Photography is one of my favourite user-centred research tools. Simply put, a photo allows you to show someone else who wasn’t there. Often we get asked in workshops about getting permission to take photographs at a client’s business. Or how to get access to someone in their home, which is a personal space. The answer could be as simple as give a camera to the person instead.

Anthony Levin-Decanini reconnected after meeting a few years back at a design conference. He worked on a project called Aphasia Talks, that used photography as a method to give a voice to stroke victims who suffer difficulty producing, using or understanding words. Aphasia can impair any or all of the abilities to speak, read and write. What a fantastic approach to empower people to communicate, as well as build empathy with a particular group that would have difficulty communicating their needs.

PhotoVoice is a research technique, as well as non-profit organisation whose mission is to bring about positive social change for marginalised communities through providing them with photographic training with which they can advocate, express themselves and generate income.

The Adaptive Path blog recently highlighted an Adobe employee that was using the comic book format to communicate research findings. Not only is the presentation more compelling than your standard presentation or report; comics place characters (people) into the context of a story. The dialogue is their own (user-centred) and communicates emotion (empathy). This method certainly isn’t for everyone, but if you are intrigued, read an interview about the work that inspired her.

Shaul Schwarz/Reportage, for The New York Times

In an article nothing short of fascinating, The New York Times follows Nokia’s user anthropologist Jan Chipcase on his design research visits to the developing world. The mobile phone, one of many objects of convenience to most of us, is transformed within a new context.

Something that’s mostly a convenience booster for those of us with a full complement of technology at our disposal — land-lines, Internet connections, TVs, cars — can be a life-saver to someone with fewer ways to access information. A “just in time” moment afforded by a cellphone looks a lot different to a mother in Uganda who needs to carry a child with malaria three hours to visit the nearest doctor but who would like to know first whether that doctor is even in town.

Simple user insights lead directly to new design features.

Influenced by Chipchase’s study on the practice of sharing cellphones inside of families or neighborhoods, Nokia has started producing phones with multiple address books for as many as seven users per phone.

However, more than just an expose on user-centred design in practice, the article explores issues of identity, the role of technology in the lives of others and design for self-actualisation.

Of additional interest is Future Perfect, the personal blog of Jan Chipcase and a collection of “thoughtless acts” images and descriptions.

Pushing technologies on society without thinking through their consequences is at least naive, at worst dangerous, though typically it, and IMHO the people that do it are just boring. Future perfect is a pause for reflection in our planet’s seemingly headlong rush to churn out more, faster, smaller and cheaper. Somewhere along the way we get to shape what the future looks like.

This past week in Waterford we took a group of companies and individuals from the WIT Research and Innovation Centre through a user-centered design workshop. During our workshops, we intend to teach organisations simple tools to better understand their customers and their needs. One of my favourite exercises is the day in the life photo journal. Participants are given a pack of photos taken by a person through the course of one day. With only the photographs to work from, small groups distill detailed information about that person. It is amazing how much insight can be gained in ten minutes from a few photos. Many people learn more about a stranger than they do about those folks they each lunch with on a daily basis.

How much more simple can you get than handing out a few disposable cameras to your users? I have included a copy of our brief to complete the exercise, as well as the worksheet from the workshop.

Photo Journal Brief (Word, 42K)
Whose Life Worksheet (PDF, 119K)

Photo credit: Amy Tiemann and The Laptop Club

Not only are they paper-thin, but infinitely customisable by the user and recyclable to boot. You can even make one yourself. Alright, they may not be commercially available (yet) but clearly are some of the most innovative computers around.

Amy Tiemann, creator of MojoMom.com and c|net contributor blogged about The Laptop Club, where 7-9 year-olds at a local school were creating paper laptops for play. From a research perspective, this is serious stuff and reminiscent of one of my favourite research exercises, Draw The Experience. Looking for insights, particularly from young children? Crack open a box of Crayola crayons and have them draw what they are thinking. We recently used this approach with children travelling through Ireland West Airport to understand what they liked, disliked and wished for in the perfect airport.

Be sure to check out this interview with Amy Tiemann, which includes a gallery of the laptop designs.

For the second year in a row, the Centre for Design Innovation has partnered businesses with the fourth year industrial design students at the Institute of Technology Sligo on real projects. There are multiple benefits for both industry and student.

The students begin the year by forming four-person teams. Instead of jumping into the work, they first take the time developing a brand for their group.

Students (and lecturers) in this picture are doing preliminary research with Connacht Gold, complemented with user research to better understand attitudes and usage of milk and butter. In six weeks, they will have gone from brief, research, concepts to final prototypes of potential new products.

Now that is problem-based learning.

The basis of our thinking around the importance of user-centred design is to lead with the user. This certainly isn’t the only approach to innovation, but it could reduce the risks of market failures like the Ifbot with Japanese elderly, where it turns out that robots turn off senior citizens.

“Most (elderly) people are not interested in robots. They see robots as overly-complicated and unpractical. They want to be able to get around their house, take a bath, get to the toilet and that’s about it,” said Ruth Campbell, a geriatric social worker at the University of Tokyo.

Why observe? Because people will do things they never will tell you. This is what we preach in our user centred design workshops. Take this video for example, shot at our regional airport. Very few, if any passengers, would actually lodge a complaint about these luggage carts, but clearly this is not a good user experience.

[QUICKTIME http://www.designinnovation.ie/blog/wp-content/uploads/movies/cart.mov 320 256]

My favorite detail is when the woman reaches out with her foot for leverage and finds no bar. It was probably removed for safety so people wouldn’t ride the carts.

You need to get out and observe users in the act of interacting with your product or service if you want to achieve design innovation.

One of my favorite Guy Kawasaki-isms was “Let a thousand flowers bloom” from his talk/book, Rules for Revolutionaries. The simple idea was that you can’t think of every use of your technology/product, so let it go and see what users with do with it.

End users are a dispersed R&D department, you just need some tools to observe them and potentially integrate some of their iterations back into your development process.

I was reminded of all this while reading this article about user uses of free Internet-based talk technology.

via Design Directory …

There a great review of a presentation from the Shimano marketing team at the National Bike Summit, where they detailed the background of their Coasting program. Shimano worked with IDEO to develop a strategy to get more of the 161 million Americans who don’t ride back onto bikes. This research led to a revisiting of cruiser bikes, and subsequently to a series of new bikes from Trek (the Lime is shown above), Raleigh and Giant.The original post goes over some of the findings that IDEO uncovered, and the resulting product strategy. But the comments, from bike mechanics, enthusiasts, lawyers and others, are the best part. The only thing missing from the conversation are the designers and product strategists. A great product design conversation, from a group of ‘non-designers’.