Archive for the ‘Behavior Modeling & Design’ Category
Tuesday, April 30th, 2013
“There is no Average Joe Bloggs” – reads the copy on the billboard advertisement of an insurance company. I couldn’t agree more with this, especially in the context of designing and developing new products for end users. No matter how much I like Statistics, we just cannot apply it to all things in our personal and professional lives. While its good to be number-savvy, we need to balance the quantitative with qualitative aspects, to get it right. More so in the case of product design and development, the “law of averages” doesn’t quite contribute to the successful product development. We are all familiar with the concept of user profiles and personas used in the design and development of products. These help a great deal in understanding the real needs and goals of your target audience. In this post, I will dwell on why designing for average users is a misconception and how we can make use of user profiles and personas in developing successful products.
All customers are not users
This is the biggest notion among my clients that customers are well, users of the products. Not always true! The good thing is that both customers and users are both people, the similarities end there. I think that “Customers” is a favourite term for Marketers whereas Designers and User Experience professionals connect better with the term “Users”. Customers are the people who purchase your products and services, while consumers or users use these. In some cases or well, most cases customers and consumers are the same. As in the case of some daily use products, white goods, FMCG, customers and users are the same i.e., people who buy your products use them as well. But in the case of high-end products, enterprise applications and productivity solutions, buyers could be different from consumers. For instance, office supplies, financial services, technology products like computers etc., the people who pay are different from those who suggest. These in turn are different from the people who decide and yes, the people who actually use the products or services could be completely different from the above groups.
First, know your Users
Knowing your users is the most important step in the approach to developing great products. By knowing your users, I mean to say that you must understand the goals and needs of the users. This understanding will help you in shaping your product or service, make it more suitable and appealing for the users. You can’t just create a product in thin air and then retro-fit it to the benefit of some people. As they say, the most important question in any business is asking “whose needs is the idea/concept/product going to solve?” . Texavi’s Unified Experience Framework has a whole phase dedicated to help you get to this. The “Know the Needs of your Users” phase has all the tools, techniques and technologies to ensure that we understand the real needs of the users. These are often unwritten, untold, unexpressed and even unknown to the very users. So, its a big challenge to get to the real needs of the users.
User profiling holds the key
It doesn’t make sense to design and develop your products for all the people in the whole world. There is a danger of missing out on most people, as they think it doesn’t suit their specific needs and goals. Also, on the extreme end, it doesn’t make sense to design your products for one or two users. This argument lends weight for some people to think the middle path and rely on the law of averages. So, they think that the best path is to design and develop for average user. But hold on, what is an average user? How can you get to that person and define the characteristics of average user? The answer to this question lies in the user profiles and personas. User profiles are essentially the characteristic grouping of users based on various properties, traits and behaviours. This doesn’t mean that you are defining an average user. Instead, you are trying to understand the essential aspects of your users. Using the profiles and personas helps the team to have a common language of understanding. This not only helps them in having a good picture of the end users, but also gives them a great affinity to the users, because of the name, form and physical characteristics.
Personas – archetypes not stereotypes
You might have heard of the term “persona” used in the context of marketing, research and product design. A persona is a representative user from amongst the group, but does not point to one user from within the group. It is a powerful design tool that helps the design and development teams and client relate to the target audience. Persona is not a stereotype of the users, but rather an archetype from the user group. In a persona, you give a form, a name and a picture to the representative users, so that all the team members and concerned people can relate to that person more effectively and easily.
Benefits of user profiles and personas
While there are many benefits of using the user profiles and personas in the product development life cycle, I list below a few of them that really stand out.
- Understand the real users who you should target from amongst the many people in the population
- Help prioritise the target segments within the groups of people
- Know the real needs and goals of the target audience
- Support in connecting and relating to the real needs of the users
- Design, develop the products in a more practical and pragmatic manner
- Evaluate and test the products, keeping the real users in mind
- Minimise the effort, time and cost of development and rework
Hope you agree with me now that the average user is a myth and acknowledge the power of profiles and personas. Please keep writing in with your suggestions and comments. Till the next post, ciao!
