David Doss was kind enough to share his notes from Skye Lee & Blaise Bertrand's talk Design for Empathy and Retention.

Overview

• “We are all agents of change. We need to find the way that we can do this.”
• IDEO: Human-Centered Innovation
• Blaise Bertrand (Partner and Industrial Director)
  • Design can make people happy or sad
  • Improve or hinder human connection
• Skye Lee (UX + Product)
  • Adviosry
• “When you are working in industry, friendship doesn’t really develop naturally.”

Video

• understand the non-obvious needs that people have
• human truths – getting to core of issue by understanding and empathisizing for what people need
• making sense of cutting through the noise, getting to the essentials, making it a beautiful experience
• building to learn: using tools to express ideas as tangible
• what will delight people, find technology / business model for that to happen

Hospital redesign

• Christian got into emergency room, and filmed the entire experience
  • Video of the ceiling
• Faked an injury in order to get into the hospital
• EMPATHY – note people:
  • What they SAY
  • What they DO
  • What they THINK
  • What they FEEL
  • Reconciling all of the above

Tech PUSH versus tech PULL. IDEO aims for push.

Examples

• Moto
  • speeds
  • iteration
  • feedback loops
  • second-best-selling accessory for Motorola
• Emotiv Epoc:
  • controlling robot with thoughts
  • being able to drive car with device
• Steelcase Node Chair
  • mobile chair
  • redesigning chair can change dynamics and way that people learn
• Joie De Vivre Hotel
  • mixing art and tech to create emotional interactions

Designing for massive transitions

• transportation industry
  • shifting / complementing hardware and software
• Ford Hybrid:
  • Have to start thinking about new behaviors and life changes
  • How to recognize driving efficiently?
  • Image of leaves growing
  • Using analogies to create meaning

Reconnecting with sense of purpose and communicating it

• Findus
  • Understanding people internally
  • What is their passion? learn how to communicate it better

Open IDEO

• post challenges
• collect ideas (crowd research inspiration)
  • the more visual the posts, the better
  • stories will help people get going
• refinement
  • encourage people to build ideas
  • create opportunity
  • everyone can take various ideas that work and move them more fully forward
• analysis
• the more ideas you build, and the more fully you do so, the better
• design quotient
  • inspiration
  • conceptualization
  • evaluation
  • collaboration

Provoking new conversation vs. stealing ideas

• inherent generosity in design innovation
• avoid fear of sharing
• anyone can come up with ideas
• bringing ideas to market is a completely different thing
  • productization
  • paranoia will prevent you from moving forward
  • dialogue
  • no need to be afraid
  • exchange – even if people take something from your idea, you will also take something from their ideas
• by the time you get a patent, the moment can be gone
  • (certainly depends on individual situation, and the specific industry)
  • if you have nothing, what do you have to lose?
• Examples:
  • IDEO’s Start up in residence program
  • Financial view: ROI (return on investment) vs. ROL (return on learning). Looking at cues – understanding the surrounding

Summary

• FAIL EARLY; FAIL FAST; FAIL BIG
  • get assumptions out early
• UNDERSTAND THE HARDWARE AND THE SOFTWARE
  • Understand the differences in cultures and processes between the two different groups
• Brand; offer / experience; organization; business
  • Dive deep, but check against the whole
• System for embracing failure
  • Failing is hard
  • Need system where it is ok to recuperate from failure
  • Answer: build a network
  • Seek mentorship
  • Build network
  • Creative collisions: broad and radical collaboration
  • Exercising hybrid rigor
  • Quantitative and quantitative methods to get results
  • Compare and contrast results
  • Learn through building:
  • BUILD IT IN CONTEXT
  • Real scale
  • Measure behaviors
• Don’t take yourself too seriously – most importantly, have fun

Takeaways from Q&A

• Creativity in software:
  • Careful: risk impoverishing our senses
• How to develop radical ideas:
  • Not necessary
  • Why do you need a “house on fire” problem?
  • Just start listening to the problems around you
• T-shaped career profile
  • Master one thing, and then extend
  • Start with sense of purpose
  • (generalizing specialist / versatilist / technical craftsperson / renaissance developer / master generalist)
• how to go about redesigning meetups?
  • Participation, collaborative
  • Break in and ask participants what they want.
• How to manage a startup with physicians who are very resistant to change and immersed in bureacracy?
  • Bring several people on board
  • Movement
  • Talk to them about what they will gain
  • Learn their communication culture
  • How to work with it
  • How to think beyond it
  • Example: Develop a written superpowers exercise: Get them into an orientation: I need to get you to solve a problem
• How should I “make it big” in tech?
  • There is nothing richer than the interactions that I have right in front of me

Filmed March 19, 2015 at Zendesk