CHAPTER 4

Turning Research into Insight and Action

Levels of Insights

Insights-Gathering Methods

Collating and Presenting Your Insights

Summary

The process of gathering insights draws on a range of research methodologies, specifically design, usability, and ethnographic methods. Those familiar with UX design, human-centered design, and product and social design projects will be familiar with many of these methods. This chapter describes how these methods are used in the context of service design as well as why and when we use them.

Most designers work in commercial contexts in which budgets and time are generally pressured. Although it is important to try to bring as much rigor to your research process as possible—not least because it helps prove the business case for it—the goal is not necessarily published research. The goal is usable insight that will improve the quality of the service design projects you are working on. It is essential to realize that any insight is better than none and that insight can become addictive. Once your colleagues and clients have a taste, they will come back for more to validate or prototype your initial assumptions.

So where do you start? The answer is, as ever, “It depends.” Instead of preaching an ideal process that you are unlikely to have the chance to fully execute, the following approaches and examples are grouped into realistic levels and scenarios. This framework will help you think about how to generate insights that will fit the current needs of your team and the business, and it is a good starting point for those new to service design.

Levels of Insights

Regardless of the arguments you make for its power to generate insights, research is often time consuming and thus expensive. Convincing a new client to commit to a large research budget up front and trust that you will come up with something useful may be a stretch. The process is always the age-old trade-off between time, money, and quality. A useful way to think about this is to have a menu of low, middle, and high levels of detail (and effort) to draw from as the situation requires.

Low—What They Say

The low granularity of analysis is basically a summary of what a small sample of around four or five research participants say in relatively short depth interviews (say, 45 minutes), and does not include any other activities, such as in-person observation, workshops, site visits, or testing. Costs include recruitment expenses and any participant incentive. This level of research is unlikely to include a travel budget, so the interviews may need to be conducted in the local area or by telephone or e-mail.

The output produced for the client is a brief executive summary and the top five observations from the depth interviews delivered as a PDF document or in a short presentation. The observations provide some possible quick wins for the client.

Middle—What We Saw

The middle level of analysis provides deeper and more crafted insights based on research with around 10 participants. This deeper level may be of benefit to clients who require the research to have some long-term value beyond a specific project or who need to share it with a bigger group within the company.

The output provides top insights plus a summary, but is more in-depth than the low level of analysis (Figure 4.1). This middle level also prioritizes issues for the project, which are produced from an internal workshop with the client that is conducted by the service design agency. The insights findings may be presented as a written report, presentation slides, a blog, or summary boards (see “Collating and Presenting Your Insights” below for more details).

FIGURE 4.1
An example of a middle-level insights report.

High—What It Means

A highly detailed level of analysis requires more depth interviews and a combination of other insights techniques to generate the data. The analysis in this level is much deeper and more systematic, and includes more about what the insights mean strategically for the industry and the client’s project, along with suggested recommendations and solutions for the client. The output can also be more varied, including those from the low and middle variants, but may extend to a short video or a workshop with the client and/or other stakeholders to share and build on the insights gained through the initial research.

Insights-Gathering Methods

Many of the insights-gathering methods described in this section are drawn from ethnography, but it is important to note that, although we are using ethnographic methods and techniques, we are not doing proper ethnography in its own right. Ethnography is a term that has had some use and abuse by designers over the past few years in the sense of “Yeah, we did some ethnography and then got on with the design work.” Ethnography has a history, approach, and rigor that is much more loosely interpreted for design research, and when we borrow its methodology, we should be respectful of how and why it was developed in the first place—to understand and document the knowledge, relationships, and beliefs of social or cultural groups, often through long-term participant observation of a year or more. Of course, the ideal scenario is to hire a trained ethnographer to work with the design researchers and design team.

Although the following methods are commonly used by those working on service design projects, this list is not exhaustive. Any methods that help you understand people’s motivations and behaviors more deeply, including those methods you may already be using in interaction or UX work, will contribute to a service design project.

Depth Interviews

Depth interviews are long, in-context interviews that tend to be fairly open in their structure. They are an inspiring and productive way of generating insights into an individual’s perceptions, behaviors, and needs. They are also good for uncovering values, opinions, explicit and latent information, interactions, and idea inspiration. These interviews are usually guided by a theme, and they provide an opportunity to explore relevant issues in depth with participants, query and verify what they say, and achieve consensus on what they mean. The results of depth interviews compare very favorably with those from focus groups and are less expensive to undertake. Angus Jenkinson, director of the Centre for Integrated Marketing at the University of Bedfordshire Business School, argues that focus groups are structurally problematic because each member gets only a few minutes to speak and even these short interactions are influenced by social pressures. In contrast, in-depth interviews offer deeper insights and are better value for the money.¹

Interviews are the most efficient way to engage with people in their own context and allow them to explain how they see things. This means using a number of techniques to make interviews as engaging, informal, and as interactive as possible through drawing and other creative activities. An engaging interview is the key to a productive rapport.