Tags: Consumers, customers, design, development, innovation, Innovative, marketing, Pardha Mantravadi, personas, products, profiles, services, software, solutions, texavi, Texavi Innovative Solutions, Unified Experience Framework, usability, user experience, users, ux
Posted in Behavior Modeling & Design, Business Analysis, Interaction Design, Product Development, Requirements Development, User Analysis, User Experience, User Studies, User-centered Design | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013
It’s that time of the year again when we make resolutions for newer and better things. While some of us vouch to take the route of a healthier lifestyle, some others may opt to being more productive at work. New year resolutions are indeed a nice trigger for behaviour change. At an individual level, people themselves initiate changes in their behaviours, being driven by their own goals. However, businesses also attempt to change the behaviours of their customers and users. In this post, let us look at what behaviour change really is and how to define correctly the target behaviours.
What is behaviour change
Behaviour change can be defined as acquiring new behavours, increasing or decreasing or stopping altogether the existing behaviours. It can result from the motivation to change and the simplicity in adopting the new or changed behaviours. Sometimes these behaviours, over a longer term, can result in the formation of new habits or cutting down on the current habits.
Behaviour change can happen when you attempt one of the following:
- Do new
- Do different or do more of the existing
- Stop or do less of the existing
For instance, a change in the existing behaviour can be to wake up from bed 30 minutes earlier. Whereas a new behaviour can be to learn ice-skating, a decrease in existing behaviour can be a resolution to cut down on eating high-fat food every Thursday.
What are behaviours
It is important to understand what target behaviours are and how we can make use of them to our advantage. First, let us look at the common misconceptions and myths about behaviours. Please note that behaviours are not…
- About tasks or processes alone
- Those that effect people in a short term
- Always linked to the attitudes and personalities
This brings us to the question as to what behaviours actually are. I would like to highlight the key aspects of a behaviour in the following points:
- Can be about actions and their outcomes – personal, professional or both
- Spread over a longer period, potentially leading to habits
- Involve creating new ones, changing or stopping the existing ways
- Are purely about the actions or behaviours
Defining the target behaviours – the right way!
Before you attempt to change the behaviours, an important step is defining the target behaviours and defining them correctly. When defining the behaviours ask the following questions:
- Am I defining a behaviour, in the first place?
- How crisp is the behaviour definition?
- Can I make it any crispier?
- Who are the target people for this behaviour?
An example of a good behaviour definition that I recently came across is the “Get London Reading” campaign. Launched by the Evening Standard newspaper, this campaign is aimed at increasing the literacy levels in schools. With a crisp definition of the objective, this campaign is an example of defining the target behaviours well.
Here is how to define behaviours
After defining target behaviours, let us look at what makes a good behaviour definition. I give below a few simple rules that you might want to keep as a reference checklist:
- Start the behavior definition with an action word/verb
- Use simple words and terms. Eg., get, make, do etc.
- Be brief and specific. Verbose statements don’t help anybody
- Focus only on behaviour – leave out attitude and personality
- Ignore the process or implementation. Aim at the end result
As they say, “Well begun is half done”, by now you have completed the most important thing in behaviour change. After this step, we need to identify the ways and means of how we are going to achieve the target behaviours. Let us look at this topic in the upcoming post. Hope the new year 2013 brings in joy, peace and success to all of you.
Tags: 2013, attitude, behaviours, campaign, change, Do It Now, Evening Standard, framework, Get London Reading, habits, London, modeling, new year, Pardha Mantravadi, personality, psychology, resolutions, texavi, Texavi Innovative Solutions
Posted in Behavior Modeling & Design, Life, Social business, User Experience | No Comments »
Friday, November 2nd, 2012
This post walks you through with an overview of Texavi, what we do, who we are and where we serve. You will also get to see the core services and offerings, practices and focus areas of Texavi. With this presentation, you will know how we can help you and the benefits for you, working with us.
