With “advertising” most of you will associate familiar means, mediums and contexts that have been around for some while. Stuff like magazines, TV commercials and billboards.

Pay attention. The density of advertising increases. Our world out there is getting plastered with more and more ads that you just. can’t. ignore.

Creative minds of marketeers unleash new campaigns that are increasingly closing in on the very last white spaces that exist in our public and private lives.

Gazing at the baggage pickup and scanning all the luggage passing by used to be a relief after twelve hours cramped in economy class. It helped to tune out the mass advertising on screens and wall installations at the Munich airport.

No more.

The picture above shows the newest weapon in the arsenal of airport advertising. Yet another revenue stream. Score!

Isn’t it a pity that we as Researchers, Service- and Experience Designers help to expose those opportunities for advertising by analyzing and observing customer journeys?

There are far worse examples and rest assured that more dark patterns are on their way.

Where is our code of conduct? Are we responsible for how our insights are applied?

We should be prepared.

The extent to which you are different from the others.

Behavior.

Needs.

Purpose.

The reason why we need more design research(ers).

Market research identifies and acts upon optimal market and consumer leverage points to achieve success. Its definition of success is not absolute, though metrics are often financial. Design research, on the other hand, is founded in the belief that we already know the optimal market and consumer leverage points: human needs. Unearthing and satisfying those needs is thus the surest measure of success.

A recommended read.

Unrelated: Greener I. Greener II.

Reinheitsgebot and wheat at its best.

Cultures and their stereotype beverage.

See also: Argentina and Mate.

A broken process flow worked…around.

A well ‘designed’ shopping experience appeals to all senses.

Basic ‘needs’ as basis for business models (aka sockscription).

I wonder how (digital) vandalism will manifest in an increasingly augmented world.

This being Switzerland, the migration process is a very thorough act that has to be prepared before crossing borders. So for my relocation into this „non-EU country“ I had to do quite some paperwork beforehand to have a seamless transit later on at the customs.

One of those tasks was to make lists of all my worldly possessions.

Thought for the day: to what extent is it desirable that the ownership of an object can be traced back to you? Desirable for whom? Will this put an end to this kind of painful paperwork? How will the notion of “mine” change with the prevalence of RFID-tagged and/or cloud-connected and self-aware objects? Factor in the increasing popularity of “shared use” concepts (car sharing, bike sharing etc.) and the slow spread of self-replicating machines (3d-printer et al.) and you end up with a complex near-future scenario.

What a beautiful mess.

Despite silly season we had a great time during my workshop on design research synthesis at the IxDA Munich meeting.

We worked in three mixed groups and we tried to visualize the synthesis process, including input/output, activities, methods and tools used, stakeholders involved, ways of “storing” findings/insights for later re-use and personal positive/negative experience during synthesis.

Here are a couple of topics that came up during the discussion:

• Is synthesis a process? Can it be formalized?
  
  Some participants mentioned that synthesis is a subjective and subconscious act that cannot be externalized or formalized. Nevertheless they suggested that synthesis can be facilitated by providing an optimal (work/analysis/synthesis)-environment e.g. stress free schedules, lots of room to interact with data and colleagues etc.
• How to collect the right amount of data?
  
  To be able to do “good synthesis” it was indicated that the initial process of data collection has to be planned carefully. Having a clear understanding of what to collect and which questions to answer helps to avoid the phenomenon of “death by data“ during synthesis. The synthesis process is perceived to be easier with less visual noise. One proposed solution was labeling data-chunks during deconstruction with a distinct icon to have a comprehensive view of all collected data, without having to read the textual information.
• How many people are involved during synthesis?
  
  While in some organizations synthesis as a process is done by one person only, there were also examples of synthesis as a collaborative activity. Often the project-scope, the available time and budget seem to influence how many people can get involved. All participants agreed that an inclusion of other researchers/designers or related-stakeholders during synthesis might be beneficial (embracing different points of view, building upon insights of others etc.)
• Should we integrate clients during synthesis?
  
  There was the suggestion that an integration of clients during research and synthesis helps to build empathy and commitment. Integration (even when it is done only partially) makes synthesis transparent to decision makers and enables them to “get“ insights (both in the sense of understanding the findings and having insights for themselves, in contrast to “being lectured” by the researcher.
• What are good deliverables of the synthesis process?
  
  The question what good deliverables look like strongly related to the discussion of when to go digital during synthesis. There was a discussion of “excel spreadsheets“ vs “post-it wall pictures“ or rephrased: when is it better rather to inspire than to inform with the output of the synthesis process? How can we adequately communicate meaning (of our insights/findings)? And is it necessary to educate our clients to realize what deliverables they really need?

Due to the time-restriction of our meeting, we could not dig any deeper. All in all, there seems to be a strong interest in the topic of design research synthesis among practitioners from various backgrounds. We agreed to bring up the topic in one of our future meetings and we may also consider collecting best practices, and design synthesis theory in a Wiki or a more formal form of publication. We were not sure though, whether it is possible to mold such an abstract activity as synthesis into a paper-based representation. Only time will tell.

If you are interested in collaboration on analysis/synthesis, feel free to drop me a line.

Cheers to all participants for making this event so enjoyable. A big thanks to the IxDA Munich organizers for enabling all this and ¡muchas gracias! to IDEO for making the office space available (once again).

Slides from my workshop: