I was thrilled to start my day of technical sessions hearing about how Intel labs research is driving technology innovation with a strong influence from real consumers from all over the world.
In “Interactions and Experiences Research: A New Intel Lab with a Bold Vision,” Michael Payne, the Experience Design Lab Director, and Horst Haussecker, the Experience Technology Lab Director, told us that interaction and experience research (IXR) is Intel’s bold bet that consumer insight matters– in areas from silicon to software. Working directly with consumers is giving Intel a strong vision of what features future technologies should support, based on consumer need and demand. IXR is helping Intel create experiences people love. Horst joked that he is in the business of making love. (Not a bad gig, if you can get it!) It’s not just about how people interact with technology, but how they interact with each other, both in person and when apart. The Lab brings together ethnographers, developers, anthropologists, design researchers, and human factors experts–a new approach for Intel. These individuals spend time with real people, observing, learning about, and understanding their changing media behavior, and discovering their pain points and tech-related coping mechanisms. IXR makes sense of it all, and brings insight into the process. Intel is sharing that insight throughout the company and with partners to help drive technology growth and innovation. I am impressed that the lab is building real, functional prototypes and exploring what it takes to integrate technology that is on the cutting edge. It’s difficult to predict whether people will really use something the way you expect until you put it in their hands. Building products that people love takes a deep understanding of what they care about, rigorous process of design and iteration, and tech that delivers an experience, not a usage. In his keynote, Dadi talked about the continuum of experiences across devices, places, people and contexts. The Intel Lab is helping to bring the insights of consumers from all over the world to the engineers and designers who are creating needed consistency and flexibility across that continuum. Between sessions, I had the best OH at IDF. Overheard just outside the restrooms: “This is the one place where there is always a line for the men’s room, and never a line for the women’s. Tech conferences. I love ‘em!” One of the things that struck me in a number of sessions today is how forward-looking it is for Intel to seek global input on product development and planning. In an afternoon session, “Social Forces that Drive Technology Adoption,” with anthropologists Kathi Kitner and Dr. Dawn Nafus, the focus was on cultural differences and the social viability of business in new markets. The panelists offered a triad of social forces that determine social viability–citizenship, class, and individual agency. Citizenship is not nationality, but how people come to feel that they belong to a society. Class is how the social hierarchy is structured. (Interestingly, 90% of Americans self-report as middle-class.) Individual agency is who gets control of what. The transition from desktop to notebook profoundly changed who controls the machine. With mobility comes distributed control. Each social force plays out to a greater or lesser degree in different places and times, and impacts features, product positing, business models, and more. The SWOT Analysis was proposed as a three-step method to evaluate and consider potential social impacts. The first step: Diagnose the social forces that have the greatest impact on the program. The second step: Analyze how social forces are impacting social and/or business goals. The third step: Strategize how best to adapt and accommodate these social forces for the purposes of the program. Three case studies showed the value of understanding and managing social forces in different countries with vastly different social expectations.- In Kenya, there is M-Pesa–an SMS-based payment system that uses a network of airtime resellers. It was started as a DFID development program to bank the unbanked. Previously, banking was inaccessible and access to ATMs unpredictable, discouraging bank use. By marketing M-Pesa as a nationally accessible, for-everyone service, the company has gone private and grown to 7 million customers in two years.
- Class systems are deeply embedded in Mexico. There are mixed feeling about foreign products, but there is a mystique to them, and a sense of them being better. Walmart opened stores in Mexico in the 1980s, and played up “the foreign” in marketing. They created an image of being high-class and bought up existing banking services and retail brands. At the same time, they broadcast the idea that everyone has to shop somewhere. In rigid class structures, smart retailers give people permission to desire.
- In Digital City, China, on the border of Russia and China, is the Suifenhe Cyberport, which has the most advanced digital infrastructure of any municipality in the world. The mayor researched, organized, and now operates the program, which includes wireless build-out, surveillance, payment systems for utilities and consumption, in-home learning, remote diagnosis, and online systems for cross-border trade, among other features. The tough thing about the project is that if this mayor is removed, the project may wither and die.
The strength of each social force helps determine what strategy you take.
These sessions inspired and reaffirmed of my beliefs about user centered design. While no one used that term today, it is basically what we are talking about. Companies are finding success when they put the individual who will use their product at the center of their planing, design and build.