- Team Texavi
Tags: agile, Apps, behaviour, behaviours, BlackBerry, business analysis, clients, cloud, company, computing, conferences, consulting, Corporate, habits, ICT, India, innovation, iOS, IT, London, media, Microsoft, Mobile, Mumbai, new age, Overview, Pardha Mantravadi, partners, presentation, publishing, retail, social, social business, social media, solutions, STM, Tablet, technology, texavi, Texavi Innovative Solutions, training, UK, usability, user experience, workshops
Posted in Agile Development, Behavior Modeling & Design, Business Analysis, Business Case, Information Technology, Innovation, Interaction Design, Product Development, Social business, Social Technologies, User Experience, User-centered Design | No Comments »
Friday, August 31st, 2012
Businesses, like individuals grow over time, adjusting themselves to the changes, situations, market demands and business drivers. Organisations mature in their processes, improving continually their products, services and operations. Often the maturity happens by doing, learning and unlearning from their own experiences. However, some other times, maturity could come in through vicarious learning i.e., looking and observing at others and their ways of working. This applies equally well to the social businesses which undergo different stages of progression. Social businesses join networks, identify their goals, create and innovate content and engage people. As they mature, the focus shifts from selling their products and services to building their brand. In this post, I will first touch upon the criteria for defining a successful social business and then discuss how you can drive your social efforts with the social business engine.
1. First define the goals and success criteria
In order to become successful, the first step is to identify and define in clear terms, what success means. The definition of “done” and the success criteria have to be specified and agreed upon well in advance. These will help the organisation, team members and also the stakeholders to understand the progress. To be able to understand whether you have reached your goals, you must first define what the goals are. For social businesses, as I mentioned in my previous posts, the goal is to become a people-focused business. This goal translates into the organisation delivering experiences instead of products and services. Success also depends on how well businesses help change the behaviours of their customers and users.
I think social businesses must focus on the following areas, to become successful.
- Brands, not just products and services
- People, not just customers and users
- Experiences, not just engagement and influence
- Habits, not just one time actions
- Insights, not just metrics and analytics
2. Identify the key drivers – People, content and business
There is no doubt that the social business engine powers your social initiative providing the direction and fuel for your social efforts. I view this engine as comprising three main components- people, content and business. The social business hinges on these 3 key components, and they are inter-related among themselves. People contribute and create engaging content, and this content leads conversations to transactions. Yes, its true that social networks are about conversations. But merely engaging people with interactive content does not help businesses become successful at social business. So, a combination of people, content and business working in tandem would help build successful social businesses. No wonder most successful social businesses have got it right with these three components of the social business engine.
3. Invest in people, the true asset to social business
The way organisations manage their relationships with people shift from one level to another, as they get matured in the social business. The maturity on this component of the social business engine varies from being a novice at identifying the right people within their networks to actively engaging them. In the initial levels, you put the efforts in finding and connecting with the right people in the target networks. You slowly start to follow them and their activities, interact with them in different ways to create some value in the process. But as you reach higher levels of maturity, you go beyond conversations and engage them with innovative content, and encouraging them to conduct commercial transactions. This happens as there is increased level of trust and also there is a sense of give-and-take between the people and you. At the highest level is the goal to influence and delight the people, coercing them to make or break habits, to the advantage of all involved.
Here are some top tips for getting it right with people-focus. Some of these are aligned with our Unified Experience Framework.
- Look beyond customers. Focus on People {customers, users, stakeholders, followers}
- Follow and be followed by the right people on your networks
- Enable people to change their behaviours
- Synchronise people’s online and offline behaviours
- Deliver unified experiences across multiple platforms and channels
- Cut out the noise and care for people’s voices and heartbeats
4. Create meaningful and engaging content
Curating, creating and innovating content is critical for the success of any social business. Curation of the content can happen when there is a value-add done by means of sharing it to relevant people and making changes to it. Social businesses can succeed when they could enhance the content and also innovate. Innovation with content can be done in many ways, based on the industry, size and nature of business. Essentially, businesses innovate when they create different types of content altogether. For instance, Apple created iBooks and gave power to small time authors who want to publish their books, quickly, easily and in a cost-effective manner. Many companies who have been traditionally printing books, started with digital publications. The content is still the same, but these companies innovated with different way of delivering it.
5. Social business goes beyond conversations
Engaging people on the networks with interesting content is key for social businesses, to start with. Also, encouraging people to be involved in meaningful conversations aligned to the business interests of the organisation is critical too. However, as the business matures, the focus needs to be to interactions leading to commercial transactions. Otherwise there is not much of a value-add for the business to be on the social networks. You should start to motivate people to do online transactions, review your products, recommend of their friends so that they become your customers too.
Hope you find the above points helpful in building your social business. As always, please feel free to drop in with your comments and suggestions. Until next post, ciao!