Meet participants in their own homes or places of work to bring ethnographic context to the interview (Figure 4.2). If you want to learn about how people carry out their activities in the workplace, for example, interviewing them at home will be of limited use. When in the context of their workplace, however, many visual prompts will be present that can help direct the conversation, and you can take photographs or film the things the participant is talking about. Workplace interviews have some limitations, however, which are discussed in “Business-to-Business Depth Interviews” below.

FIGURE 4.2
A depth interview in the participant’s home environment.

Encourage other members of the design team to attend and engage so they can share the experience of meeting users and discovering insights. Occasionally, you may want to ask clients to attend the interviews, too, but this can be a double-edged sword. Clients will obtain a greater understanding of the methods and project results, and they are often energized and excited when hearing this feedback firsthand, but they need to be prepared to remain passive. Some clients can manage this, but others want to jump in and correct a participant’s misunderstanding of their brand or product, which closes down the participant’s range of responses very quickly and skews the outcome of the interview. In some cases, even the presence of a person representing the company can close down participants’ responses, but it might equally give frustrated users a sense of being heard and encourage them to open up and vent about all of the things that have annoyed them. However, interviewees should never be corrected about something they are explaining, even if they are completely wrong. Instead, ask them how or why they know what they are saying; it will reveal a lot more.

The way participants tell their own stories provides researchers with a rich resource for identifying how they perceive and articulate the subject. Priorities and embellishments are helpful indicators of what is valuable to them, so rather than impose structure, use a loose interview guide to ensure you cover the themes and material you need, and then coax out detail and verify that you have understood their perspective. Depth interviews differ from other methods because they allow the time to uncover this level of detail. They may range from around 45 minutes (probably the shortest usable time, unless you have only a tiny window of time with an expert or top manager) to two or three hours, especially if you are asking someone to show you around his or her home or workplace.

Variations on the Depth Interview

Two other types of depth interview are focused more on specific questions than the open interviews described above: consumer interviews in pairs and business-to-business (B2B) interviews. They differ slightly in terms of what you are trying or able to discover and in terms of the interpersonal dynamics and structure.

Interviewing Consumers in Pairs

For some people, a one-to-one interview can feel imposing and exposing, although a good interviewer should be able to put them at ease quickly. In one-to-one situations, consumers in particular may say what they think you want to hear. For this reason, we find consumer research interviews conducted with couples or pairs of friends can be more useful than interviews with individuals because the subjects feed off each other’s answers and build on them. If they know each other well, they are likely to feel more comfortable and give genuine answers. We have found that pairs provide the most truthful feedback, and of course, you get two people’s opinions in the same time it takes to interview one person. In this respect, pairs represent the best value for the client.

One thing to be careful of is when one person puts opinions in the mouth of the other. This usually happens with couples in long-term relationships more than with friends. A husband might explain to the interviewer that his wife hates a particular TV show or that she knows nothing about how their home entertainment equipment is set up, for example. The dynamics of the relationship might mean that she does not contradict this statement during the interview, even if it is not true. Even if it is true, if it is part of the research topic, you will want to find out why she does not like a particular show. Perhaps the reason is that her husband always complains loudly when it is on, and it has nothing to do with the show itself. On the other hand, the wife might also contradict her husband by revealing that he has no idea how the home entertainment system works either. We have experienced this kind of “he said/she said” thing in more than one interview over the years.

As Ben Scales from the Association for Qualitative Research says, “Friendship or family cells provide a natural form of censorship. After all, it’s hard to exaggerate about your behavior when you’ve got someone sitting next to you who knows you well.”²

Children or teenagers tend to feel uncomfortable when interviewed on their own (and conducting such interviews may be considered inappropriate in some cultures and contexts), so you are better off interviewing them in pairs. Be aware, however, that they will almost certainly try to impress each other, especially at certain ages (teenage boys, for example).³

Business-to-Business Depth Interviews

One-to-one depth interviews are best used in B2B situations or when interviewing client stakeholders. You may be interviewing business customers or suppliers of your client. In a one-to-one context, they are more likely to tell you things about their company that they might not say in front of their colleagues or superiors. Also, B2B interviews can be difficult to set up if more than one person is involved because their schedules may conflict with each other’s and with yours.

Interviewing or observing people at their place of work is useful, especially if you are interested in the workplace context and their workflow, but if you are asking people to talk openly about their feelings about their job, then B2B interviews may be better conducted in a neutral environment, such as a coffee shop. People may not be comfortable talking about work in their home, and they may not be as open and honest if interviewed in the workplace.

