are changing per client, customer, year, etc. All we have to do is keep an open mind and recognize the touch points and after that see how things come together”

“...our biggest challenge at the moment is social media. We know it is important. We know people want to communicate with (people behind) brands.

But we don’t know how to measure how much you must invest and what this means for revenue”

“The user should decide which kind of control and information he or she wants from the system”

“... in Nalden.net we created even more value both for the people that liked to have the artwork and for the advertisers who could reach inside the computers of the people even without internet”

“...right now the IoT aims to physicalizing data is being driven by this idea that perhaps, just perhaps we have enough screens and maybe we want to be aware of information in a really tangible way that can manifest in any form or device”

“The interesting thing about open-source is that people can build things on top of it.

And that’s where the business case is”

N/A

“...people are willing to pay in different ways, and those should be explored”

Appendix 3 Tools Gestures- Emotion cards

145

• Absence Thinking: Think about what is not there.

• Art streaming: Keep creating until you get through the blocks.

• Assumption Busting: Surfacing and challenging unconscious assumptions.

• Attribute Listing: Listing attributes of objects and then challenging them.

• Brainstorming: The classic creative method for groups.

• Braindrawing: Good for reticent groups.

• Brainmapping: Combining brainwriting and mind-mapping.

• Brainwriting: Group doodling for non-verbal stimulation.

• Breakdown: Careful decomposition to explore the whole system.

• Challenge: Challenge any part of the problem.

• Crawford Slip Method: Getting ideas from a large audience.

• A Day In The Life Of...: Building creative tension from contextualized situations.

• Delphi Method: Explore ideas or gain consensus with remote group.

• Doodling: Let your subconscious do the drawing.

• Essence: Looking elsewhere whilst retaining essential qualities.

• Forced Conflict: Using conflict to stimulate the subconscious.

• Guided Imagery: Letting your subconscious give you a message.

• How-How Diagram: Break down problem by asking 'how'.

• How to: Frame statements as 'How to' to trigger focused thinking.

• Incubation: Letting the subconscious do the work.

• The Kipling method (5W1H): Ask simple questions for great answers.

• Lateral thinking: Thinking sideways to create new ideas.

• Lotus Blossom: Unfold the flower of extended ideas.

• Chunking: Go up and then down elsewhere.

• Mind-mapping: Hierarchical breakdown and exploration.

• Modeling: For the artist in everyone.

• Morphological Analysis: Forcing combinations of attribute values.

• Nominal Group Technique: Getting ideas with minimal personal interaction.

• Pause: Think more deeply for a minute.

• Post-Up: Brainstorming with Post-It Notes.

• Provocation: Shake up the session by going off-piste.

• PSI: Problem + Stimulus = Idea!

• Random Words: Using a random word as a stimulus.

• Rightbraining: Combine incomplete doodles around the problem.

• Role-play: Become other people. Let them solve the problem.

• Remembrance: Remembering solutions not yet discovered.

• Reversal: Looking at the problem backwards.

• Reverse Brainstorming: Seek first to prevent your problem from happening.

• Rubber-ducking: Get someone else to listen to your talk.

• SCAMPER: Using action verbs as stimuli.

• Six Thinking Hats: Think comfortably in different ways about the problem.

• Storyboarding: Creating a visual story to explore or explain.

• Take a break: When creativity is fading.

• Talk streaming: Just talk and talk and talk until you unblock.

• TRIZ Contradiction Analysis: Use methods already used in many patents.

• Unfolding: Gradually unfolding the real problem from the outside.

• Value Engineering: Deep analysis to understand and innovate in areas of key value.

• Visioning: Creating a motivating view of the future.

• Wishing: State ideas as wishes to expand thinking.

• Write streaming: Write and write and write until you unblock.

