We want someone who is engaging and is passionate about doing great work. You will learn alongside some of the most talented, passionate, innovative and creative minds around, on a variety of projects across a range of sectors. We strongly believe in our proven Customer Centred Approach and the results we achieve for our clients: uncovering new solutions to real world problems, fostering innovation, accelerating their growth and differentiating their products/services in commoditised markets.

Responsibilities

• Execute project activities on time & on budget by applying Different’s Customer Centred Design (CCD) approach and deliverables.
• Plan, recruit and execute contextual customer research and user testing to develop a clear picture of customer objectives, goals and needs and to evaluate the effectiveness of concepts and designs.
• Plan and participate in workshops with clients, colleagues and/or users to elicit requirements, brainstorm solutions and gain consensus.
• Create recommendations, strategies and designs to ensure that customers can fulfill their goals using the products or services.
• Present recommendations to inspire confidence and persuade clients to follow Different’s recommendations.
• Collaborate with Leads, Engagement Managers, Visual Designers and Client teams to establish project goals and success metrics.

Desired skills & experience

• 4+ years professional experience in Human Factors, Psychology, Design, User Interface Design or related field
• Any of the following skills: sketching, illustration, ethnographic research, interaction design, user testing, prototyping
• Careful attention to detail and a solid understanding of Customer Centred Design principles
• Ability to collaborate in inter-disciplinary teams, appreciate ambiguity and value creative conflict in support of strong design
• Strong communication skills
• Portfolio of work REQUIRED. Include examples of all areas of interaction/service design
• MA/MS Preferred, BA/BS required

How to Apply

Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to join the best Experience Design team in Australia.

We want someone who is engaging and is passionate about doing great work, and has great leadership skills. You will enjoy working alongside some of the most talented, passionate, innovative and creative minds around, on a variety of projects across a range of sectors. We strongly believe in our proven Customer Centred Approach and the results we achieve for our clients: uncovering new solutions to real world problems, fostering innovation, accelerating their growth and differentiating their products/services in commoditised markets.

Responsibilities

• Lead projects to deliver value for our clients by applying Different’s Customer Centred Design (CCD) approach and deliverables.
• Execute project CCD activities on time & on budget (ranging form ethnographic research to detailed design)
• Plan, recruit and execute contextual customer research and user testing to develop a clear picture of customer objectives, goals and needs and to evaluate the effectiveness of concepts and designs.
• Design, plan and facilitate workshops with clients, colleagues and/or users to elicit requirements, brainstorm solutions and gain consensus.
• Create recommendations, strategies and designs to ensure that customers can fulfill their goals using the products or services.
• Present recommendations to inspire confidence and persuade clients to follow Different’s recommendations.
• Collaborate with Leads, Engagement Managers, Visual Designers and Client teams to establish project goals and success metrics.
• Mentor and delegate to junior team members in order to facilitate their development.

Desired skills & experience

• 7+ years professional experience in Human Factors, Psychology, Design, User Interface Design or related field
• Proven track record in using design research to gain insights that can be used as a catalyst for new concept generation and designing effective solutions
• Sketching, illustration, ethnographic research, prototyping
• Careful attention to detail and a solid understanding of Customer Centred Design principles
• Ability to collaborate in inter-disciplinary teams, appreciate ambiguity and value creative conflict in support of strong design
• Strong client leadership and communication skills
• Project team management
• Portfolio of work REQUIRED. Include examples of all areas of interaction/service design
• MA/MS Preferred, BA/BS required

How to Apply

Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to join the best Experience Design team in Australia.

Thanks to UXMag, our partners in this series.

Follow Different on twitter @DifferentUX to stay up to date on all of Different’s articles and happenings.

There are a range of tools that we and other UX practitioners can call upon to make informed decisions in our designs, but we realise that we can’t accurately predict how a design will perform in the market until it is put to the test. This is why, as an article in HBR emphasises, failing is an important part of the process — specifically failing in a controlled way that limits the investment of time and money in sub-optimal ideas, and that allows us to learn and improve our design.

