Design Thinking: Customer Progress Design

MAKING CUSTOMER PROGRESS

A job-to-be-done is the progress that a person is trying to make in a particular struggling circumstance (or moment).

This idea of improving one’s life or making a change is a core human desire. People are continuously striving to make progress in their lives by ‘hiring’ new solutions and ‘firing’ old solutions (didn’t work out) to accomplish their jobs-to-be-done.

The products and services we sell are simply a means to an end, accomplishing a customer’s jobs-to-be-done (JTBD). I'll repeat that 'simply a means to an end'. Therefore, make sure you understand the customer's jobs-to-be-done. Customer jobs can be aspirational, functional, emotional, and social.

As we go about life we encounter ‘struggling moments’. A struggling moment occurs when a ‘current way of doing something’ stops working. And, we observe and/or can envision a 'new way of doing things'. It's important to note that both, the 'push' of the struggling moment and the 'pull' of 'the new idea or way of doing things' must co-exist for a customer job to be established. This represents the way in which customer demand is formed and inertia is created towards making customer progress.

This idea of progress of best understood as a 'cycle of progress' in that it is the continuous search for and assessment of 'new ways of doing things'. As an example, in the quest to 'get a better nights sleep' how many different solutions do people try along their sleep journey (from the inexpensive to the more expensive):

• Taking a walk everyday to get some exercise;
• Taking up some form of cardio exercise to be more tired physically;
• Drinking a scotch (or two) at night to wind down during the evening;
• Taking melatonin or an RX-based sleeping pill right before bed;
• Playing relaxing sounds (e.g., crashing waves, rainforest, etc.) before sleep;
• Buying a new pillow (more comfortable) or a new set of sheets (feel cooler); and/or
• Buying a $5,199.00 Sleep Number I8 Split Cal King Smart Bed with head and foot adjustability.

Every time you try a different product, by itself, or in combination with other solutions you eventually ask yourself, is this helping me 'get a better nights sleep'? Am I waking up in the morning feeling well wrested and ready to take on the challenges of the day? If not, the search for 'a better way' continues into the future.

DESIGN THINKING

“Design thinking is, very simply, a way to come up with ideas and see if they’re any good!” Professor Utley of the Stanford d.school explains. Design thinking is an exceptional idea-generating methodology, founded on the idea that “the way to get better is to generate more ideas.”

We are all familiar with the double-diamond of design thinking. Applying both divergent and convergent thinking to both the problem and solution space.

"Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test." - IxDF - Interaction Design Foundation

It is non-linear in that we will often times find ourselve moving 'back and forth' between problem space and solution space.

In the Problem Space, we focus on 'empathy and understanding' as we seek to both identify as well as select the problems we wish to solve on behalf of the consumer.

• Problem Identification - identifying the collection of problems people face in their lives.
• Problem Selection - determining the specific problems we wish to 'solve for'.

And in the Solution Space, we 'ideate, prototype, and test' as we seek to conceptualize potential solutions and test them in relation to the targeted problems to be solved:

• Concept Generation - determining behavioral design informed strategies, ideating on different design concepts and solutions.
• Concept Testing and Execution - determining the solutions that work best based upon studying customer behavior as well as customer feedback.

THE PROBLEM SPACE

In the Problem Space, we discover and define the problems we want to solve. The objective is to make sure we are ‘solving the right problem’ and therefore ‘designing the right thing’.

My primary tool of choice when focused on the problem space is The Wheel of Progress? jobs-to-be-done () research method, created by Eckhart Boehme and Peter Rochel . It’s a job-to-be-done based interview framework that helps you identify and capture in real-time, twelve different elements of customer progress. It is recommended that customer jobs-to-be-done interviews be performed as a team, as a product trio (product manager, UX or design lead, and tech lead).

Customer jobs-to-be-done based research is focused on identify twelve (12) different elements of customer progress:

<1> The Struggling Moment and other triggering Events; includes Hiring/Firing event;

<2> Desires and <3> Avoidances as you seek out Solutions;

<4> Pushes, <5> Pulls, <6> Allegiances, and <7> Anxieties often referred to as the four motivational forces;

<8> Constraints (internal, external, and temporal) impacting which Solutions are viable for your customer;

<9> Customer Jobs, <10> Pains, and <11> Gains; and

<12> The Solutions themselves (yours, competitors, ancillary solutions).

