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Strategic User and Futures Research: Theory, Methods and Examples

Dr. Henning Breuer’s Strategic User- and Futures Research course in Winter 2010/2011 was an introduction to User Research Methods and approaches to the development of futures scenarios.

A large section of the course work was devoted to understanding the theories and historical context behind user research in design and open innovation within the corporate context. Several of these theories where illustrated by Dr. Breuer using vivid examples from his own work at the Deutsche Telekom Laboratories and Bovacon- Designing Business Interaction, both in Berlin.

However, in addition to the theoretical foundation, the students were also asked to engage in several fast paced practical exercises. The exercised help to underpin the knowledge acquired during the classes with some first hand experience. The following write up provides a brief chronological overview of how the class progressed…

Value Creation and Innovation

The course stared with an introduction of contemporary Innovation models that reach beyond traditional market research and R&D approaches. As an initial illustration, the following examples was thrown into the ring:

“Picture market researcher eighty years ago attempting to gauge market reaction to a proposed new product, the automobile. Respondents to any questionnaire would have assured that cars would frighten horses, make too much noise, run too fast & be generally unreliable. The competition of that time, the horse, would be judged just too strong for a successful market entry” (Bennett/Cooper 1979).

With that quote in mind the necessity to travel beyond the obvious in order to allow for radical innovation to happen was made evident. Hence companies today strive for more open and flexible models of innovation that also take unlikely perspectives into consideration. One fundamental condition for these, more open approaches, to unfold is the ability to identify "what actors may contribute which kind of knowledge to innovation activities within organizations" - Henning Breuers fundamental question to elaborate within the course.

Stakeholder Analysis
In order to wrap your head around this question, best practice is to start with a thorough stakeholder analysis and with the creation of a so called stakeholder map. [vgl. http://www.gogamestorm.com/?p=488]

The creation of a rough-and-ready stakeholder map was also our first practical exercise in the course. The context of our considerations was “mobile learning”: Hence, we asked ourselves what a stakeholder map for a company could look like that develops educational technologies and software (in the context of mobile learning). For the exercise Dr. Breuer provided a grid framework as the basis for the stakeholder map (see picture below).

In a first step all students individually wrote down a list potential stakeholders and partners. In a second and final step we maped our individual lists onto the grid collectively.

The grid was split into four quadrants in order to categorize the potential stakeholders that we came up with. It created a continuum between four polar goups.

1. A group of stakeholders with high power and (presumably) low interest.
2. People with High Power and High interest,
3. People with Low power and high interests respectively
4. People with Low power and low interest.

This initial exercise was quite fun, and the goup managed to come up with some unlikely stakeholders. Beyond core we also decided to stick with context of mobile learning also all exercises to follow.

Value creation and innovation lecture

What followed was a quite lengthily, yet interesting, lecture about the changing paradigms of value creation and different models of innovation that emerged form that. Without going into too many specifics the basic story here was that:

1. The Primary goal of all economic activity is the creation of value and that
2. Models of value creation are developing towards interactivity.

Whereby traditional models – industrial models that is – of value creation mastly focus on productivity and optimization of the value chain, while interactive models consider operational efficiency as a necessary but insufficient competitive advantage.

Traditional, industrial models based on value creation through operational efficiency mostly apply to hierarchical organisations and focus on reducing production costs and increasing productivity of scarce production factors (utilities, materials and workforce). However, these approaches came increasingly under strain as they usually depend on stable market conditions. Furthermore, they are often ill-equipped to respond to demands of mass-individualized products as well as the increasing economic importance of services that depend on consumer participation.

In contrast to that, interactive models of value creation place elements that were previously seen as peripheral activities – the interfaces to customers and stakeholder – into the centre of attention. Customers, users and other stakeholders are used to extend an organisations knowledge, competences and resources and hence become a strategic factor for the creation of value.

That is why the boundaries of interactive organizations tend to become kind of blurry. The more external stakeholders and users are involved in the value creation, the harder it becomes to actually tell the difference between inside and outside of an organization. (Think Wikipedia)

And in order to manage these more interactive forms of value creation a whole set of new innovation models (with very fancy names) emerged. For example: Grounded Innovation, User Driven Innovation, Open Innovation and Disruptive Innovation.
All these models represent different approaches that serve, more or less, a single purpose:

1. build a capacity to respond quickly to changes in the market place and competitive landscape
2. ensure that an organisation’s products and services live up to the expectations, motivations, desires and latent needs of consumers and
3. Make sure that the products and services remain relevant and delightful to the communities who engage with them.

