Marketing: Living In A Plastic Bubble?

If you want to understand how a lion hunts, don't go to the zoo, go to the jungle. ...Most businesses gather information about consumers by going to the zoo. They put respondents in a "viewing room", feed them snacks, and let them go through the motions of responding to questions with a "trained" moderator. Someone who can lead them, direct them...maybe even control them. - Lovemarks [review]

Danah Boyd ends up talking about marketing and customer empathy in her speech (her own transcript, conference blog coverage) at the Supernova conference last week. And if you think this is just endemic to the technology industry...please read on.

We technologists are notorious for building software based on our own practices and values instead of constructing them based on users' values and needs.

Pretty much could substitute your industry equivalent for "We technologists". Danah continues (substitute your product/service in place of 'technology' if needed):

There are three ways to make technology work in the context of people:

#1: Make a technology, market the hell out of it and demand that it fit into people's lives. When this fails, logroll. In other words, bundle it with something that they need so that they're forced to use it. Personally, i think that this is pretty disgusting, although i recognize that it is the way that the majority of our industry works.

#2: Make a technology, throw it out to the public and see what catches on. Follow the people who use it. Understand them. Understand what they are doing and why and how the technology fits into their lives. Evolve to better meet the needs and desires of the people who love the technology.

#3: Understand a group of people and their needs and then develop a technology that comfortably embeds itself within the practices of those people. Make technology ubiquitous.

Personally, i believe that the latter two approaches are the conscientious way of designing sociable technology. We are talking about technology meant for people to engage with other people. Users may do the darndest things, but they're only peculiar when you try to understand it in your framework. Reframe what they are doing in their framework. Instead of demanding that they behave like we want them to behave, try to understand why they chose a path that is different than ours. When we can understand their perspective, we're halfway there.

The trick then is to design from that perspective, to truly get it, not just be tolerant of it. When we ::groan:: about those darn users, we're missing the point. They're not interacting with technology to prove a point to us. They're interacting with technology because it fits into their framework of the world. Understanding that, really getting that... that is the key.

Personally I believe the third approach is the most effective.

Sometimes I feel that marketing folks - especially those involved in product management - and are supposed to be conceptializing the next version or the next thing and "validating the market" - are living in a plastic bubble.

Kevin Roberts in Lovemarks talked about Saatchi's "research" methods to understand the Chinese market. Lots of deep hanging out.

There are no one-way viewing mirrors. No projective techniques. Just interaction, observation, and lots of conversation.

We've been invited into countless homes, hung out with kids in video arcades, gone to work with women, exercised with school children, dug through people's fridges, drunk beer with men, cooked dinner with families, had tea with teenagers, worked out with moms, changed diapers, rode roller coasters, cleaned bathrooms, sung karaoke, cried over broken marriages, screamed over football.

Again, sometimes it appears it's just technologists - because that's the area I'm in - that refuse to get into real people's shoes. Everyone is not like you no matter where you work or what product or service you're building or selling. Businessweek's story on IDEO shows us how rampantly prevalent living in the plastic bubble is.

Kaiser Permanente, the largest health maintenance organization in the U.S., was developing a long-range growth plan in 2003 that would attract more patients and cut costs. Kaiser has hundreds of medical offices and hospitals and thought it might have to replace many of them with expensive next-generation buildings. It hired IDEO, the Palo Alto (Calif.) design firm, for help. Kaiser execs didn't know it then, but they were about to go on a fascinating journey of self-discovery. That's because of IDEO's novel approach. For starters, Kaiser nurses, doctors, and facilities managers teamed up with IDEO's social scientists, designers, architects, and engineers and observed patients as they made their way through their medical facilities. At times, they played the role of patient themselves.

Together they came up with some surprising insights. IDEO's architects revealed that patients and family often became annoyed well before seeing a doctor because checking in was a nightmare and waiting rooms were uncomfortable. They also showed that Kaiser's doctors and medical assistants sat too far apart. IDEO's cognitive psychologists pointed out that people, especially the young, the old, and immigrants, visit doctors with a parent or friend, but that second person is often not allowed to stay with the patient, leaving the afflicted alienated and anxious. IDEO's sociologists explained that patients hated Kaiser's examination rooms because they often had to wait alone for up to 20 minutes half-naked, with nothing to do, surrounded by threatening needles. IDEO and Kaiser concluded that the patient experience can be awful even when people leave treated and cured.

I too continue to be as mind-boggled as this reader in his letter to editor titled "Making Yourself "Customer For A Day" Is Just Common Sense":

What's mind-boggling is that it takes an outside consulting firm to convince major corporations of the importance of finding out firsthand what it's like to use their products and services.

Common sense isn't always common.

Comments

[Ron]

I think you hit things on the head. On needs to get into the users minds first, and understand their true needs, before unleaching the technology on them.... More often than not, the end result if one does anywise is shelfware.