146

188

Tabl e1 uctdevelo pment(i n alpha beti c order) Method

Theor etica lbasis

Operati ng proce dure (possi bly inclu ding a productconcept) 2. The products are prese nted to the resp ondent 3. The resp ondentdirectl y ranks ,rate s orsort s the products on sensory, prefer ence orpercept ualattribu tes oron thei rperceive d (dis)si m ilarity 4. One ofthe widely avai labl e statis tica lprocedure s (e.g .fact oranalysis, multidimensi onalscaling)is used to graphicall y portra y stimuli, resp ondent’s indivi dualpreference s and/orattribu tes in a geom etri calspace

Conjoin tanalysi s

Experimental design

• indic ates area s ofthe ma p w hic h are desirabl e to cer tain segments ofconsu m ers 1. The resear cherselect s attribu tes rel evantto the productcateg ory (e.g .by means ofa focu s group with targ etconsumers) 2. The resear cherselect s the lev els ofeach attribu te to be used in study .Typically

Intern alprefer ence analysis • Coomb s (196 4) • Tucker(1960) Externa lpreferen ce analysis • Carr oll(197 2) • Green and Carm one (196 9) • • Moskowit z (1985 ,1994) NPD appli cations • Richardso n-Harma n etal.(2000) • Guinard etal.(200 1)

• Green and Sriniv asan (197 8) • Green etal.(200 1) NPD appli cations • Frew eretal.(1997) • Lilie n and Rangaswam y (1998) • Krieg eretal.(2003)

4. The resp ondentrank s orrate s the stimul iaccording to some overal lcriterion, such as preference ,accep tabilit y,orlikeliho od ofpurcha se

Em pathi c desig n

1. A multi-functiona lteam is create d to observ e the actua lbehaviou rand environ m ent Theori es of m ers .The goalis to see whatconsumers do and do notdo,how to make their anthr opologica linves- ofconsu task s easie rormore pleasa nt,and see thos e needs thatconsumers do notexpec t can be tigati on and tacit knowledge me t.Itis decide d w ho should be observed,who should do the observatio n (e.g .an expertin a cer tain dis cipline )and w hatthe observershould be watchin g (e.g .norm al routin es ofpeople) eractin g w it h thei renviron m ent.Photograp hs, 2. A vis ualrecor d is ma de ofconsum ers int vide otape ,sketche s and notes are tools ,which make a record ofbehaviour .Data can as wellbe gather ed thr ough resp onses to questi ons lik e ‘w hy are you doing that?’

3. Team members have a brainstor m ing sessio n to tran sfor m observati ons into graphic, visua lreprese ntation s ofpossibl e solu tions .Atthi s step ,the team shoul d inc lude some indivi dual s who were noton the origin alteam ofobservers 4. A non-f unctional ,two orthreedimensiona lm odelofa productconcep t provi des a vehicl e forfurthe rtest ing among potentia lconsumers

• Pola nyi(196 6) • Leonard (199 5) • Leonard and Sensipe r(199 8) cations NPD appli • Leonard and Rayport(199 7) • Ulwi ck (2002)

E.van Klee fetal./Food Qualit y and Preferenc e 16 (2005 )181–201

struc ture ofthe productcat egory.Dependi ng on the appli ed techn ique,the map: • shows int ensit y ofcompeti tion betw een products––t he close rtwo product are together ,the m ore simila rthey are perceive d orpreferred • summ arise s how consu m ers perceiv e products on each attrib ute • shows rel ationship s betw een attribu tes and how w ellthese attribu tes

Key ref erences

Table 1 (continu ed) Method

Theoretica lbasis

Operati ng proc edure

Key referenc es

2. The discu ssio n m oderat orletpart icipa nts introd uce themselve s and fee lcomfortable

Free eli citatio n

inno vation s and mod els

y gri d Kel ly repertor

Pers onalconstruct theory

• Collin s and Loftus (197 5) • Anderso n (1983)

sta tements are m ostimportant 3. The int ervie w is generall y record ed and tran scribe d befor e analysis 4. Result s can be analy zed in a varie ty ofways,depending on the goalofthe resear ch, forexample by dis playin g ass ociativ e knowledge network s orcla ssifyi ng stateme nts in meaningfu lcat egories 1. The resear cherconstruct s a virt ualbuyi ng envir onmentthatsimulat es the • Urban etal.(1996) inf ormation thatis avai labl e to consum ers atthe time thatthey make a purcha se decisi on • Urban etal.(1997) 2. Respondents are ‘accelerated ’int o the futu re by providin g them alter nativ e future envir onments thatare favora ble,neutr al,orunfav orabl e towar ds the new product.