[vgl. Chesbrough 2003 bzw. 2004]

Open Innovation
The central idea behind open innovation is that in a world of widely distributed knowledge, companies cannot afford to rely entirely on their own research, but should instead buy or license processes or inventions (i.e. patents) from other organisations as well. In addition, internal inventions not being used in a firm's business should be taken outside the company (e.g., through licensing, joint ventures, spin-offs)

“Open innovation is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology” [vgl. Chesbrough]

[UDI & Disruptive Innovation Funnel Quelle: "Dr. Henning Breuer & Deutsche Telekom Laboratories 2010"]

User Driven Innovation
User Driven Innovation models are based on the observation that many products and services are actually developed or at least refined, by users, at the site of implementation and use. According to Dr. Breuer, open innovation refers to the this kind of changing role of the customer from a passive recipient, to that of to an active co-designer in the creation of value (Breuer 1998) by systematically integrating users as co-designers and as a knowledge source into the innovation process.

Hence user-driven innovation is a form of socially and socio-technically distributed innovation. It stands firmly against the linear innovation model of the idustrial age which assumes that innovation comes from research and development and is is then marketed and 'diffused' towards the end-users. Instead, innovation is a non-linear process involving innovations at all stages.

An other interesting account on user driven innovations is provided in a TED talk by the uncomparable Charles Leadbeater. Check it out below:

Grounded innovation
Grounded innovation is a concept borrowed from grounded theory, a systematic methodology (mainly used for qualitative research) in the social sciences.

Grounded theory is a research method that operates almost in a reverse fashion from traditional research. Rather than beginning by researching and developing a hypothesis, the first step is data collection. From the data collected, the key points are marked with a series of codes. The codes are grouped into similar concepts in order to make them more workable. From these concepts, categories are formed, which are the basis for the creation of a theory, or a reverse engineered hypothesis.

Grounded innovation, however, is an attempt to combine this method with strategic foresight as well as stakeholder integration.

Strategic foresight is a corporate practise postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures. It derives strategic plans and strategies with longer time horizons that specifically attempt to anticipate and be robust to possible future events.

Stakeholder integration is the processes of enforcing mutual relationships with external parties, which often result in both organizational learning and societal legitimacy.

Disruptive Innovation
A disruptive innovation is an innovation that disrupts an existing market. It improves a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by lowering price or designing for a different set of consumers.

Existing businesses are often reluctant to take advantage of Disruptive Innovations, since it often would involve competing with existing (and more profitable) technological approaches. Clayton M. Christensen recommends that existing firms watch for these innovations, invest in small firms that might adopt these innovations, and continue to push technological demands in their core market so that performance stays above what disruptive technologies can achieve.

During the lecture Dr. Breuer introduced a set of methods designed to help organization in dealing with disruptive innovations. These methods initially involve a combination of user-research, futures-workshops and technologies monitoring in order to recognize a disruptive potential. Second, they involve iterative development of conceptual ideas, experience prototypes and subsequent business modelling activities. Third, new concepts and business proposition are derived from the prelimenary concepts and driven into new markets.

Ethnographic User Research

A second lecture series was specifically devoted towards ethnographic research methods. Additionally Dr. Breuer also touched on Scenario development techniques borrowed from futures studies as well as research communication approaches.

User Research
The emphasis on user needs and experiences means that user research techniques feature heavily in the design process. Broadly speaking User research is used to identify:
1. How users are accessing current products and services
2. Areas for improvements or innovation
3. Opportunities for new products and services that will address a user need

Many user research methods find their roots in traditional market research methodologies, particularly when it comes to the gathering of data on customer satisfaction and trends. A significant proportion of user research is conducted through qualitative research with consumers, ranging from focus groups and depth interviews, to more focused and detailed ethnographic and observation based techniques.

Stimulus materials such as cartoon strips to portray service propositions, storyboarding, scenario-building, multimedia, prototypes and other tools are often used to illustrate present and future user scenarios involving the use of their products and services

Ethnography
Ethnography, in particular, is a discovery based research method borrowed from cultural anthropology. Although instances of corporate ethnography date back more than 70 years, the method wasn’t used extensively in commercial applications until the development of interactive software in the 1980s (Wasson 2000). Within the commercial context several distinct types of ethnography emerged:

• Observed product usage in private settings
• Structured usage
• Contextual usability
• Cultural studies
• Day-in-the-life
• Accompanied purchase
• Guerrilla ethnography
• Observed purchase or mystery shopping

According to Mariampolsky (2006) the dimensions of ethnographic accounts include private vs. public contexts, specific product vs. category vs. use constellations, pre-structuring of the interaction, amount of interaction (participation) with consumers, evidence of the presence of the researcher, duration of study, number (and “types”) of informants.