Sometimes you have no choice about where or with whom you conduct interviews. Some insight from an interview conducted in less than optimal conditions is usually better than none at all, unless it really appears to be contradictory or the conditions have skewed the responses too much. In the end, field researchers cannot avoid these elements, just as they cannot completely jettison their own cultural baggage and interpretations. Most people think they can be objective, but this is an illusion. Sometimes you just do not develop a rapport with interviewees or their views are so different from yours that it is hard not to react negatively, even if only through unconscious body language. Due to a last-minute scheduling change, Andy once found himself interviewing a group of lawyers from an oil exploration company about hydrogen fuel cell transportation options for the future. Needless to say, the atmosphere was not particularly open and jovial. The best that you can do in these situations is to be aware of these influences and take them into account when making interpretations of the transcripts and other data, or to simply thank the interviewees and end the interviews early.

Preparing for Interviews

Indi Young’s Mental Models has a very good section on setting up interviews, with detailed advice about working out who to recruit and dealing with research participant recruitment agencies.⁴ Below is a general overview of the process that we usually follow.

• Recruit: This step can take two to three weeks, so it should be started early. If possible, use a recruitment company to do the hard work of recruiting interviewees. This may seem expensive but saves a lot of time. You need to be as clear as possible with the recruiters about who you need. More unusual participants (such as farriers or specific medical patients) may need to be sourced with the client’s help. You can also use your own (real or virtual) social networks to interview friends of friends. This can help create an instant level of trust with someone who is still essentially a stranger.
• Research: You may not know much about the topic you are interviewing on. If this is the case, you may need to research the area, but don’t spend too much time on it. Sometimes it is best to be a little naïve because it prevents you from making assumptions; otherwise, you will have to learn to ask deliberately naïve questions.
• Plan the topics: When you have found out more, construct a prompt card. This should be a list of topics you want to cover during the interview, not a strict list of specific questions. The interview should be a conversation, not an interrogation.
• Design the tools: Design appropriate paper activities to make the interview more engaging and interactive (see “Probes and Tools” below).
• Prepare: Think through the details of going out to do the depth interviews (see “Practicalities of Conducting Insights Research” below).

Participant Observation

Participant observation, or shadowing, provides rich, in-depth, and accurate insights into how people use products, processes, and procedures. It is very useful for understanding context, behavior, motivations, interactions, and the reality of what people do, rather than what they say they do. It gives good depth and insight into latent needs—the things people actually need, but perhaps do not know that they need because they are so used to their old routine.

Observation is usually quite time consuming in comparison to other insights methods and can be difficult to arrange because someone must be prepared to have you accompany them for a few hours or a full day. In some situations, such as shadowing someone trying to find their way around a public transit system, this method is not too invasive. In workplace situations, it can be trickier because a sales representative may not want you sitting there while he or she is in a meeting with a customer, or people may be uncomfortable discussing confidential information in front of you, even if you have signed a nondisclosure agreement.

Short observations are a useful starting point when the team is not familiar with the area being researched. They give you a sense of the atmosphere and environment in which people are carrying out activities (e.g., buying, selling, giving a diagnosis, receiving treatment). They can also give you a good sense of activity flows (e.g., new patients’ names are written on the whiteboard and entered into the computer, and a blue file is used to mark their nonemergency status). Longer, in-depth observations can be used to uncover fresh insights into even familiar activities. Sometimes the fact that a task is very commonly carried out can blind people to the opportunities for improvement.

It is essential with this type of research to carry out the observations in the participant’s natural environment, such as an office, home, or in the context of an activity, such as trying to find the right train across town (Figure 4.3). Otherwise, you will have nothing to observe, or you will be observing tasks out of their usual context.

FIGURE 4.3
Participant observation on Norway’s transport system.

The goals of participant observation depend on who the participant is, whether a customer or a business. Observing customers means observing people in their everyday lives. This method is useful when working with customers to uncover how they use and engage with products and services. Observing the participant in a professional role is often done when working with clients to help uncover how their internal procedures can be improved.

When observing, there are two approaches you can take: the fly-on-the-wall method in which you just observe and pretend not to be there, or a more active approach in which you interact with users by asking them questions about what they are doing. People do all sorts of strange and wonderful things when they work or use something, and they often have developed their own workarounds for problems with a system, service, or interface. Even if you think you can see their rationale, it helps to act a little naïve and ask them to explain what they are doing and why.

Preparing for Participant Observation

Here are some steps to follow when planning participant observations.

• Recruit: Arranging these sessions can be tricky because you are intruding into someone’s life and workflow. You don’t want to get in the way or miss anything, so good planning is essential and you need to be sure to find the best candidate in the organization for your research goals.
• Set expectations: Make sure you understand what the client wants from the insights activity so that you are aware of what to look out for when observing. This understanding will also help with analysis. Create a list of questions that you want answered to serve as a guide for what to watch for. At the same time, it is important to remain open to whatever presents itself during the observation period. You don’t want to miss something interesting because you have your nose buried in your notes.
• Design the tools: To record the activity, you may want to create some paper activities for you or the participant to complete (discussed in “Probes and Tools” below).
• Prepare: Each observation activity is unique, so preparation is important. Think about what you should wear and how you will record what you observe. Decide how much time you will need to spend in observation to obtain the information you require.