In thi s virt ualbuyi ng environ m ent,they are allo w ed to search forinformatio n orshop 3. Measures are tak en ofres pondent s’likelihoo d ofpurc hase,perception s,and preferen ces 4. Based on these measures ,a m odelis develope d to foreca stsal es and simulat e strate gy alternatives • Kell y (195 5) 1. The participan tis provide d w it h a setofproducts presente d in groups ofthr ee products • Sampson (1972) 2. Foreach tripl e combinatio n,the partici pantis aske d to thin k care full y aboutthe products ,and deci de in whatw ay two ofthem are similar ,and atthe same time, NPD applications • Thom son and M cEwan (198 8) • Bech-Larse n and Nielse n (199 9) is then aske d whatthey w ould consid erthe opposit e to be.Thi s proce dure is repe ated unti lallproducts are evalu ated in combinatio ns ofthr ee 4. The attribute s (calle d constr ucts )are allwri tten dow n on a gri d sheet .A repert ory gri d is a matrix repre senta tion ofproducts and constru cts.In addi tion,allproducts 5. Grid s can be cl ustere d by conten t analysis ,frequ ency counts,orprincipa lcompon ent

Ladderin g

Means-en d chain theory

1. The participan tis provide d w it h a setofproducts 2. The participan tis asked to make disti nction s betw een the products (by means of

• Gutman (198 2) • Reynolds and Gutma n (198 8)

3. Each menti oned distincti on is the starti ng pointfora serie s of‘why’-pr obes by the

NPD applications • W alke rand Olson (1991) • Claey s etal.(1995) • Nielse n etal.(199 8)

4. Once allint ervie w s are completed ,key elements ofthe int ervie w are summaris ed by 5. A summ ary tabl e is constr ucte d repre sentin g the numb erofconnection s between elements 6. From the summ ary tabl e dominantconnectio nsare graph icall y represent ed in a tree dia gram,calle da

basis fordisting uishin g betw een products in a giv en productcla ss

148

E.van Klee fetal./Food Qualit y and Preferenc e 16 (2005 )181–201

Inf ormatio n acceleration

Theorie s of sprea ding acti vation

verbalis e theirneeds,interacti on between group mem bers is encouraged 3. The reportsum marise s whatwas sai d,and perhaps draw s infere nces fro m what was sai d and lef tunsai d in the discu ssion 1. The resear cherpresent s stimulus probes orcues (usuall y w ords )to the part icipa nt 2. The participan tis asked to rapidl y verbalis e the concepts thatcome to mind and thathe/sh e consid ers releva ntin the percepti on ofthe stim ulus .Forexample,w hen the stimulu s is a productname,the objectiv e is to acti vate allnodes associ ated with

• Calde r (197 7) • M cQuar rie and McIntyre (198 6) • Brus eberg and McDonagh-Philp (200 2) NPD applications • M cNeil letal.(200 0)

Table 1 (continu ed) M ethod

Theoretica lbasi s innovatio ns

Theorie s of non-ver bal communication, m etapho rs as represent ations ofthoughts, m entalmodels

underlyin g trends on which these lea d user s w il lhave a lead ing posi tion (e.g .by means ofexpertmethod ‘Delphi’ ,tre nd extr apola tion tech nique s oreconometri c mod els)

(e.g .by means ofa questi onnair e)to identi fy alea d usergroup 4. Data from lea d users is deriv ed concerni ng thei rexperie nce w ith novelproductattrib utes and productconcepts.Creativ e group sessio ns are often used to poolusersol utio n contentand develo p new productconcepts.In some cases ,a full y implemente d productis develo ped in co-oper atio n w it h the lea d users 5. The product s develo ped by lea d users are evaluate d by more typica lusers in targe tmarket by conductin g trad itiona lproducttest s afte rsegmenti ng lea d and non-lea d users 1. Participa nts are give n instr uction s aboutresear ch topi c (e.g .a brand name,a corpor ate identity ,a productdesign )and the tas k to tak e photograp hs and/orcollec tpictur es (e.g .from ma gazines/ books)thatindic ate whatthe topi c m eans forthem.Seven to 10 days latera persona lint ervie w is planned 2. Participa nts brin g in theirpictur es and photograph s and tel ltheirstori es aboutthe topic (storytelling) 3. Participa nts are aske d to make distincti ons between product s (e.g .by means oftriadi c sorti ng).