In scope of this lecture I provided a summary of an article by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony, Gerald Berstell and Denise Nitterhouse called “Finding the Right Job For Your Product” the article can be downloaded here at the materials sections. The slides of the talk can be accessed here.

Ethnographic Research Methods

„All starts by doing something simple - keenly watching consumers, face to face, knee to knee and listening, with ears, eyes, heart, brain and your intuitive sixth sense.“ (A. G. Lafley, CEO Proter & Gamble).

What followed was a basic introduction of ethnographic research methods and some practical exercises. The methods that were discussed in more detail were:

Diary studies with and without technical aids
In Diary studies people are asked to document their feelings, special situations and interactive experiences with, for example a product or service on a regular basis. They may just write them down or illustrate them by pictures, stickers and other materials provided. Users are often asked to do the documentations at predetermined times.

The diary entries need to be analyzed and summarized up in a report. Data may reveal habits, situational or time dependend aspects of usage and how product usagechanges over time.

A diary study template that we used during the course can be downloaded here.

Shadowing
Shadowing is an interactive observation of a selected user in his/her daily environment. The researcher follows the user „like a shadow“ while he, or she, accomplishes everyday routines, for example at home or at work. Additionally, users may be asked to think loud and questions may be asked to ensure understanding.

Data generated form shadowing activities may include a variety of notes and photographs of users‘ habits and context-specific behaviours. It needs to be analyzed to identify barriers to use, latent wishes, desires and potential future needs. A summary report illustrated by selected photographs provides an overview of lessons learned.

Field Visits
During field visits the researcher visits and diligently observes users in selected contexts. Often additional field interviews are held. All in all similar to shadowing.

Face to Face Interviews
During interviews people are asked directly about their experiences, wishes, demands, attitudes, opinions and behaviors. Depending on what is already known about an issue global or very specific questions may be asked. Special interview techniques may be applied to facilitate introspection and idea generation.

Semi-structured interviews usually generate date in form of protocols and summary reports. For standardized interviews itegration by descriptive analyses and vote counts allows to differentiate between exceptional and broadly shared points of views.

Focus Groups
Focus groups are moderated group discussion with 6-9 users is conducted to find out about people’s ideas and opinions. Creative techniques are often applied to facilitate idea generation. Focus groups often provide a structured output (e.g. notes on whiteboards) which may be complemented by observers‘ notes. When sessions have been audio- and videotaped more illustrative reports including pictures and quotes may be derived

Research Process & some practical exercises

Before engaging in a practical exercise we went through a diagram of the user research process. Dr. Breuer suggested a 7-step framework with included the following steps:

1. Identify goals
2. Select participants
3. Project planning
4. Prepareation of materials
5. Data gathering
6. Analysis of data
7. Using the data.

[vgl. Bovacon - Designing Business Interaction 2009]

Our own mini diary study
With that process at hand, we started to prepare our very own mini-diary study in the context of mobile learning. Three student groups evolved a diary template provided by Dr. Breuer and started to search in their own social netork for potential participants.

The diaries were geared towards mobile learning. They asked the participants to answer a set of specific questions about their learing routines ans learning aids. Also some basic demographic data was gathered. In addition to that participants were asked to track, document and reflect upon their daily routines and activities for the course of one week.

Analyzing diary study

Back in school, one week later, the student teams shared, discussed and analyzed the different diaries. During this exercise the goal was to Identify latent and explicit user needs and derive common themes from the diaries that would prepare an empirical ground for and inspire ideation.

This analysis session was also a kind of mini- and hands-on introduction to the workings and approaches of Grounded Theory, a systematic methodology (mainly used for qualitative research) in the social sciences. In grounded theory there are four stages of analysis: First, the key points from the collected data are marked with a series of codes. Second, the codes are grouped into similar concepts. Third, from these concepts, categories are formed, which are the basis for the creation of a theory (Fourth), or a reverse engineered hypothesis.

It works a bit like the Cluster and vote design method which helps to identify patterns in a problem area or in a series of ideas.