Tags: Apple, brand, business, content, engage, experience, habits, influence, Innovative, mantravadi, maturity, model, networks, Pardha, Pardha Mantravadi, people, Saradhi, SBMM, social, social business, social business engine, Social business maturity model, solutions, success, texavi
Posted in Behavior Modeling & Design, Business Analysis, Information Technology, Innovation, Social business, Social Technologies, User Experience | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 21st, 2012
A few days ago, I was thinking about what separates the great organisations from the good ones. I tried to connect a few successful companies with the secrets behind their success. Here is a small question for you to get thinking on this..what is common to Google, Apple and simple? Of course the letters LE, but the prize goes to the correct answer, “their commitment to make people happy”. Google and Apple have positioned themselves as people-focused firms, creating innovative products and services that not only work for people but also delight them. They have established a clear differentiation based on delighting their customers, stakeholders and followers with simple and easy to use products and services. In this post, let us learn how any organisation which aims to become a social business, needs to focus on ‘the people’ to be successful.
Focus on people – Make them happy
Businesses traditionally have been focusing on people in one form or the other. Every organisation works hard to keep their customers happy as that would guarantee their existence. Some businesses focus on keeping their employees satisfied with good facilities, pay and perks.These companies think that happy employees lead to higher productivity and thereby better results. A few large organisations with deep pockets can afford to keep not only their customers and employees happy, but also extend their reach to the stakeholders like shareholders and suppliers. However, a social business needs to do all the above and a bit extra as well. Let us see in the next section what social businesses need to do to get it right.
Social business – Internal and external people
Social businesses have to optimise their business strategies, operations and resources towards the ‘people’. The people here means those who are both ‘internal’ as well as ‘external’ to the organisation. Internal people are the employees and other key stakeholders such as the management, sponsors and the shareholders. They are critical to the success of any initiative as everything starts with them, from the business vision to strategy, from planning to execution and delivery. External people refers to the customers and suppliers. However, in the context of social business, the list doesn’t end here. These external people include the followers, friends and fans on social and professional networks. Social businesses succeed by putting the people’s interests first beyond anything. Their business objectives and bottom lines are all dependent on their people-focus. Social businesses have to ensure that both the internal and external people are happy.Here is how they can achieve this. :
- Involve, encourage and empower the right teams
- Find, connect and follow the right people
- Educate, influence and engage your followers
In the following sections, let us see how the organisations can become effective following the above rules.
Involve, encourage and empower the right teams
Teams make or break your organisations initiatives and attempts for successful campaigns. Great teams often are one of the biggest success factors behind great social businesses. You need to involve the team members from the very beginning so that they none of the team members feel left out. Also, this would help build ownership in them and increases their responsibility. Encourage and motivate the team members to start delivering towards the goals of social business. Empower them to take decisions on their own, try new things and implement their ideas. No matter if the ideas are bad or good, let the team work on those ideas and realise the efficacy of these ideas, on their own. Empowering the teams enables the team to own up the social business initiative and deliver activities and succeed, all by themselves.
For successful social business, empower the team and allow them to:
- Estimate the efforts and timelines
- Come up with the plan
- Commit and agree upon the plans
- Deliver on the plans
- Bring out the problems, if any, during the execution
Find, Connect and follow the right people
Whereas the teams working on your social business are internal to your organisation, you also need to look outside of your business. These are customers, suppliers and others, speaking of traditional businesses. Often in the context of social business, this extends to those people in your social and professional networks. Follow these simple rules to follow the right people on your social and professional networks.
- Define the profiles of the people who fit your business requirements
- Create a persona with the demographics and psychographics
- Search, browse and look out for the people fitting in the persona
- Connect to these people and follow their activities on networks
- Interact with them by liking and favouriting their content
- Engage with the people by sharing their content across networks
Educate, engage and influence your followers
Following people on the social and professional networks, interacting with with them and sharing their content is one thing. It is quite another level to get people to follow you. Even harder is to engage people consistently with content that they are interested in. Of course, the most difficult step in the social engagement is to be able to influence your followers, friends and fans positively and increase their trust in you and your brand. The starting point for all of these accomplishments is to start sharing content which aligns with the interests of your followers. Make it worthy of their likes, and encourage them to comment upon and share it with others in their network. Influence your followers
Given below are some useful tips to help you with engaging your audience and influencing them.