Each m entione d disti nctio n is star ting pointfora serie s of‘why’-prob es by the resear cher,

Key refere nces • Von Hippel(198 6,1988) • Urban and Von Hippel(198 8) NPD applica tions • Herstat tand Von Hippel(199 2) 9) • Von Hippeletal.(199 • Olso n and Bakke (200 1) • Lilie n etal.(200 2) • Von Hippeland Katz (200 2)

• Zaltma n and Coulter(1995) • Zaltma n (199 7) NPD applica tions • Coulte retal.(200 1) • Christense n and Olso n (200 2)

4. Participa nts are aske d to indic ate pictur e that(1)mostrepre sents thei rfeeling s,and (2)might describ e the opposit e ofthe tas k thatthey w ere giv en.In addi tion,they are asked to use other senses to convey whatdoes and does notrepre sentthe topic bein g explored 5. The int ervi ewerreview s allthe constr ucts discu ssed and participan tcreates a ma p to illustrate connect ions among importantconstru cts (menta lmap) 6. Next,a summ ary image ormontage is constr ucte d by partici pantora graphic tec hnician to expres s importan tiss ues (e.g .by digita limaging tech niques) 7. A consensus ma p is create d by analyzin g num berofconstruct s and frequency ofrelate d constr ucts. m show ing linkage samong constru cts.Constr ucts are rel ated to each, The conse nsus ma p isa diagra in thatsom e construct s are origin atin g point s in a reasonin g process and others are ending points.

Connect ors constru cts serv e as linkag es betw een constru cts.In addi tion,an interactiv e CD can be composed which include s the vis ual,sens ory and digitalimages and vocaldescription s alon g w ith vig nette s to illustrat e how consum ers experienc e constr ucts

E.van Klee fetal./Food Qualit y and Preferenc e 16 (2005 )181–201

Zaltma n m etaphor eli citatio n tec hnique (ZMET)

Operating proc edure

Table 2 Ten m ethods describe d on stim uli ,tas k format ,and action ability M ethods

Stim uli Famili arit y

Multipl e orsingle product(s)

Category appra isal

Product -drive n

Famili ar

Multipl e products

Conjoin tanalysi s

Product -drive n

Unfamilia r

Multipl e products

Em pathi c desig n

Need-dri ven

Focus group Free eli citatio n

Actionabi lity Response type

Percep tions /preferIndir ectl y derive d ence Prefere nce Indir ectl y derive d

No stimul ipresente d No productevaluaNo judgements a tion :observati on asked Product - orneed-dri- Famili ar/unfamilia r Multiple /singl e prodPrefere nce ven uct(s) Product -drive n Famili ar Singl e product Associ atio n

Inf ormation accel era- Product -drive n tion Kell y repertor y gri d Product -drive n Ladderin g Product -drive n Lead usertec hnique

Need-dri venb

Zaltma n m etaphor elicitatio n tec hnique

Need-dri ven

Unfamilia r

Self-ar ticulate d/indi- Struct ure ofdata rectl y derived collection

Multipl e products

Self-ar ticulate d Self-ar ticulate d

Percep tions /preferSelf-ar ticulate d ence Famili ar Multipl e products Percep tions Self-ar ticulate d Famili ar/unfamilia r Multipl e products Percep tions /preferSelf-ar ticulate d ence Multiple /singl e prod- No perc eptions/ pref- Self-ar ticulate d Famili ar c uct(s) erence ,butsolutions Unfamilia r No productevaluation

a

Struct ured Struct ured

Unstr ucture d Unstr ucture d

d

150

Characteristic s and Characteristic s and

Characteristic s and Characteristic s and

Struct ured

Characteristic s and

Unstr ucture d Unstr ucture d

Characteristics Characteristics ,bene-

Unstr ucture d

Em pathi c desig n em phasi zes observatio n overinqui ry.However,observers ma y ask very open-ended questions ,such as ‘why are you doing that?’