The key themes that we derived form the diaries were:

Leveraging group activities

• Group activity and organization/leverage groups
• organizing, preparing meetings on Incom
• unsynced schedules -> hard for group
• online groupwork preparation
• informal group meeting (bar) -> probably driven by technology (sms, chat emailetc.)
• group e-mails -> organizing role - phone calls, possible when urgent
• learn group is whole social environment
• informal vs formal learning groups
• Parents, collegues, friends - discussions
• confirmation of being "on-track" through group members
• sharing one computer can be enough
• crowded environment more acceptable during group discussions

Scheduling and prioritization

• Forced to keep up concentration even if tired
• Capability to learn down after lunch
• Prioritization of activities and scheduling as topic
• "get it done" before music event
• "save" / use time on train - not planned
• Things blend
• "I-might-as-well"-studies vs (cultivation stimulating - environment & socializing cliché) - Dedicated learning places
• scheduling all activities, not just studies
• postponing common when planning
• last-minute-pressure -> productivity
• allways bring a snack for blood sugar
• prefer study elsewhere than at home
• higher focus after exercising

Natural/life learning (life changing/Life Learning)
Windows of opportunity (for behaviour change)

• Moments that trigger learning: life changing
• Happy to work with new "substitute"
• positive disruptions/negative distractions
• disruptions trigger learning
• Phone disrups focus / concentration "in a negative way"
• music pauses interrupt the flow of everything
• Aha moments (with people?)
• "refresch google reader & twitter --- just in time & returned
• seeking productive disractions
• incedental learning (discovery learning)
• functional hobbies
• Inspiration form up to date information -- time trigger time stamp
• continous degrees of focus 8in out)
• FOCUSING | Blending in and out vs "leasuring away"
• weekend - state of relaxed learning
• leasuring away on google reader account
• relaxed learning drif on and out school work

Persona development

With these general themes at hand the student groups developed 3 personas: One persona in response of eacj particular theme. Please check out my persona (which was developed in response to the "natural life learning theme) in the pictures below.

For the next exercise the three personas were mixed up, so that each student team continued to work using a persona that was developed by another team. I ended up with the “leaverage group activities persona”. However I worked it into the same layout that I used for the initial persona above. Check it out below:

Personas worst case and ideal world scenario – looking for new solutions
During an additional group session the student team brainstormed worst case and ideal world scenarios for each persona. The worst case/ideal world method is based on the concept of the so called futures workshop.

The future workshop is a futures technique developed by Robert Jungk, Ruediger Lutz and Norbert R. Muellert in the 1970s. It enables a group of people to develop new ideas or solutions of social problems. A future workshop is particularly suitable for participants who have little experience with processes of creative decision making, for example Children or Youth. It is often used in Spatial planning to involve citizens in the planning process.

Future workshops are very strongly action oriented. They aim, first to imagine the desired future, and then to plan it and implement it. Futures Workshops consit of four phases:

1. A Preparation Phase: the method, its rules and the scheduled course of the workshop (in accordance with the participants) is introduced.
2. A Critique phase: The problem is investigated critically and thoroughly. First of all, a visualised brainstorming is performed and a general and critical question concerning the problem is framed.
3. An utopian Phase: All participants try to work out an utopia, to draw an exaggerated picture of future possibilities.
4. Implementation phase the ideas found are checked and evaluated in regard to their practicability.

However, a persona's worst case and ideal world scenario is a distinct approach from other futures methods such as "Scenario Analysis" and "Futures Scorecard" (see below) which are much more professionally structured and elaborative.

Dr. Breuer also provided us with a brief introduction to some other aspect of future studies and scenario planning methods, respectively. Scenario Planning is a strategic planning method that some organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. It is in large part an adaptation and generalization of classic methods used by military intelligence.

In scope of this lecture I was asked to prepare a second talk reviewing the Paper “The future scorecard: combining external and internal scenarios to create strategic foresight” by Alexander Fink.

The paper can be found in the materials section here, as well as my slides here.

With regards to the worst case and ideal world assumptions for persona I came up with the following thoughts:

Given Michael’s commenst on how dependent he got on useing google mail and google calendar, a worst case scenario for our persona surely would be something like this

Imagine Google’s mail and calendar products going down permanently for either technical or maybe even political reasons . Michael surely would be screwed in ways unimaginable to him. Placing Michael into such an scenario, it would probably be interesting as well as insightful to imagine what potential workarounds and other group management approaches there are for Michael in order to bypass google’s cloud products…

Of course it is much harder to speculate about the best thing that could happen to our persona rather than the worst thing. And even though I’m unsure as to whether it’d be the best thing ever that might happen, an ideal world scenario for Michael would certainly include some improvements in terms of his commuting habits and experiences. Michael spends about six hours a week, mostly idle, on a train commuting between Potsdam and Berlin. While of course he could just move town, one scenario might look at how a company like Deutsche Bahn could improve the journey experience for commuters like Michael and provide tools and services that allow them being more productive during their commute time.

Scenario Work

From the Persona’s worst case and ideal world scenarios two concept ideas for potential solutions emerged. One of these concepts was visualized and expressed briefly in a short narrative and storyboard. The other remained as a conceptual sketch.