FIGURE 4.4
Becoming the user or a member of the client’s staff for a day is an enlightening way to gain user insights. Don’t forget to dress the part as Natalie Mcghee and Sean Miller have done here.

Participation—Becoming the User

Participation is a very involved but enlightening way to gain user insights. It is not just a way to study or document the user’s lifestyle or occupation, but allows you to become part of the user group you are researching (Figure 4.4).

Participation can provide researchers with a unique, firsthand understanding of the way users feel and behave, and it is an excellent strategy for developing empathy and asking questions clients might not think of. Researchers can experience things for themselves that may be hard for someone to describe to them.

We encourage clients to try the participation technique of becoming their own customers. This helps them empathize with their customers and allows them to uncover insights and ideas for improvement for themselves, not just hear it secondhand from us. For many clients, this activity can be quite daunting, but it can also be an exciting and engaging experience for them. The client-as-customer approach can also be done with the service safari described below.

Participation activities can be as simple as being a mystery shopper or as complex as getting a job with the client to experience being a new employee. When it is not possible to literally become your users—because they have a disability, for example—you can simulate the experience. To feel what it is like to use a service’s touchpoints as an elderly person, you could wear an “aging suit” made up of heavy gloves to simulate stiffness and loss of dexterity in the hands, a helmet/visor to limit vision, and other elements to restrict movement.⁵ You can spend the day in a wheelchair to see what it is like to go shopping or use public transportation.⁶

Preparing for Participation

Here are a few specific tips to bear in mind when planning to use the participation method.

• Be open: You may have to do things you haven’t done before; it is important to be open and embrace them. You want to avoid distracting the people you are studying by having them look after you.
• Be organized: Good planning is essential. You are about to wade into someone else’s workspace and workflow. You are also likely to be representing your client to the public or your client’s customers. Treat what you are doing with the same respect you would show any real job. Some things will happen spontaneously, so have everything you need to document the situation at hand.
• Document: Choose the most suitable method for recording the task you are carrying out. Do not insist on sticking a camera in someone’s face when discreet note taking would be more appropriate.

Service Safaris

A service safari gives participants—usually members of the project team from the client side—firsthand experience of other (sometimes seemingly unrelated) services (Figure 4.5). Participants use these other services for a few hours or even a day. Some of the services to be explored should be outside the client’s own industry, which enables participants to be more objective about how the services they experience are delivered. This experience may provide ideas that they can transfer back to their own business.

FIGURE 4.5
A service safari allows you or your client to experience being a customer of another service and try out a range of different experiences, both good and bad.

A service safari can help stimulate clients to enlarge, shift, and reframe the way they think about serving their customers because they are seeing themselves as the service user instead of the service provider. This empathy for their customers will help innovate fresh ideas. It is an excellent technique to use when redesigning an existing service and can prove valuable when designing a new service because it helps inspire new service ideas.

Service safaris are usually best used in conjunction with a workshop or sketching session. This helps clients translate what they have learned from the safari into ideas for their business and provides inspiring material to kick off those sessions. It can be a great icebreaker for teams just starting to get to grips with service design.

Preparing for a Service Safari

Planning a service safari can be time consuming. Here are some points to consider.

• Budget: Service safaris can be expensive, so it is important to agree on a budget with the client before organizing anything.
• Research: Choose the services you want the clients to experience. We usually go for a mix of services that we think will be really good or really bad (but these can be surprising).
• Plan: After deciding which services the clients should try, you may need to book these activities. Draw up a clear schedule of what each client will do on the safari. Participants should be provided with the money needed to pay for the activities on their service safari, and they should be sent out on their own (individually or in groups), but not with members of the service design team.
• Prepare the tools: Each group on the safari should be provided with tools to document each service, typically a camera and a journal, perhaps one prepared ahead of time with pointers on what to look out for or with a specific structure for notes.
• Debrief: When the participants come back from the safari, they should present their findings and create a list of good and bad aspects of the services. This can be the first activity of a workshop.

User Workshops

Focus groups can be full of people telling you what they think you want to hear or who are influenced by others in the group, so you might prefer to do co-design user workshops. Encourage pairs of friends to attend, as they are likely to be more comfortable with this dynamic and more truthful in their answers. These kinds of workshops are a great way to quickly produce large numbers of insights and ideas.

Use probe-like tasks (see “Probes and Tools” below) in these workshops to warm up participants and start generating useful discussion (Figure 4.6). These tasks can help less dominant participants, who may not be comfortable speaking in front of a group, express themselves through another medium. Encourage participants to develop their own ideas, and use sketching or collage making to help people get out of their normal, verbal mode of thinking.

FIGURE 4.6
User workshops are a good alternative to focus groups.