Produc t-drive n in case lea d userdevelo ped own solutio n to needs. c Familia rfro m lea d user’ s viewpoint ,although new concepts are primaril y unfamilia rfro m ordi nary consu m er’ s viewpoint. b

Abstractne ss

Characteristic s and d

E.van Klee fetal./Food Qualit y and Preferenc e 16 (2005 )181–201

Product/ need-driv en

T ask form at

Appendix Test 1 Method draft 1 steps

too broad

Explorative

Understanding the context

1

Explore the context

2

Identify an action

Scenario making Story boards Context-mapping

4 Identify all the actors

Define who is “I” in the story and the other actors that are related

Social anthropology, psicology, human dynamics, market research

5

8 Setting a direction Designing a Meta Product

Constructive

Make a sentence that defines an action in that context. Always use a verb and make it in first person Make a sequential story of all actions related to the main action. Use past- present- future.

Identify their resources

It can be knowledge, skills, capabilities and their manifestations What resources they exchange?

What do they experience by sharing those resources?

Identify ill-connections of exchange between actors

7

Generative

Think of a situation an event or a fact that happens in the real or the virtual world

Tools

Primary sources: interviews, observation Secondary sources: blogs, newspapers, etc Brainstorm- idea generation techniques

3 Identify the related actions

6

no cirteria

description

Categorize ill-connections according to the level of impact in the individual actors and in the context

9

Select an ill- connection with the most impact both in the context and individual

10

Make an ideal scenario for this connection

Are there complex connections?

Are there lack of connections? Miscommunications?

Are there negative experiences?

What happens because of this ill-connection?

Here you have to decide which ill-connection is good to fix, improve, change.

How would the ideal actions be?

How would the ideal experience be?

Make again a story What would be the data, the touchpoints, the meta data?

If it’s not possible you stop HERE.

12

Considering the scenario in step 10 Which are the communication intentions?

Where is the main focus of the connection?

Which are the connection tasks?

Connection tasks 1 2

14

Identify the technology

15Design the interactions 16 Test interactions with desired 17 Compare experiences

Context-mapping Story-telling

Generative techniques Focus-groups

to make this 11 Iswithit possible Meta Product?

13

System maps

Connection tasks 1 2

Desired experiences

How the technology can do it?

Connection tasks/ technology 1 2 Interactions 1 2

Interaction

Experiences

Interaction/Experience Desired experience 1 2

Context-mapping Human cognition Mutual dependency- relational system Generative techniques Story board

Focus-groups Simulation user tests Observations Interviews Observations Reflection

Appendix Test 2 Method draft 2

steps

Explorative

Understanding the context

1

too problem

2

Explore the context

description

Think of a situation an event or a fact that happens in the real or the virtual world

Recognize the main ACTION Make a sentence that defines the main action in that context. Always use a verb and make it in first person

3 Identify the related actions

Make a sequential story of all actions related to the main action. Use past- present- future.

4 Identify all the actors

Define who is “I” in the story and the other actors that are related

Examples Healthcare, Cultural diversification, Flickr,Travelling, Skype, Childcare, Social contact I try to lose weight, I belong here, I share my passion, I discover new places I take care of my children “I ate too much because in a time of stress, then I went to the doctor that told me I have to lose weight and gave me a plan and medication. Now I do exercise and eat better.

When I lose all the 20 kgs I will feel good” - Women around 25-35 years old “27% women in NL have an eating disorder associated with low self esteem” - Special obesity doctor “There are 54 cliniques dedicated to weight problems in NL”

the resources they 5 Identify exchange

Think of knowledge, skills, capabilities and their manifestations

- Woman: money, time, the will to lose weight - Doctor: medication, expertise, support

6

Are there complex connections?

Are there lack of connections? Miscommunications?

Are there negative experiences?

A/B Connection women (time and money) and doctor (treatment): the doctor cannot do much about the anxiety and hopelessness of the woman, just in an 30 minutes consult. the doctor cannot help the woman in advance to prevent her to eat too much in the first place

oriented

Identify ill-connections of exchange between actors and their actions

Tools

Primary sources: interviews, observation Secondary sources: blogs, newspapers, etc Brainstorm- idea generation techniques

Scenario making Story boards Context-mapping

Social anthropology, psicology, human dynamics, market research

System maps

7

Context-mapping Story-telling

Select an ill- connection with

most impact 8 the both in the context and

Here you have to decide which ill-connection is good to fix, improve, change.