- Identify the target audience from amongst your followers, friends and fans on networks
- Understand their interests and focus areas
- Align your campaigns and content to be aligned with their interests
- Interact with them, encourage people to like your content and share it
- Reach out to friends of friends (FoF) and widen your network reach
- Influence your followers to trust your brand and make them your ambassadors
Hope you find the above suggestions helpful in your social business efforts. As always, please let me know your views for improving this blog. Until next post, Ciao!
Tags: agile, Apple, business, customers, employees, empowerment, Facebook, fans, followers, friends, Google, happy, Innovative, LinkedIn, mantravadi, media, networks, Pardha, people, products, professional, Saradhi, services, simple, simplicity, social, solutions, suppliers, team, teamwork, texavi, twitter
Posted in Behavior Modeling & Design, Business Analysis, Information Technology, Innovation, Product Development, Social business, Social Technologies, User Experience | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012
“Social media is not an option for businesses, any more!” and “Markets are conversations” – these phrases pretty much reverberated among the speakers, visitors and organisations participating in the Social Media World Forum-2012, London. Held over 2-days at Olympia, London from 27-28 March, the conference reiterated the importance and urgency of socialisation of business, marketing and media. Great ambience, pleasant crowds, nice talks on current topics, insightful panel discussions and 1000′s of tweets buzzing the twitterwall….the #SMWF ( as it is popularly referred to) was a great place to be for businesses and professionals alike! Texavi took an active part this year, exhibiting at the event, by setting up a booth and demonstrating our capabilities. During the 2 days, Texavi’s stand received good visitors and the feedback during and after the event had been very encouraging. For photos and more updates on the #SMWF, visit Texavi’s web site and our Facebook Page.
Active participation from businesses and individuals
SMWF 2012 was well attended by businesses and people from all around Europe and a few from parts of Asia as well. Focusing on the core theme of social media, the conference catered to five streams — Social business, social TV, social shopping, mobile marketing and of course, social media. Besides the well-decorated and themed booths spread across the entire hall, there were workshops, talks, and panel discussions on the five streams. The topics for these workshops and talks were carefully chosen, ranging from the ubiquitous Facebook-focused marketing to the semantic analysis, and the more strategic aspects of brand management and social business enablement. For more information on the event, you can visit the official site.
Texavi @SMWF,2012
Texavi is proud and happy to have been associated with the SMWF this year. We set up a booth and exhibited our offerings to the visitors who showed keen interest. The visitors to Texavi’s stand no.10 were both excited and impressed by what we had got on the show. Participating in SMWF proved to be a good decision for Texavi as we got to meet some really nice people and had interesting inquiries. Texavi’s offerings stood out among the exhibiting lot, because of our unique, simple yet powerful frameworks. Out of the very few organisations focusing on the most important aspects for social business enablement, Texavi’s unified and convergent experience framework and behaviour change and persuasion framework struck the right chords among the enthusiastic participants. For the brochures that we gave away at the booth, you can visit Texavi’s Downloads page.
What’s special at SMWF2012
The main attraction of the event had been a specially built Twitterwall right in the centre of the venue, with a continual stream of the tweets about and around the topics of the event. This worked almost like a live heartbeat of the buzz going around in the event. Even though it was early Spring, the sunny weather outside did make people hang out at the bar lounge right in the centre which kept the conversations going. There was a special gaming zone where people could get their hands dirty with the latest and the most entertaining games. The workshops and talks were held at the specially set-up theatres in the corners to streamline the participants. Add to that the special attraction at SMWF was the messaging facility, for those tired after going around the stands and attending the workshops.
Key takeaways from #SMWF
As you would have guessed by now, SMWF helped participants with the right information, insights and networking opportunities. Though there are many a takeaway from the conference, I am attempting to do the impossible task of summarising the key points, below.
- Social media and social marketing are not an option anymore for businesses
- Social media is not just the responsibility of marketing /PR departments
- Markets are conversations
- Brands can reach out to their customers and leverage their reputation, thanks to social media
- Gibson Guitars, Lego bricks are cases in point to show how big brands can be more effective when they get social
Hope you enjoyed reading this post. Please feel free to click through the links I provided all through, for more interesting photos, updates and information. Also, do drop in your feedback for making Texavi blog better. Until next post, ciao!