Preparing for a User Workshop

When planning to conduct a user workshop, here are a few tips to consider.

• Recruit: It can take two to three weeks to set up a workshop, so recruit early. You should try to recruit friendship pairs or couples rather than individuals. Groups of 4 to 16 people are ideal for a user workshop.
• Prepare the venue: Arrange a suitable venue for the workshop that is large and comfortable enough for everyone to work on the activities. Sometimes participant recruiters can assist with finding a suitable space. Arrange for food and beverages, if required. Offering food before a workshop is scheduled to begin can help get participants there on time. If the venue has little wall area, you may want to take along some foam-core or display boards to use as temporary post-up spaces.
• Create a schedule: Draw up a realistic timetable of what will be done and when. You will almost certainly run out of time for all the things you have planned, at least the first few times you conduct a workshop. Be prepared to skip over some activities and be clear about which ones are more important than others. It is useful to have a backup plan, just in case.
• Design the tools: Spend some time designing the tools required to engage people in the activities. Make sure you have enough copies of any worksheets, as well as plenty of pens, pencils, markers, glue sticks, scissors, sticky notes, masking tape, and any other tools you might need, such as building blocks or modeling clay.
• Document: The client may want documentation of the workshop. Video is sometimes requested, but usually photos and the materials produced in the workshop are enough. If you do need to film the workshop and you are the facilitator, ask someone else from your team to do the recording. You will not have time to attend to this task properly and facilitate well. A simple approach is to set up a camera on a tripod in one place and just record any presentations given by the groups.

Probes and Tools

Probes and tools are useful aids for the insights research approaches described above. Using only verbal inputs during interviews or workshops can be limiting. Some people can describe or envisage their world, thoughts, feelings, and relationships better through images, diagrams, sketches, and activities.

FIGURE 4.7
Depth interview probes from a project for the National Maritime Museum.

Probes are task-based insights activities that are good for generating insights with minimum influence from the researcher and bringing out views in quieter participants (Figure 4.7). These are more formally called cultural probes, as developed by Bill Gaver of the Royal College of Art.⁷

Probes can be used during an interview session to engage participants, or they can be left with interviewees to complete over time. Sometimes it is useful to leave a probe task with users to gain insight into other parts of their lives or to record an event that happens over time and cannot be studied in an interview situation.

Preparing Probes and Tools

Probes can be personalized according to the client’s requirements. Probes can take some time to define, so it is best to look at what has already been done for inspiration. Below are some examples of what we have developed and used in the past, but it is by no means an exhaustive list. Plenty of examples of cultural probes and other interview aids can be found online and in the literature. Consider them as tools for your research toolbox and add to your collection as you come across or develop more over the years. Roberta Tassi’s Service Design Tools website (www.servicedesigntools.org) is a great place to share them, too.

The tools that you use most frequently for interviews and workshops can be assembled in travel kits ahead of time. If you replenish the kits after each session, you will have everything you need for the next session and be less likely to forget something important.

Events Timelines and Journey Maps

Timelines are used to record an event or journey experienced by a person or group over time. You can set it up as a simple continuum with the present day in the middle and a certain amount of time—weeks, months, years—on either side, depending on your goal. For example, you could ask people to map their vacation travel over a period of 10 years to get a sense of their changing lifestyles (Figure 4.8), or ask people to map their health over time. Asking participants to look back over time usually helps them make more realistic predictions about their future needs and wishes, and it can help them highlight present needs and worries. This can be done with individuals on a single sheet of paper (a prepared template is helpful), but you can also create one as a group using sticky notes on the wall, allowing you to gather insights into the history of a group or organization as well as where they want to head in the future.

FIGURE 4.8
A timeline for mapping tourism experiences over a 10-year period.

Diaries

Diaries are used to ask people to document an event or period of time. These can be done in paper format, as voice recordings, or as a video diary. You can also ask people to include photographs alongside their writing. Diaries often reveal more intimate thoughts and feelings about people’s lives—more than they might tell you in an interview. A student of Andy’s had great success with diaries in a project about the loved ones of dementia sufferers. Although it was too upsetting to talk about in an interview, one participant wrote down some very moving insights in her diary about her and her husband’s social life as his signs of Alzheimer’s disease started to show. The downside of this kind of self-documentation is that you only get what participants want you to see or what they think is important, and unless you interview them again later, you cannot ask follow-up questions about specific points.

Diaries can take structured or open forms. You can put together a list of things you want people to self-document, such as writing down the time and details of their usage of a mobile device (Figure 4.9). Or you can leave them to write what they want in a blank notebook. The structured form helps you compare and collate the data, but the open form gives you more qualitative personal detail (that will probably be more work to analyze).

If you have the time and budget, it is helpful to put together a custom diary for participants. It can be as simple as applying a sticker to an off-the-shelf notebook, or creating a spiral-bound booklet made up of templates you have printed out. Your effort in putting together attractive, professional materials will be recognized by participants, and they will likely take your project more seriously.