Note: Learn more about the Customer Jobs-to-be-done courses that I teach by clicking on the link above.

These 12 elements of customer progress occur across the four different quadrants of The Wheel of Progress?:

• Awareness: the 'push' of the struggling moment competes with existing habits (is the old way good enough) until a 'new way of doing things' is discovered.
• Expectations: start to form expectations in this stage of the journey regarding what they hope the product or service will help them achieve (desires) or steer clear of (avoidances) as they actively look for new solutions.
• Trade-offs: begin to evaluate trade-offs related to the different solutions being considered. Will the product deliver on it's promises made? Have all my anxieties (unknowns) been addressed? At the end of the day, considering price, which features or benefits are most important to me (final decision criteria)?
• Experience: evaluating the solution related to specific jobs-to-be-done they 'hired' it to accomplish. Does it do what I expected it to do? Is it made well? Can I easily get service or support when required? Any unexpected pains or gains.

There are many other tools in my Problem Space toolkit, but, this is the one I lean on most given it’s proven ability to uncover unique, deep consumer insights.?It helps ensure my insights research is customer-centric rather than product-centric.

EXPERIENCE GAPS

An Experience Gap represents either an inability to make progress towards ones goals (jobs-to-be-done) due to barriers and/or constraints and/or a delta between the desired experiential outcome and the actual experience.

Different Barriers and/or Contraints keep me from being able to consider certain solution alternatives and/or get in the way (obstruct) of someone making progress:

1st Law B=f(P*E): Behavior is always a function of the person (P) and the environment (E).

Barriers of the person can be both physical and psychological. While identifying physical barriers can be relatively easier, identifying the psychological barriers (biases, heuristics, beliefs, etc.) that inhibit us from making progress can be more difficult to uncover.

Examples might include a physical condition (e.g., disability, allergy, injury), a psychological condition (e.g., phobia, social anxiety), behavioral science (biases, heuristics, etc.) and/or financial condition.

Barriers of the environment can be logistical (location, physical space, resources, supplies, etc.); situational and context (sense of urgency, etc.); social and cultural context (belief systems, cultural norms, etc.); organizational (legal requirements, corporate policy, reporting relationships, etc.) and marketplace related (market structures, industry regulations, infrastructure, etc.). They are often outside one's control.

4th Law B=MAP: Behavior tends to follow the status quo unless it is acted upon by an increase in motivation (M) or ability (A) and/or a timely prompt (P).

This rule holds true for one-time behaviors (e.g., sign-up for a trial); repeated behaviors (e.g., working out at the gym 3 times this week); and/or habits (e.g., always take time to meditate each day).

At any point in time, when any given element (M or A or P) is missing, behavior is at risk! For example, your alarm clock didn’t go off this morning, lack of a prompt, you fail to workout. You sprain your ankle, your physical ability to workout is now reduced. Your running partner is on vacation, reduced motivation, you are not as motivated to run alone.

Motivation is our desire to do the behavior. A few examples of motivation-related barriers are:

• Status Quo Bias: we have a preference to not undertake action to change this current or previous state (resistance to change) unless the new behavior is easier or incentives higher.
• Ambiguity Effect: we tend to avoid options that we consider to be ambiguous or to be missing information.
• Procrastination: we voluntarily delay something despite knowing that there will be negative consequences for doing so.
• Personal Belief (cost): our beliefs and convictions about the cost (effort, time, money) to achieve an outcome may prevent us from taking action.

Ability represents our capacity to do the behavior. A few examples of ability-related barriers are:

• Lack of Time: when time is a scarce resource we may not be able to do tasks and activities that benefit us.
• Lack of Skill: when a task's challenge is greater than the skill of the person it can lead to feelings of anxiety.
• Choice Overload: we tend to get overwhelmed when we are presented with a large number of options to choose from.
• Hassle Factor: when there are steps perceived as an annoyance between a person and the goal, we may choose inaction.

Prompt is our cue (trigger) to do the behavior. A few examples of prompt or attention-related barriers are:

• Anchor Bias: we tend to rely too heavily on the first piece of information we see, which prevents us from updating our plans or predictions as much as we should.
• Forgetfulness: our existing habits lead us to live on auto-pilot. When we are changing behavior we'll often forget to do the new thing and do our default behavior instead.
• Lack of Prompts: the environment doesn't have any triggers to nudge or remind us about the desired behavior.
• Low Mental Bandwidth: we tend to make poor and short-sighted decisions when our 'brainpower' (attention, cognition, and self-control) gets depleted due to conditions of scarcity.

There are over 24 unique behavioral science-based barriers to progress within the Make it Toolkit related to motivation, ability, or prompt (cue) to identify and solve for when designing experiences.

Additionally, gaps in customer experience occur when the perceived or actual customer experience fails to meet our expectations:

• Brand expectations: lacks purpose, not aligned with my values, fails deliver on its' brand promise, etc..
• Product expectations: the product doesn't perform as expected, is poorly designed, is difficult to setup or configure, is difficult to use, low build quality, difficult or costly to maintain, etc..
• Service expectations: the product wasn't delivered on time, unable to reach anyone, not treated with respect, didn't answer or resolve my problem, failed to follow-up, unable to return/exchange, failed to honor product warranty, etc..
• Customer effort: too much effort is required to accomplish a given goal or task at different points in the customer journey. Customer effort is multi-dimensional, it can be measured as physical, cognitive, emotional, and/or time-based effort.

Customer experience is more broadly measured in relation to experiences being Easy (or effortless), Effective (or useful), and Enjoyable (or memorable).

The Experience Gaps we identify and prioritize in the Problem Space inform the work we perform in the Solution Space (covered next).

THE SOLUTION SPACE

In the Solution Space, we design, prototype, build, pilot, and rollout solutions to address the prioritized problems. The objective here is to ensure we are ‘designing and building the thing right’.

My primary tool of choice when focused on the Solution Space is @Make It Toolkit, created by Massimo Ingegno ?? . Once again, there are many other tools in my toolkit, but, this is the one I lean on most specifically as it relates to ideation and the crafting of designing concepts to address prioritized experience gaps.

The Make it Toolkit is made up over 15 core behavioral design strategies, here are a few examples:

>??makeit Easy - decrease the real or perceived cost and the cognitive or physical effort required to encourage a behavior.

>??makeit Attractive - highlight the existing benefits of taking actions and present choices, goals and experiences as familiar, relevant, likeable, and appealing.

>? makeit Rewarding - encourage and reinforce actions with incentives, tangible rewards and pleasant experiences.

>??makeit Aversive - Leverage people's aversion to risks, losses and negative consequences.

> makeit Intriguing - Pique and sustain one's curiosity with unfamiliar, novel, or unknown information and outcomes.

Note: Determining which strategies to apply in a given situation is based upon first having put together a Behavioral Map of the customer journey as well as having performed a Behavioral Audit to identify different Barriers to Progress (person, environment, motivation, ability, or prompt/attention).

Once you've identified which makeit Strategies (often work best in combination) to leverage, you can select from over 200 different makeit Tactics to execute on that Strategy, a few examples:

> makeit Social by applying one or more of these makeit Tactics

• Social Proof: reveal what other people think, do or say to influence people's behavior, especially in situations of uncertainty.
• Shared Goals: encourage people to jointly move towards a shared goal to foster a sense of belonging.
• Leaderboard: leverage people's need to win and advance their social standing.

> makeit Attractive by applying one or more of these makeit Tactics:

• Decoy effect: introduce a seemingly useless middle option - that nobody wants - to make an expensive one seem more attractive.
• Halo affect: leverage people's biased judgements of transferring their feelings about one attribute of something to other unrelated, attributes.
• Gain-frame: Frame a message to emphasis the benefits that can be acquired by following the suggested course of action.

> makeit Timely by applying one or more of these makeit Tactics:

• New Beginnings: introduce your intervention after or in anticipation of temporal landmarks that represent new beginnings.
• Moments of Transitions: launch the intervention when people go through meaningful moments of transition that disrupt existing habits and behavioral patterns.
• Timeline Reminder: provide a timely specific and actionable reminder to perform the behavior.

Note: Recommend focusing on Strategies before Tactics making sure you pay careful attention to the specific Barriers to Progress (person, environment, motivation, ability, and/or prompt). Specific makeit Strategies work best based upon the identified Barriers to Progress. Also, many work even better together!