A BUSINESS CASE STUDY. Dovase, DIGITAL CRAFTSMANSHIP
The Dovase project first saw the light of day in 2011 in collaboration with master craftsman Juan Carlos Iñesta, and its initial goal was to seek new business models or opportunities that would support craftsmanship, and that would specifically help the craftsman move forward in the new entrepreneurial context. Having carried out an initial mapping process and a preliminary investigation and then following various conversations with experts, specialists in craftsmanship and users, with a view to achieving a better grasp of the problem types found in the sector, a series or facts were identified resulting in the following conclusions:
• Craftsmanship is neither respected nor understood in Spain.
• The growth in the low-cost culture for purchasing goods for the home, aggravated by the increase in the use of 3D printers, whereby formerly impossible shapes can now be made, is undermining and destroying the traditional sector.
• The digital era has not yet reached the sector, so that there has been no coming together of craftsmanship and the web environment outside of traditional e-commerce.
• The DIY culture could be an opportunity.
Based on the insights and goals identified, the “Long live the revolution” project was an effort to adapt the world of the potter to the digital world of the web. The project consisted of an online tool involving the customer and the craftsman whereby people could design their vases with total freedom at the sketching stage and pass the order directly to the craftsman in any part of the world.
The first step was the Concept Sketch (Thought Prototype) as a basis for the conversation with the craftsman. In theory, he would get a good grasp of the idea. The solution seemed quite brilliant, particularly in that it showed that it was possible to manufacture any design that could be created in 2D as long as distances were shown along an axis. Having confirmed the idea with an expert, an initial mock-up was then made. It was a preliminary visualisation employing three images that would make it possible to explain the concept. On the one hand, the goal was to show users what they were interested in and receive suitable feedback, and on the other, to chat with ICT experts and find out whether it was possible to build that idea. Having stimulated a great deal of interest and curiosity on the part of the user, confirming the increased interest in Do It Yourself, and also validating the real possibility of setting up a web portal, the idea stage now lay in the past as the building of the concept moved into place.
Since it was impossible to develop and test the totality of the concept in one pass, a number of prototypes were produced that generated feedback, and that little by little, outlined the path to follow. With a view to gaining greater control over the process, a decision was taken to generate a Prototype Road Map.
• Prototype No. 1. An operational prototype: testing the idea is interesting and users like it. It was necessary to go further than making a mere drawing as the working tool was needed for users to test. To achieve this, the ICT expert ransacked stacks of 3D-generating software to produce a tool that simulated the way in which the customer’s sketch worked, and deposited it onto a tablet so that users could fast-track test it. The feedback was surprising: many people thought it was brilliant and even asked the price. We were on the right track.
• Prototype No. 2. Physical prototypes for display: when testing whether it is possible to manufacture and collect initial feedback from the first products. With the tool created in its minimal expression as a canvas with infinite degrees of freedom, the craftsman said that he was able to reproduce any design created. This meant that there was now something to test. For this purpose, complex designs were produced and handed off to the craftsman for him to work on. Once their technical capacity was validated it was time to go back to the users for further feedback: the original designs seemed surprising and interesting.
• Prototype No. 3. Thought Prototype: understanding web features. Wireframe. After providing the drawing zone and checking that there were no problems regarding manufacture, it was necessary to check out the rest of the tool’s features. To achieve this, for which wireframing was used, the whole of the usage context was defined.
• Prototype No. 4. Minimum Viable Product I: testing the concept on a larger scale. Construction of a web portal (Save Ceramics). In the wake of the previous steps, a first web version was produced on which it was now possible to actually acquire the vase imagined by the user. This was the moment to set aside the control group and attempt to achieve a greater critical mass of users for feedback and knowledge regarding the project. A thousand visits in two weeks, over 600 single visits without any marketing plan whatsoever; just the strategy of drawing and sharing the designs on social media to attract other individuals. Despite the high volume of visitors there were no buyers, although many individuals made contact and asked about buying. This feedback produced a range of questions to be digested and dealt with:
• People were asking for something akin to touching the piece, and asking why, when it was produced on the web, the experience lasted only a couple of seconds during which you could generate your piece, design it and pay for it? Why not include a gallery of options? You could, for example, retain the design, think more about it and so on.
• The majority of users had something very specific in common (two degrees of separation), and you could see how, as we said at the start, craftsmanship was simply not respected: the price per product that was sought, was very low, in fact, even low cost by Ikea standards.
• The brand was inadequate and acted as a brake, since users wanted something special. They were not making the purchase to save either the craftsman or craftsmanship.
• The desired context for use were not just the internet, but instead, increasingly involved the mobile phone.
• Strangely, some users focused on the possibility of directing the idea towards children, since they thought it would be delightful to do it with their children (although the price/production variable made the idea unviable. Even so, it’s worth keeping this type of initiative in mind).
Furthermore, thanks to this prototype it was realised that the technology was inadequate.
• Prototype No. 5. Minimum viable product II: development of the initial product close to the end product (Dovase app prototype). Having spoken with the experts on craft trends, the conclusion was reached that in order to tap into the luxury market (such as made-to-measure vases with a high unit price) you can’t fall back on pity (save ceramics = inadequate Storytelling). We had to adopt a fresh attitude; now we were Dovase, a multi-device app (iPhone, iPad, tablets, smartphones, web). In the initial stage the app was for Android, although with operational shortfalls, since the first version was not provided with everything we wanted to set up. It became obvious that the cost was very high for validation purposes, which meant that by default, the web was used for displaying templates that could be downloaded so that the customer could create his piece and then send a photograph of it. In other words, Prototype No. 5 turned into the move towards Prototype No. 6 out of necessity: the actual Road Map had developed.
Regarding the prototypes described above, mention should be made of two techniques, Qualitative Interviews and User Tests, depending on the prototype and the information we wanted to generate. When we saw what the user’s reaction was to the idea or concept in question, by talking with him and collecting feedback first-hand, we decided to conduct a Qualitative Interview to find out what he liked and what he didn’t, and his general impressions. In return, when a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) was available, the focus was more on the User Test. With preliminary data on whether people were capable of designing their piece via the web and placing an order, the website would either be retouched or not, depending on what was being observed.
As has been pointed out, the project still developed thanks to the continuous action of building and testing, two stages that are closely linked and sometimes overlap. On occasions the people who define the prototype set the test and the information to be discovered (in these cases described, with continuous back-and-forth communication), while on others, it is the prototype of what we are able to create or what has been done that establishes what can be tested (worse focus).
At present, the feedback from this new experiment, currently positive, is being validated and collected, but the effort is being made worthwhile by the simple fact of having achieved the goal and learned in a collateral fashion: to help the artisan. During the process, Juan Carlos Iñesta came to understand that we left behind the age of the product to some degree and entered that of experiences. Likewise, Iñesta saw the possibility of selling not the finished object, but the ability to create it. All this flowed together in the new domain name that we helped to build, DOMANISES (domanises.com), which is now operating on a routine basis.