FIGURE 4.9
People often reveal more intimate thoughts and feelings about their lives in diaries than they would give in interviews. This structured diary, for a research project by Swisscom, is a record of the participant’s mobile device usage.

FIGURE 4.10
Venn diagrams are a useful way of getting people to visually group together activities or behaviors. This one asks participants to assign healthcare issues to themselves, their general practitioner (GP), or a specialist in order to understand how people relate to health services.

Venn Diagrams

Venn diagrams are a useful tool in interviews and workshops because they can be adapted to many different subjects. They are a way of getting people to visually group together activities or behaviors (Figure 4.10). For example, you can use Venn diagrams to ask what participants do or do not feel comfortable doing on the Internet, who they go to for healthcare advice, or what information should be on various sections of a website.

You can either bring a template prepared in advance or simply draw one on a blank sheet of paper; one advantage is that no graphic design skills are needed to create them. If you create a large one to hang on the wall, a group of people can post items within the circles on sticky notes. This exercise promotes discussion and allows participants to move items around.

With Venn diagrams, you must have sets that make sense to overlap with each other, otherwise the middle section will never get filled in. The overlapping area often reveals the sweet spot of the project’s focus.

Brand Sheets

A brand sheet is a simple tool and it is one that is always worth having in your bag or on your laptop for interviews. It is simply a sheet of logos of different products and services (Figure 4.11). The idea is to uncover what brands people use, the choices they make, and why. Sometimes people forget about all the goods and services they use or how they feel about them. They might use some brands only a few times a year, whereas others are so ubiquitous that people do not give them any thought. Visual material, such as logos or key brand touchpoints (listing magazines they read, websites they use, shops they visit, and so on), act as discussion prompts and generate great insights. You can bet that at least one of the logos will prompt a rant or a customer experience story from each participant.

FIGURE 4.11
A brand sheet can help elicit responses about people’s relationships to the more abstract services they may use.

Probe Cameras

A disposable camera is an essential part of a cultural probe kit (Figure 4.12). A camera can be given to a user with a list of instructions about what to photograph, sometimes with a request to write accompanying notes. If you create a custom cardboard wrapper with instructions printed on the back, participants will not have to fiddle around with an extra sheet of paper. The instructions may ask the participants to photograph their desk, their home, recycling bins, someone they admire, their last meal, the last item they purchased, and so on.

FIGURE 4.12
Disposable cameras with custom covers ready to be sent out to participants in a research project.

Camera probes, like diaries, are useful because people will photograph intimate things or activities that they might not have let an interviewer photograph. Cameras can also be very useful when it is not cost effective to send a researcher to do observations. You can send out a kit to the participants instead.

If participants need to return the cameras by mail, don’t forget to provide a stamped and addressed envelope. If you don’t want to wait for the disposable cameras to be developed, you can provide a set of cheap digital cameras or ask people to use their mobile phones.

Given the ubiquity of smartphones, most of which have good cameras, you can simply ask people to take a series of photos with their phones and e-mail them to you or post them online. The advantage is that you can ask a lot of people to take part via e-mail. The disadvantage is that it is less structured (the photos might be posted in any order, whereas a film camera has a fixed sequence) and it is easy for people to forget or only do half of the task. Most people like to have a special object in their hands and will make more of an effort if you have done so from your side by providing the camera.

Photograph Lists

Photograph lists are often used when going on insights interviews (Figure 4.13). It is always good to take pictures of interviewees and their homes or environment to create context when writing up and presenting interviews. When you sit down together to go over a neutral list, people are more comfortable saying what they do and do not want you to photograph. It is easier to gain permission to take photographs of things this way because people are social animals and tend to want to help a researcher fulfil a task they have been set by someone else. If you just ask for permission verbally, you are more likely to be perceived as just being personally nosey.

FIGURE 4.13
Showing participants a list of items you would like to photograph gives them the opportunity to state up front what they are comfortable with, and makes it seem less like you are just being nosey.

Visual Interpretations

Sometimes participants can be more expressive when drawing a visual interpretation of something than they can be with words (Figure 4.14). The fact that drawing is trickier for some also helps participants get out of their normal verbal arguments and routines. This technique is great for young children and for getting participants to express their emotions. It is important to make sure people do not feel pressure to “draw well” and that they understand any kinds of doodles or style are more than okay. The drawings can make excellent artifacts when presenting the results of your research.

FIGURE 4.14
Drawings and doodles allow participants to be more expressive than they might be with words. This participant—Samuel Frei, a former student of Andy’s—was particularly good at sketching the way he thought about his bank card, but even simple, rough sketches can get the point across.

Item Labels

Participants can be given tags or labels with instructions to use them to point out objects within their homes that have particular attributes, such as “most treasured” or “impulse purchase.” You can even provide first-, second-, and third-prize rosettes and ask people to rank objects in their home according to particular criteria (Figure 4.15). The idea behind all of these labels is to start a conversation about why an object is thought of in a particular way. You will soon find that participants start telling stories about their possessions and, through this process, their personal values and beliefs will become apparent.