While innovation is important for organisations, the practice obviously entails a degree of risk as the failure of any particular idea is probable. An inherent, often institutionalised bias, against risk has been identified as a significant cost to organisations, so many ideas are dismissed at an early stage. Therefore, as was explored last week, part of the role of the designer is to ease the discomfort that people experience in the face of uncertainty by demonstrating the benefits of taking a different approach to a problem and teaching strategies to manage the associated risk.

Challenging assumptions about the role of ‘mobile’ and other channels in the company strategy

A few weeks ago we posted an article discussing how the integration of technology would make it difficult to differentiate e-commerce from conventional commerce in the future retail experience. In these experiences, will mobile platforms be considered supplementary to the brick-and-mortar retail experience, or will it be a “core” feature?

A recent article discussed the increasing popularity of mobile banking and its potential to enable a cashless society. In this scenario, it is easy to imagine that the mobile app could become the primary interface the user has with the bank. Indeed, a recent article by Luke Wroblewski highlights that not only are mobile platforms becoming more popular, but in some instances they have become a core platform for companies.

The TV experience, as an article published by Fast Company discusses, is another area where companies are attempting to enhance consumer engagement and adapt to their evolving device usage, by delivering broadcast-related content through their smartphones (A.K.A. the “second screen”). Although the smartphone may not have overtaken the TV screen as the dominant channel for broadcast content, it may only be a matter of time.

These case studies show that companies must challenge some of their fundamental assumptions about the roles that different channels play in the customer journey as they adopt new technologies.

In her talk at the IIT Institute of Design Strategy Conference in 2008, Claudia Kotchka spoke about the role that design plays in determining the aesthetic and functional aspects of products, relating it to her experiences at Procter & Gamble. In particular, she discusses how design and innovation processes can be a foreign concept for many executives, and that some cajoling is needed for them to see its value, especially when the recommendations appear to counter their typical methods and intuitions.

Similarly, in a recent article, David Burkus proposes that one of the main reasons why many creative, innovative ideas are never implemented by an organisation is that they introduce a level of uncertainty that many executives are uncomfortable with, and that they will seek to avoid. The author also gives some useful advice for overcoming this latent bias against creativity, by relating novel concepts to those that the executives are already familiar with, which reduces uncertainty and anxiety.

First-hand experience encourages empathy, but some rules should be observed

One of the techniques that Claudia Kotchka mentions in her talk for persuading executives to adopt user-centred, ‘design thinking’ processes is to give them first-hand experience and empathy for customers through workshop participation. Similarly, in a video about the design process for one of its new family cars, Ford had its engineers wear pregnancy suits so that they could better relate to the customers they were designing for.

Indeed, at Different, we sometimes encourage our clients observe activities such as contextual inquiries or user testing so that they can more easily relate to their customers. Although this can be a powerful tool for inspiring a user-centred mentality, as Jim Ross’ article points out, some strict rules should be observed so that this does not interfere with the data that is collected.

Advances in mobile usability

An article recently posted on Engadget showcased a new mobile technology that provides tactile feedback for touchscreens using a surface that deforms dynamically. If this technology is effective it could open the doors for a new wave of usability enhancements for our touchscreen devices.

Another untapped area of mobile usability identified by Michael Nuciforo is for apps (particularly banking apps) to move beyond merely notifying customers of events by providing them with recommendations on how to act, with appropriate shortcuts.

7 customer experience principles to improve your business performance

It’s our hope that these essentials can serve as a guide for you to make your business customer centric, deliver a great customer experience and generate more value per customer.

The essentials can serve as rules of thumb to measure an experience and to describe what the experience consists of. The hierarchical structure dictates that the lower elements must be satisfied before proceeding upwards.

Based on our 10 year project history and 1000’s of customer research sessions, we found certain fundamental themes emerge over and over again. We have decided to share them with the design and business communities. This is an open source project for anyone to appropriate and build on.

1. Predictability

Enable your customers to successfully foresee the result of interactions with your products and services.