Improving Michael's commute
The first idea aims at improving Michael’s daily commute to Potsdam. It asks the question: in what ways could his journey be transformed to the better if there if there wasn’t a 1st class on trains anymore? At least not a first class as we know it.(As suggestied in the classic advertizing spot below)

The idea falls into a scenario – maybe driven by rising oil prices – that assumes a rush from cars to public transport, that would result in local public transport becoming the default mode of commuting to work for most people. Check out the article here or the video below for some more context on this..

We can assume that wasting idle time on trains would be largely regarded as unacceptable. Hence In such a reality, it would become imperative for transportation providers to also provide commuters with facility to help enhance their productivity during their journeys. The sketch below provides a brief outline of a potential scenario, situated in such context:

1. Michal buys a commuter pass from the transportation procider. The pass grants access to facilities on the train that have been specificially created for commuting passengers.
2. There is no first class anymore on regional trains. Instead there is a train section with “productivity booths” that offer commuters access to facilities and infrastructures and enamble them to spend their time on the train more productively.
3. A productivity booth could provide a limited private area to the commuter that allows her to make phone calls, a desk to place a laptop on, web access as well ass additional infrastuctures such as electricity sockets etc…

Google breakdown

The second idea explores potential alternatives to google’s calendar and mail applications that might help coordinate group activities and events. The idea falls into a scenario assuming a mayor breakdown of Google services based on either technical issues or political interventions.

The proposed idea speculates on SMS (short messages via mobile phones) as a more traditional means of communication. SMS operates independent from internet-connectivity and might be a viable low-end alternative to web based calendar and communication technologies.

The idea entails a service that uses the SMS to help people coordinate each other as well as all kind of different mutual activities. It would be specifically designed for enabling better collaboration on the go, for organizing events together (i.e. project related meeting, concert visits, picnics) and to help a group of busy people sync their agendas with each other. The idea strives to combine the potential of social software with accessibility and robustness of traditional mobile phone technology.

The idea proposes a group SMS service, whereby different people can become part of a virtual group. Any SMS they send to an associated group phone number will get forwarded to all members of the group. Text based keywords and special characters could provide an interface to access additional features of the technology. For example, someone could send the text “#unsuscribe @groupname” in order to unsubscribe from further group updates.

The service is initiated when Michael (or any other individual) sets up a group event using the native calendar application of his mobile phone.

For each event that is created on the system a unique phone number is generated and sent to the group organizer/admin. This is the phone number that all participants can use to communicate with each other.

The most important step is of course inviting other people to an event or to a group, respectively.

In order to do that, the native calendar app on Michael’s phone syncs with the phone contact list. Michael can now easily select the participants he would like to include from a list of his contact numbers that is presented to him within the calendar application. Additionally numbers can also be added manually, if necessary. The participants will receive a SMS invitation.

The invitation is sent form the newly generated global group phone number. Prospect group members can accept an invitation by sending a text message back to the group phone number with either the word “#accept” or “#discards”.

If they accepted, they become an active member of the group and can interact with every other member through SMS messages. People may now contact the whole group by sending a single SMS to the overall group phone number.

Group members may also send functional keywords, indicatd by a hashtag, to the phone number in order to access other additional features,

For example there could be an option to create a collaborative “#to-do” list allowing to manage to manage individual roles and contributions to a project. Another features could be to make “#suggetion”(s) and have the other group members vote on them by replying “#goodIdea” or “#badIdea”

Functional keywords, following a hash tag could also be used to access other features such as group update settings where people may choose to receive updates only form the group admin or no updates at all.

Non-members might joing the group by texting the keyworld “#joinGroup” to the overall group number.

All group messages, votes, suggestions and everything else done via group SMS is automatically saved in chronological fashion within the native calendar app of each group participant. This “events threat” serves documentation of how the group work or related events progressed. It also offers people the possibility to retrieve contact details of other group members who they didn’t know before.

followup

I just learned that a very similar service to the SMS idea already exists! Its called GroupMe. Check it out here

Other scenarios
My fellow students Daniel and Robin also developed a scenatio each, based on the other personas.
Click here to access Daniel's scenario
And here to access Robin's work.

Conclusion

This course, again, demonstrated to me the inspirational power of proper design research. During the course we were mostly concerned with understanding the conceptual frameworks behind Design Reseach. However, even though comming up with original ideas wasn't the primary goal of this course, when engaging in the practical exersises we were able to put together some really realy interesting concepts nonetheless (and at ease, really)... This kind of happens almost automatically, really, when following an open, user centred approach.