FIGURE 4.15
Asking participants to attach tags or labels to items that are important to them can stimulate conversation. This participant gave his computer monitor a “1st Place” rosette. (Photograph by Lea Tschudi)

Practicalities of Conducting Insights Research

None of the methods described above is particularly difficult, but when people first start doing this kind of research, they are tempted to try them all at once. If you fall into this trap, you will get in a muddle and end up with a massive load of data that probably lacks focus.

Methods are tools and, like any other tool, sometimes it is the right one for the job and sometimes not. If you are not getting the kind of insights you need, try a different approach. Sometimes you might find that the “wrong” tool borrowed from another discipline works really well, rather like using a screwdriver to open a can of paint. You should be able to back up your research, but don’t become a method fundamentalist. In the end, it is the results that you get and how rigorous and actionable they are that matter, not whether you used method A versus method B.

This kind of field research requires practice. If you have never done it before, you will make mistakes. There is a lot more to think about and a lot more multitasking required than most people who have never done it imagine. Try lining up less “important” interviews earlier on, such as people not really in your target group or friends who would not mind repeating the interview if necessary. This helps you practice your interview routine before you get to the CEO or the expert who only has a 30-minute time window for you.

Here are some more tips to help things run smoothly.

Be Prepared

Know what you want to find out, but don’t be afraid of going a little off track if the subject goes in an interesting direction. Have some questions to ask, but not hundreds. Have areas and themes you want to cover and use these to direct the conversation. An interview should not be an interrogation, but it can quickly turn into one if you are nervous. The solution for being nervous? Be prepared.

Getting There

Make sure you know exactly where you are going. Get a map of the local area (or get your smartphone loaded up with a map or navigation app). Have a contact number for the person you are visiting and have your phone fully charged and in silent mode. Make sure you are on time. If you are going to be late, let the interviewee know. Meet the cultural expectations for punctuality. For example, in Britain and the United States, arriving too early can be worse than arriving late. In Germany and Switzerland, five minutes early is considered almost too late.

Identify Yourself

Introduce yourself when you arrive, and give the participant your business card as proof that you are who you say you are. If you are a student, take a letter from your institution signed by your lecturer. Business cards are so cheap to digitally print these days, however, it is worth having some printed up with your name and contact details. The participant should also be given your contact details because he or she may have the right to withdraw information at any time. Before you start the interview, briefly describe your organization, the general subject and purpose of the interview, and what you will be doing with the data you collect.

Taking Pictures

The process of photography can spark new conversations that might not have happened just by asking questions. Taking panoramas of rooms can help record many things you might miss in single shots. It can be helpful to ask participants to point out interesting things you should photograph. The things they see as important or valued can provide insights in themselves.

The kind of camera you use can be important. If it is too big and professional looking, it can be intimidating for participants. A combination of small but high-quality digital cameras and mobile phone cameras are usually fine (smartphone cameras can be high quality, but often fail in poor lighting). It is important to tell people why you are taking photos and how they will be used. If participants prefer that you not photograph something, don’t push them. Tell them you understand, but try to keep a mental image instead and then write it down immediately after the visit while it is still fresh in your mind.

Materials

Bringing materials with you for users to fill in or discuss can really help get the conversation going. If you give participants a simple paper task, it can work not only as a record for you to keep and refer to but also as an icebreaker. As participants engage in the task, they might ask questions that lead to new and interesting topics.

Keep the materials fairly low key. Sketches of a website can lead to much more open comments than having perfect printouts of mockup screens, for example. When people see a mock-up printout, they will often assume the design is set in stone, whereas a sketch is obviously a work in progress and elicits more constructive criticism.

When making materials for people to use after a visit, such as a probe camera or a diary, it is again important to get the right balance between professional and handmade. If something is too perfect, participants will not want to spoil it. If it is too generic (such as a store-bought blank notebook), they may ignore it.

Dress Appropriately

“Dressing down” can be even more important than “dressing up.” When visiting people in their homes, you probably do not want to wear a suit. This level of formality can keep people from feeling at ease and affect the way they respond to your questions. Likewise, scruffy jeans and T-shirts don’t work well when interviewing bank managers at their workplace.

We find that the office-casual approach works well for home visits, and we keep our suits and ties for the formal visits. At the risk of sounding like your mother, home visits also require decent socks! You may be asked to remove your shoes when entering someone’s home, and holes in your socks are not a good start to an interview.