Associated with: Safety, Trust, Reliability and Consistency

• More about predictability (published on uxmag.com)
• Download predictability white paper (PDF, 900kB)

2. Efficiency

Reduce the time and effort devoted by customers to achieve their goals

Associated with: Speed, Seamlessness and Simplicity

• More about efficiency (published on uxmag.com)
• Download efficiency white paper (PDF, 700kB)

3. Convenience

Make your product or service available to the customer at the time and place they need or want it.

Associated with: Accessibility, Immediacy, Alignment and Flow

• More about convenience (published on uxmag.com)
• Download convenience white paper (PDF, 500kB)

4. Personality

Define an authentic character that the customer can relate to and convey it consistently across every channel.

Associated with: Branding, Tone and Character

• More about personality (published on uxmag.com)
• Download personality white paper  (PDF, 900kB)

5. Personal

Demonstrate at every opportunity that you know your customer as a person with preferences and previous interactions.

Associated with: Customisation, Personalisation, Recognition and Intimacy

• More about personal (published on uxmag.com)

6. Advocacy

Be on the side of your customer, truly championing their best interests.

Associated with: Guidance, Helpfulness, Empowerment and Empathy

• Coming in September 2012: Follow us on twitter , Follow us on Linkedin

7. Affirming

Your product or service should affirm your customers’ perception of self worth and identity.

Associated with: Reflection, Ego bolstering, Goals, Sense of self and Congruence

• Coming in October 2012: Follow us on twitter , Follow us on Linkedin

Since the influential article published in the HBR, the apparent predictive power of customer effort measures (the Customer Effort Score) on customer loyalty appears to have attracted the attention of some major players. For example, last week Chris Smith’s discussed how this was directing the focus at NAB to making their services easier for customers to use. While we endorse giving attention to this often neglected aspect of service design, Guy Fielding and others show that the measure of customer effort alone is not the answer, and that a more nuanced approach is needed to analyse the complex phenomenon of customer loyalty.

Image from http://www.callcentrehelper.com

The relevance of physical stores in a world of omni-channel shopping

Although some are predicting the demise of physical bank branches and some retail stores with the rise of ecommerce and mobile transaction methods, an article in the Harvard Business Review shows us how physical outlets can form a viable part of the channel ecosystem in the so-called “omnichannel” business model. Examples are provided of how each channel, such as physical stores and mobile devices, can operate in a mutually supportive way to provide services to customers. You can also refer to an article posted last week for some examples of how some retailers are already adopting this model in the check-out process. As the HBR article highlights, in an omnichannel business model the distinction between ecommerce and traditional brick-and-mortar retail becomes increasingly blurred.

Designing for content for multi-device usage

Luke Wroblewski gives an overview of how to address the challenge of designing for content that is served up on multiple devices – that is, how to optimise the content to flow seamlessly from one device to the next (eg. from desktop to mobile), and how each device can enhance the content. Bank Simple, for one, provides excellent cross-device optimisation in its signup process by facilitating the installation of its mobile app, which is then used to collect the customer’s signature.

Image from LukeW Ideation + Design

Easing the on-boarding experience

Aside from wowing customers with seamless mobile integration in its signup process, Bank Smart has introduced several other features ease the on-boarding process for customers. Among these is the ability of customers to familiarise themselves with the secure interface before they have money in their account through an interactive demo mode, which provides “dummy” content for them to experiment with.

Image from The design & development log of ADAM SIMPSON

Image from Netbanker

Further to this, Nir Eyal discusses how the on-boarding experience can be optimised to increase engagement with customers, and turn them from mere “visitors” into frequent users.

The importance of prototyping

Early last week we got a rare insight into the design process at Apple through early prototypes of the iPad and iPhone, illustrating the importance of these mock-ups in giving potential customers tangible representations of the look and feel of products or services in the design process. Also, among the “25 user experience videos that are worth your time” that were posted by Smashing Magazine is a video featuring Dan Harrelson who discusses the purpose of prototyping.