Tags: 2012, behaviours, booth, brands, change, Conference, conversations, event, experience, Facebook, innovation, London, mantravadi, media, Olympia, panel discussions, Pardha, Pardha Saradhi Mantravadi, SMWF, social, social business, Social media world Forum, social technologies, stand, talks, texavi, twitter, unified, workshops
Posted in Behavior Modeling & Design, Conference, Events, Information Technology, Social business, Social Technologies, User Experience | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
Remember the times when you read the online reviews and researched products on the Internet, only to buy them in showrooms and stores later. Now, people are increasingly going into the stores for looking at the products, but buying online for better prices. Showrooming, as the Wall Street Journal calls this behaviour, is on the rise and retailers have to brace themselves for the new revolution. This is just one facet with the Social Web, which not only is aiding online and mobile commerce but also helping evolve newer business models. Not just business, but it is aiding the emergence of related media buzz and technologies such as Big Data. However, Social web is not just about business and technologies, nor it is about content and media, but it is built around people. It addresses more fundamental aspects such as the convergence of people’s online and offline interactions and their social behaviours. At Texavi, we created the Unified Experience Framework, leveraging the social mega trends. In this post, I give a few tips on how you can embrace the social web to your advantage.
1) Meaningful conversations, not just loads of content
With the advent of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, content is being created, curated and consumed in humungous volumes. Sample this, every day just the ReTweet button in Twitter alone generates no less than 1 TeraByte of data. While it is true that now virtually everybody can become a publisher of content with ease, it is also true that there has been a deluge of content that is invading our professional and personal lives. A study conducted by University of Massachusetts concluded that there has been a decline in the number of blogs maintained by large corporates. This goes on to prove that just having a blog up for the sake of it, will not help, unless it is not helping the objectives of the businesses, in this case. Large brands need to track the conversations that are happening about them and also understand how meaningful these conversations to their own business and to their customers.
2) Sustainable commerce, not just sporadic transactions
People are getting comfortable buying, selling and trading online more than they were a few years ago. Businesses are realising that web commerce does not mean merely having 128-bit encryption and ‘https’ web sites to help people use credit cards for payment. The social web is making companies and people cross the chasm of the security, associated with the online commerce. The commerce here actually connotes the true sense of complete experience of offline and inline interactions. This healthy blend of offline and online experiences start from advertising to create noise, arousing interests, spreading the word of mouth, through reliable sources, prospecting, from trying and leading into buying.
3) Unified experience, not just web sites
Have you got a web site? Great, but don’t be ecstatic, just yet! You have passed the examination, but just scored enough to pass. To be able to compete in this ever-changing world, you need to be agile and nimble with your products and services. Web sites are, of course, more dynamic than print, but then they are not agile. To be truly agile and go to where the people are going, you need to get social. ”If you build it they will come” may not hold good now, one thing that will certainly work in today’s world is “Go to where the people are!”. That is what businesses and people are doing, going to the social platforms where the people are already hanging around, conversing, sharing and commenting. However, don’t get overwhelmed by this social revolution, and ignore the basics. Fundamental to your business is the core mission to deliver value and delightful experiences to your customers, users and partners.
4) Caring and championing, not just sharing
Social media are not all about sharing, commenting and liking the content created or uploaded by your friends. It is also about sharing the feelings, emotions, pains and pleasures of others. Human beings are social creatures and nobody can deny the power of social media to reach out the needy and those who need the help. Whether its the movements to oppose the suppression and dictatorship, or the protests to demonstrate the unity against growing consumerism, social media have been playing a significant role. From campaigns supporting the environmental issues to the campaign to help donate the bone-marrow to a promising young entrepreneur suffering from Leukemia, social media are being used to the right cause.
5) Actionable insights, not just plain numbers
I am a statistician by qualification and millions like me, around the world are happy to see the surge of statistics and analytics, thanks to the social media. From Google Analytics to marketing budgets and companies’ performances, numerical data are finding prominence. There are a plethora of services that came up in recent times to compute your engagement, influence, reach etc. Don’t be enamoured by the ranks and scores and target the influencers or mimic the content with high engagement scores. For instance, Paul Adams, in his book Grouped, quotes a research about how common people do not get influenced by celebrities or those with high scores of influence and reach. As per the study, people generally get influenced by people like them and tend to follow their behaviour. So, know fully well that the data and analytics that you gather are only as good as their use. Unless they are put to the right usage, context and value-add to your business and customers, they remain just numbers.