(There can be multiple actors)

Connection A/B

Generative techniques Focus-groups

Redundant

Constructive

Designing a Meta Product

Generative

Setting a direction

individual

9 State the problem

Make a “how to” question stating the problem

an ideal scenario 10 Make for this connection

How would the ideal actions be?

How would the ideal experiences derived from the actions be?

Make again a story

a Meta Product 11 Imagine for this scenario

What would be the data, the metadata,and the touchpoints?

If it’s not possible you stop HERE.

a solution 12 Imagine without technology

Is the ideal scenario approached better without technology or without a Meta Product?

13

Considering the scenario in step 10 Which are the connection tasks?

Which are the focus of communication?

14

Connection tasks 1 2

15Identify the technology

Connection tasks 1 2

16Design the interactions 17 Test interactions with desired 18 Compare experiences

Desired experiences

The woman is stressed or having a rough time in her life, but she has a personal coach that motivates her and tells her which food is good to make her feel a bit better. The personal coach knows everything she eats and the way she feels and gives the right motivation in the right moment.

Data: food, calories, fat, time, fisiological information about stress Metadata: personal charts, an “avatar” that looks like her and shows exactly what’s going on in her body Touchpoints: “the personal coach” that is everywhere and all the time with her

Interactions Experiences 1 2 Interaction/Experience Desired experience

Context-mapping Human cognition Mutual dependency- relational system Generative techniques Story board

A: wants to have support and motivation to resist temptation of eating too much when she’s stressed B: wants to know when she’s feeling stressed and her eating cravings

A: receive support and motivation to resist temptation of eating too much when she’s stressed/ she experiences a friendship B: know when she’s feeling stressed and her eating cravings/ the doctor experiences control

How the technology can do it?

Connection tasks/ technology Interaction 1 2

1 2

How to help the woman avoid eating too much?

Very complex

Focus-groups Simulation user tests Observations Interviews Observations Reflection

Appendix Test 3 Method draft 3

1. Explore the context

3. Identify the main actor

Explorative 4. Identify related past and future actions term needs too much expanation

5. Identify the actors of those actions 6. Identify their resources and how they exchange them

7. What can go wrong? Which exchange connections are complex?

Are there miscommunications? Negative experiences? still not clear if it 8. Identify an opportunity should be a problem

9. State it in a How to question not necessary this creative technique particularly if the participants are not used to it

too fast

10. Crazy solutions

11. Imagine the best scenario for all the actors involved, include new actors new actions, new resources, new connections where necessary.

Generative 12. Identify the possible money streams of the system 13. Imagine a Meta Product for this scenario

How are the actors willing to pay?

losing track

14. Imagine a solution without technology filter too late

16. Identify the critical connection tasks

Constructive

How do the actors perceive? (senses) How do the actors understand and learn? (cognition) How do the actors feel? (emotions) How do the actors behave? (action)

18. Identify the technology for each connection task/desired experience

20. Test the interactions 21. Compare with desired experiences

difficult term

What do the actors perceive? (senses) What do the actors understand and learn? (cognition) What do the actors feel? (emotions) How do the actors behave? (action)

Appendix Test 4 Method draft 4 PERSONAL LIFE PLANNING- Generation Y They were born in the 80’s and a bit later

They demand work-life balance (they don’t want to be slaves of their jobs as their Baby-boomer parents were) They have a high sense of entitlement and outspokeness

Sensitizer

They perceive high value on peer opinion, they have high attention craving They do not want just information but to increase engagement

They are natural multitaskers They are “tech- savvy”

They also live in a world “in crisis” where companies, organizations and governments are not always the best platforms to meet Gen-Yers expectations

WELCOME! and THANKS for coming :)

AGENDA

18:00-19:00 Dinner 19:00-19:20 Brief explanation about Meta Products 19:20-20:00 Phase a (7 steps) 20:00-20:30 Phase b (3 steps) 20:30-21:00 Phase c (5 steps) 21:00-21:15 Reflection

a. the network 1 EVENT/SITUATION

facilitation had poor control and guidance during this section 2 ACTIONS--ACTORS--RESOURCES RESOURCE EXCHANGE

Explorative

3 Arranging a party

Past

Future WHAT HAPPENS AFTER?

WHAT HAPPENS BEFORE?