Image from The Verge

Rethinking the balance between revenue and user experience

Establishing a sustainable source of revenue early in the process is a typical focus for any business and many online services rely on advertising to provide a revenue stream. In stark contrast, Digg General Manager Jake Levine has noted that concerns about how the new site will generate revenue have been put aside so that it does not impinge on the user experience, which is of prime importance.

Image from Talking Points Memo

Interestingly, a revenue model has been proposed for artists whose music is downloaded using bittorrents. Under this model, artists would receive advertising revenue when customers, who download the music for free, optionally install software that comes bundled with the music files.

Following on from last week’s article from UXMag, an excellent case study on how to overhaul an interface without annoying existing customers has emerged with AOL implementing the first major change to its mail service in five years. It used an iterative, staged rollout, where a progressively greater number of users were exposed to the new design, to incorporate feedback and iron out issues in the transition.

Old design of AOL Mail (Image from All Things D)

New design of AOL Mail (Image from All Things D)

Customer satisfaction isn’t everything — think about ease of use

Chris Smith from NAB discusses how the traditional measure of customer satisfaction (CSAT) has been shown to be less effective in predicting customer loyalty than the newer measure of Customer Effort Score (CES). The upshot is that organisations should focus on making their services simpler and easier to use. To this end, UBank offers customer support through frequently accessed social media channels and NAB is looking to replace cumbersome passwords in favour of voice recognition for telephone based services.

In his review of e-commerce practices, Luke Wroblewski gives us an excellent review of the ways that companies are increasing their conversion rates by streamlining the purchase process. He not only addresses how the online shopping experience can be improved by, for example, not requiring registration to purchase, or by advertising their verification as a trusted provider, but also how digital content and mobile devices can enhance the physical store shopping experience — a trend which he expects to evolve rapidly in the future.

Image from LukeW Ideation + Design

A future with mass customisation: a potential boon for customers and retailers alike

The advent of online shopping, price comparison engines and smartphones have given customers an unprecedented level of control over how and where they shop, and this is set to increase with enhanced personalisation services.

Image from Slate: Future Tense

A machine that scans customers’ bodies to locate clothes that fit has already been used in a number of US shopping malls. This has the potential to reduce costs for both customers, who could easily buy tailor-made clothes online, and for retailers as less goods are returned and stock levels are adjusted to better suit the market.

For those who can’t find a piece of furniture to suit their particular needs, Australian furniture manufacturer Evolvex offers a simple user interface for customers to design and purchase furniture online. Given the amount of attention that is being given to related technologies, such as 3D printing, we expect this trend to increase.

Harnessing the power of the crowd

In recent years the concept of the “crowd” has attracted a lot of interest, whether as a source of funding or projects, innovative ideas, or labour, but harnessing the power of the crowd to constructive ends can be an elusive endeavour.

Jeffrey Bigham at the University of Rochester has offered an insight into a practical application of crowdsourcing to the provision of real-time, on-demand services, which may offer a glimpse of things to come. Furthermore, game developer Valve has expanded upon its existing repertoire of crowdsourcing channels, which includes in-game marketplaces for user-generated content, by providing end users with the tools to make their own 3D character driven feature videos. Encouraging users to generate their own contributions will increase their depth of engagement in Valve’s gaming titles.

Ratekick.com introduces a new comparison model for car insurance to the US market.

Whereas existing online quote engines act as lead generators by collecting and forwarding personal information to insurance companies, Ratekick generates comparative quotes from minimal, non-personal data. Revenue is generated by qualified leads as well as related advertising and sidebar search links. Via Forbes.com.

Hotwire’s CX lead, Melissa Matross, reinvents the revenue stream of the travel aggregator.

By attracting Cost Per Click (CPC) payments from comparison links, she eliminated the need for banner ads on Hotwire.com and improved revenue and end customer experience as a result. In this video from the MX Conference in March, Melissa describes how observing customers behaviours led to the innovation.

Will changing your user interface upset your users?

Increasing dissatisfaction with Facebook since the introduction of the timeline

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) shows increasing dissatisfaction with Facebook compared to Twitter and Google+. Suggested reasons include obvious privacy concerns and intrusive advertising but also changes to the interface, including the introduction of Timeline.

