What is AEIOU Framework?

This is certainly not an English language lesson.?

Sam Walton, founder of #walmart , observed that customers?have to wait a few minutes at checkout. A typical efficiency freak would see this as an opportunity to reduce wait time.

But he saw it differently: customers do expect queues and are mentally prepared to wait for a few minutes. Though they have finished their shopping, practically they are captive for 5 more minutes in the queue. How can I sell them more? That is the genesis of the toffee counters adjacent to the billing counters. He observed that parents give in to social pressure exerted by their kids’ tantrums and end up buying toffees and chewing gum.?This simple hack added 2–5% to the topline of the company. This illustrates the power of observation or ethnographic study.?

Quantitative research and analytics are like #Google Maps. They can take you to a cinema hall or a theme park in the shortest possible time. But how much you enjoy or experience there is like qualitative research. With quantitative research, you can narrow down where you wish to go for observation, but how and what you observe there is what the #AEIOU Framework guides you with.

AEIOU Framework

It is a heuristic for qualitative research, or how you can make observations in #GEMBA. AEIOU is a?mnemonic to grasp the important elements to be covered during observation or qualitative research. This was developed by?Rick E. Robinson?of?SapientNitro.

AEIOU stands for Activities, Environment, Interactions, Objects, and Users.

In simple words, observe what activities are performed and what is the environment in which they are being performed. What kinds of interactions are happening in that environment to perform those activities and what objects are being used by the users??

One can apply this framework to physical, digital, and?phygital?systems. It can be applied for new product or service research and for improving existing products or service design.

The Scenario - Home Audio System Purchase

Activities: What are customers and employees doing, including actions and behaviors?

Understanding product features, trying it out (testing), comparing prices with online offers.

Environment: What is the set-up—tools, utility, and convenience?

• Product display, Lighting & Ambience, Product Trial Facility, Customer Lounge, Staff seating area, Product inventory storage, Customer Vehicle Parking, etc?
• Product displays are not updated, and some don’t even have displays.
• The customer lounge is hardly used by customers. Most of them don’t have time to sit.
• Customers find it difficult to?get?parking for their cars.
• Music collection to try out
• Too many parallel loud audio systems playing

Interactions: What are the interactions between customers, employees, and products?

• Customers are probing more on prices, but employees are not confident in their responses.
• Employees are pushy and want to close the sale. They are not giving customers an opportunity to?raise?objectives.
• Some customers lack technical knowledge, but employees are talking in technical language.
• Some debates happen on payment mode and taxation.
• Employees are persuading?customers to sign up for loyalty programs, and customers are reluctant.
• Connectivity?and compatibility seem to be customers’ concerns or queries.

?Objects: Items in the environment that users interact.

• Some products are not demo-fit
• Not all features cannot be tested in the retail outlet and there is no facility to take the product outside.
• Accessory collection is poor.
• Accessories can’t be tried out with products.

Users:?Who are the people being observed??Their behaviors, motivations and actions.

Kids are interested in trying out new features and they influence the decision making.?

As you will see, the AEIOU framework can be a very powerful tool for conducting comprehensive qualitative research. And the good thing is that it is relevant to not only sales and marketing folks, but can be applied to the workplace, employee engagement, operations and delivery, and digital product designs too.?

Why not try it out? Why not train your employees to use it like an expert? And if you have questions reach me @ [email protected]