5

4

6 7

PROBLEM/OPPORTUNITY

HOW TO...?

either think of a problem or an opportunity not both

b. the direction you might go back and forth here

HOW TO..?

7

Generative

6

€

8

IDEAL SCENARIO

PROBLEM/OPPORTUNITY

€

META DATA

DATA

10

META PRODUCT

€

9

REVENUE STREAMS

revenue is a wrong term and it misleaded the whole objective

c. design CRITICAL COMMUNICATION

C R IT

CONNECTION TASKS

15

TECHNOLOGY

14

TOUCHPOINT

U NI C A

DATA

AL C O

MM

Constructive

IC

ON

13

12

TI

complex term too soon in the process maybe not needed

Measuring device

PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY Diagnose device

Blood pressure

€

PATIENT

16 11

NO TECHNOLOGY??

Diagnose

INTERACTIONS HOSPITAL

the word interactions can be misleading because designers have already their own concept

META DATA

DESIRED EXPERIENCES

Appendix Test 5 Method draft 5

Meta Products Two sessions-two hours

1.

Explore the context (disco- going out) 2.

Think of a main action (I flirt) 3.

Who is “I”? (quick persona- main actor) 4.

Who else (a) is around that has an important influence on the main actor? Which are their actions (b)?What do they exchange (c)? (Time-line/sequential) 5.

Are there any challenges? (highlight the connection system) 6.

Turn the challenge into a How to question (Here try to answer the question with a brain exercisebraindrawing, absurd questioning, crazy/impossible scenarios) 7.

Now it’s time to answer the question by imagining an ideal scenario (focus on the main actor, or you can choose another actor, but only one) Rules: smartphone= mobile thing. Webpage, AR, etc= something that does this…

7.1 Make a story board 7.2 Fill in the storyboard for each actor the questions to create the “experience guidelines”: How are they perceiving? (senses) How are they learning? (cognitive) How are they feeling? (emotions) 7.3 Give a title to the story board that summarizes the solution 8.

Using step 7.3 identify which is the Data and the Meta Data (iterations with the main story board) 9.

Identify the touchpoints What is it?? The physical part (iterations with the main story board) 10.

New storyboard with the new Meta Product. Test it by roleplaying it. The storyboard can include “thinking out loud” scripts so the roleplaying is easier.

too fast... needs more ideas, more criteria

Meta Products are the next generation product systems that will connect us in new ways with the Internet by combining a physical and a digital part. Bits and atoms have never been so close, and so the design challenge has never been greater.

In this project, an extensive literature analysis was conducted to identify the most relevant theories and their issues. Then, an exploratory research was performed to categorize the technologies, applications and industries related to Meta Products. Several interviews were held with experts in practice to get insights and inspiration. And a series of tests and observations in focus groups were performed for validation. All this was synthesized in a method to design Meta Products and this report shows the whole process.

It was found that in theory and in practice the relevant domains for Meta Products are Ubiquitous Technologies (UT), User Experience (UX) and Service Design (SD). It was also found that these domains have different mindsets and mostly work in ‘silos’; making it very complex for industries to identify the value of Meta Products. Moreover, the evolution in these domains has gradually turned the role of the user from a passive and unaware spectator to an active generator of environments.

This role brings a multi-layered challenge for designers because of the complexity of the human dimensions involved (social, cultural, psychological) in Meta Product design.

In this work, a transdisciplinary method is suggested. The basis of the method presented in this report, is the theoretical integration of the main principles behind Ubiquitous Technologies, User Experience and Service Dominant Logic. The main propositions of this method are that the willingness of a user to perform an action or ‘connection of exchange’ is based on his aspirations. Second, that this ‘connection of exchange’ per se, is the unit of value in the user’s network. And the third proposition is that the user’s network is the basis to encourage meaningful experiences.

This is a network-focused design method that helps designers to understand how meaning and value is created in order to design successful Meta Products. It is holistic, abductive and iterative. It provides a guideline but at the same time provides the freedom to the designers to use their intuition, empathic skills and experience.

This report is the result of an assignment originally commissioned by Dutch design studio Booreiland and was first published as a graduation report at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology with the help of prof. dr. ir. J.A. Buijs, ir. E. Roscam Abbing and ir. M.B. Huisman (Booreiland) ©2010 Sara Córdoba Rubino