Overhauling a UI without upsetting current customers

UX Mag offers advice on Overhauling a UI Without Upsetting Current Users, also referring to dissatisfaction over the changes to Facebook. In summary: consider function as well as form, gather evidence from user research, validate early by testing, ensure everyone understands the context of use. Then again, a user experience professional would say that!

How could you have missed this one?

Yahoo! snatches long time Google executive Marissa Mayer as its new CEO

Notably, Marissa’s main stated mission is to revamp the user experience. One of the many reports, from CMS Wire.

Validating advanced designs with real customers in order to test the value proposition and gain confidence for launch.

Stress-testing concepts to ensure they strike a balance across business, customer and technology needs.

Leveraging existing best-of-breed experiences in the market to inspire and inform innovation.

The challenge

A major Australian financial institution sought to create a new wealth platform, taking advantage of upcoming legislation that would influence how some investors make their financial decisions. Given that there was a limited knowledge of the customer needs and behaviours in this changing environment, Different was engaged to apply a customer centred design (CCD) approach to uncover unique opportunities and to design a differentiated and competitive digital platform in response investors desire to self serve.

Our approach

Different leveraged the full CCD approach to deliver a comprehensive roadmap of initiatives to be commercialised. The key phases of activity included:

1. Discover phase – heavy consultation with a broad range of stakeholders to ensure there was alignment across the organisation around desired customer and business value outputs.
2. Experience Research phase – deep contextual research and analysis to uncover the latent needs and opportunities that cannot be directly articulated by the customer.
3. Experience Strategy phase – using a variety of innovation methods to create exciting, useful, usable and engaging concepts that are validated through ongoing consultation with customers.
4. Experience Design phase – delivering a tangible prototype that brings the future customer experience to life and helps to communicate and sell this to internal stakeholders.

Value

Through this rigorous approach, Different was able to deliver on the two key business objectives as follows:

Introduce a game-changing and disruptive innovation to market:

• A comparative review was undertaken to leverage the best-of-breed innovations already in the market, both from competitors as well as from other leading industries.
• All assumptions about the customer and the solution were challenged through face-to-face investigations with real investors. This was achieved through contextual inquiries and multiple rounds of testing.
• The design teams were encouraged to challenge existing mental models by exploring ideas that might change how products are serviced, what asset classes might be affected, as well as whether customers support each other via community and social media platforms.

Promote CCD capabilities and knowledge sharing across the organisation

• Individuals in all affected business areas were consulted through stakeholder interviews so that existing experience and expertise could be leveraged into the CCD process. This helps to create upfront buy-in and reduces wastage from past innovation efforts.
• Different show-cased the CCD process throughout the project to demonstrate how progressive outcomes and value were being delivered. This ensured that executive stakeholders could see visible progress and were confident in the delivery team’s ability to meet their strategic objectives.
• Stakeholders were given the opportunity to shadow Different and learn how to deliver customer-centric projects. Training courses were held to up-skill individuals before being embedded amongst the Different team to execute research, create personas, ideate concepts and detail design solutions in a collaborative manner.

Results

Customer insights have been valued beyond the scope of the project and are now adopted by other parts of the business to inform other programmes of work.
The client has gained confidence in using CCD as a better means for delivering consistent project innovation and success. Their existing team is now supplemented with dedicated CCD roles.
The output produced by Different provides a clear roadmap to develop and evolve the value proposition of the offering over next three years. This represents a significant future saving in cost, time and resources over this period.

Activities

• Kick-off workshop
• Stakeholder interviews
• CCD training for client stakeholders
• Contextual inquiries with customers
• Affinity diagramming and research analysis
• Aligning CCD findings with quantitative research results
• Visioning and ideation
• Co-design sessions with client design teams
• Concept prioritisation and road-mapping
• User testing of concepts for desirability
• Voice mapping workshop
• Testing of prototypes for usability and brand engagement

Deliverables

• Comparative review
• Research findings report
• Design personas
• Experience Promise™
• Concept and scenario document
• Wireframe designs
• Mood boards
• Visual prototypes