If you are shadowing someone in their job, it is best to dress as they would (Figure 4.16). If you are researching within an organization that has some kind of uniform, it might be appropriate to wear the uniform. Whether you can do this or not is a decision that must be made by the organization you are working with, but can really help the other uniformed workers relate to you. It shows that you have made an effort to literally step into their shoes. Remember, though, that you are now representing your client’s company, especially if you are in a customer-facing environment, so take it seriously. A customer will not know that you are not a member of the staff and may ask you for help. If it is something more than asking directions to the restroom, you may want to explain that you are just there to do some research and politely point them in the direction of a real staff member.

FIGURE 4.16
Ben dressed in scrubs for some insights research at a hospital. A participating researcher needs to wear the right clothes to fit in.

Release Forms

Make sure the participant has signed the release form that you have prepared in advance. Typically, you should do this at the start of the interview, but it pays to double-check at the end; and in some spontaneous interview research (such as at an event where you want to capture immediate reactions), you might only be able to do it afterward. The release is a contract between your agency and the participant stating that the participant has given consent for his or her opinions to be used. It should also state how you intend to use the interview material and the level of confidentiality. You should take two copies of this document to the interview, one for the participant to keep and one to retain for your records.

Incentives

Depending on the subject of the research, incentives might be appropriate. For some projects, such as those involving health issues or the local community, people may be willing to help for free. For other, more commercial projects, an incentive can help ensure that participants feel committed to taking the interview seriously. The incentive might be cash, a voucher, or other benefit. Make sure you get participants to sign something to say they have received their incentive (this can be part of the release form).

Thank People

It is important to properly thank people at the end of the visit and to convey just how valuable their contribution is to the project. Many people will wonder why you are so interested in their lives. They may think they have been telling you banal facts, so telling them just how interesting and useful their input has been will end the session on a good note.

Collating and Presenting Your Insights

In Chapter 5, we look at mapping out a service ecology and the process of service design blueprinting in detail, which is how we start to visualize and understand the complexity of a service and make sense of our data. The insights we have gathered flow into this process, but first we need to synthesize the data that we have collected into a form that can be presented and discussed.⁸

The different forms we can use are relatively standard in design. They range from sticky notes, whiteboard sketches, and printouts on the wall to digital tools and more formal presentation forms. Below are three approaches to working with the results of insights research that we find useful.

Insights Blogs

A blog is essential for larger insights research projects and for when a client needs insights feedback quickly. It provides a complete record of interviews or other insights research that can easily be accessed and digested by the client. A blog allows the project to be shared with the entire company, promoting longevity (Figure 4.17). Blogs also prove useful as archives and can usually be exported in a number of common formats if they need to be taken offline.

Blogs can be set up quickly on intranet or extranet servers, and are easily updated by multiple researchers. This is especially useful on projects with nationwide or international scope, with researchers collecting data independently from remote locations. You can even set up a template so they have a standard form to use for writing and uploading their data, which helps bring some conformity to the qualitative data and makes it easier to compare.

FIGURE 4.17
An insights blog is a useful way to collate, present, and share data.

Insights Boards

Insights boards can be used to present insights based on real people who have been interviewed as an alternative to using fabricated personas. It is important to include photographs on each board to help people relate to the participant.

The boards should be able to be read at three levels: a headline quote, a series of key insights (backed up with quotes), and a larger paragraph of narrative text (Figure 4.18). Boards are often used to present insights in a client workshop as a way to get people thinking about improvements and innovations. Incidentally, insights blogs often use a similar format, with headline quote, key insights, and text, but more detail can be included in the blog entries than will fit onto a physical board. On the other hand, physical boards are more useful in a workshop than a digital version on a projector, which can only display one image at a time. Boards can all remain on display for inspiration and reference.

FIGURE 4.18
Insights can be printed on large boards for presentation of the research insights or for inspiration in a workshop setting.

Client Workshops

Presenting insights in a workshop environment is a good way to help clients understand the results. Together you can discover needs and opportunities and use these insights as inspiration to help generate ideas, usually in the form of sketches. This shows the value of this kind of research to the client and involves them in the design process early on, which should make it easier to explain your design solutions later on in the project.

The ideal client workshop size is 6 to 12 people. Bigger numbers do not necessarily mean better ideas and can sometimes degenerate into factions or leave certain participants isolated. On the other hand, a project might require bringing different groups of people together, which will mean your workshop might be bigger than this. In that case you will need to mix the groups to avoid factions and also have more moderators and helpers there to guide the individual groups (Figure 4.19). In some cases, you might have clients and customers in a mixed workshop to explore how to improve services or to test out some new propositions or prototypes.

FIGURE 4.19
Client workshops help people discover needs, opportunities, and new ideas. This is a large workshop with moderated mixed groups of different stakeholders.

Our advice for preparing user workshops also goes for preparing client workshops. It may not always be possible, but try to find a venue outside of the client’s offices. People are often able to think more creatively when they are not in their usual work environment. Be well prepared! The stakes are somewhat higher with client workshops, because you are on display, but this means you also have an opportunity to show clients what you do and get them involved—something that many designers in other disciplines never get the chance to do.