Envision, Plan and Communicate Future Experiences
Businesses need a vision for future evolution. Successful future experience envision becomes possible with different domains technique combination. Such cross-functional approach brings much more value than a sight from one perspective. Experience design as a cross-disciplinary practice helps to combine value chain, backcasting planning and storytelling in order to communicate possible future experience vision.
Value Chain
Value chain exercise is aimed at complex business systems decomposition, identification of involved parties and their relationships to each other. It can be applied to any business type regardless of industry and has origins at business management & strategic analysis.
First mentioned in Competitive Advantage (1985) by Michael Porter value chain describes a set of activities, conducted by any company to achieve profit margin. According to this concept all company’s activities can be divided into primary and support categories:
- Primary activities: inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, service
- Support activities: infrastructure, human resource management, technology development, procurement
These categories are universal and fit well even for companies keeping focus at information as a product to serve. Such cases may have more direct specification for primary activities: input data sources, data processing operations, output information, marketing and sales, ongoing support service.
Experience design may consider value chain as one of the tools to understand how a company works. Jim Kalbac illustrates an option for such technique usage during workshop initial stages Rapid Online Mapping and Design Workshop — A Case Study.
Value chain approach to complex business systems mapping provides us with ability to define key areas for further investigation. Deeper dive into each area should allow identify within problems and success criteria through individuals or collective journeys exploration.
Backcasting
Backcasting is opposite to forecasting and represents planning component of design thinking. It focuses on modeling future desirable state instead of making predictions and planning steps to achieve this state. Technique origins from energy future studies in 1970s and usually is used during brainstorming for framed problems.
“If we want to attain a certain goal, what actions must be taken to get there?” — statement that summarizes planning method introduced by John B. Robinson
Main Steps:
1. Current state identification: areas, involved parties, pain points
2. Future state modeling: scenarios with remediated pain points
3. Roadmap: blueprint possible steps to reach the future
Storytelling
Stories in experience design practice are widely used at different stages and for different purposes. They usually tend to evolve through the design process. This case represents story as a tool for idea sharing and findings representation to a wider group.
Elaborate the Script:
Write the story script to represent your key findings and conclusions. While telling the plot emphasize to persons, places, activities and motivations. Elaborate on the story with your team members and evolve it.
“A (person) in (place) needs help doing (activity) because (motivation).” — text construction from Storytelling for User Experience by Whitney Quesenbery & Kevin Brooks
Create the Story:
— Place your research findings at the root of the plot
— Represent key involved parties as personas
— Create visual representation for key story steps
— Create user interface concepts to represent possible experiences
Tell the Story:
— Introduce personas acting in the story plot
— Describe situation, how the things are happening with details of actions
— Show experiences that have interest from UX perspective
— Complete story with a happy end
Summary
Practice of mentioned toolset should make individuals more comfortable to face challenges connected to complex business systems. It helps decompose complexity, plan the future and deliver ideas.
We still need to remember that there is no “silver bullet” and each case should have individual consideration. Proper design tools selection is essential for goal achievement. System builder expert is responsible for this toolset. The more tools this person is comfortable with the more agile decisions can be made for successful solution.
Interesting links
- Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance Michael E. Porter
- Design Research Techniques: Backcasting by Dee Balkissoon
- Backcasting: Starting with the end in mind by Pong Leung
- Storytelling for User Experience by Whitney Quesenbery & Kevin Brooks