Hope you find this post usable, as always, welcome your feedback. I shall touch upon more practical challenges in delivering the unified experience and how you can overcome them. Until then, have fun!
Tags: big, blogging, commerce, data, experience, Facebook, Fortune500, framework, Grouped, Inc500, Innovative, Klout, Massachusetts, online, PaulAdams, PeekAnalytics, PeerIndex, retail, showrooming, social, solutions, Target, texavi, twitter, unified, University, web, WSJ, YouTube
Posted in Behavior Modeling & Design, Business Analysis, Information Technology, Social business, Social Technologies, User Experience | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
There is one news item that I have been following very keenly in the evening newspaper , going back home from work, daily. It caught my attention a week ago and ever since, it has been on my radar. The news is not related to the bad state of economy, nor connected with sports , movies or music. It is the ‘Get London Reading’ news story published on the front page of London Evening Standard newspaper. This caught my attention because of the very title of the campaign and the positive vibes being generated and the potential impact and change it would create. The very title of this initiative is a great example of a behavior definition, nevertheless if it is a tad bit broad and ambitious, if not ambiguous.
Behavior change is possible
In my last post, we looked at what behaviors are and the main types of behaviors. Some people actually asked me the difference between a behavior, goal and task. When I have seen the ‘Get London Reading’ campaign, it instantly occurred to me as an example to help clarify this. A quick look at the campaign page hosted online will give you an indication why I refer to this as an exemplary behavior change programme. Well, in this post , let us take the next step and understand the Behavior Model touching upon the relationship between motivation, ability and triggers. I wish to draw some insights from Fogg Behavior Model (aka FBM) proposed by Prof. B.J.Fogg, using my examples.
The Poppy Appeal – Persuasion success story
A couple weeks ago, people in the UK observed Remembrance Sunday paying tributes to the armed forces personnel who sacrificed their lives in the line of service. People from all walks of life came forward to commemorate the bravery of soldiers in various ways. There were donations collected in different forms , the most visible of them being the Web site making the ‘poppy appeal’ and of course, the sale of poppies on the roads. You would have seen many people in London and other cities wearing and flaunting these poppies proudly, to show their support to the Royal British Legion. The poppy appeal program is a massive hit, garnering generous amounts of funds, besides all the attention. I wish to take the poppy appeal case as a success s story to elaborate my case about persuasion and behavior change.
Will do -> Want to do + can do
Let us consider a case when somebody comes and asks you to donate funds for the cause of soldiers. How many people will donate the money? Notice that some people do want to donate, because it is serving the noble cause of helping the defence services personnel, albeit in a small way. But not always do you find that all these motivated people can actually give. So, it is not enough to want to give funds, but most importantly, people should also have the ability to donate amounts. Great, so you found some people who want to and also who can donate. Is the job done? Not exactly. They need to be asked, reminded and provided with ways to donate . These are all the various triggers used to facilitate these motivated and able people to take the step and donate the amounts. Then and only then, would the motivated and able people come forward to donate.
Fogg Behavior Model (FBM)
So, from the above example, let us try and generalize this using the Behavior Model proposed by Prof. B.J.Fogg, Director of Persuasive Technologies Lab, Stanford University. You would have understood that people will do a task, not only when they are motivated but also when they have the ability. In other words, the first step in the process of behavior change is to identify those people who have high motivation. The next step is to simplify the task or process, or to increase their ability to do the task.
However, it does not always happen that these people actually do the tasks, until they are triggered with the right call to action. These triggers have to be placed on the journeys or paths of these people, at the right time, in the right place and with the right visibility. That’s the secret behind many successful products and services, which have been able to bring about a behavior change in their users.
Change is in the air – Lean & agile
You would have seen that this persuasion and behavior modeling is all about change, but change of a different kind. Organizations and products have been trying to induce the behavior change in the people. The beauty of this model is that it perfectly aligns with the spirit of other successful contemporary models for change management . These include but not limited to Agile product development and lean startup. All these models and schools of thought have an almost similar ideology. Agile product development is about identifying and responding and managing changes with the right people, tools and techniques. Lean startup embraces the philosophy of doing something in a small way leading up to a gradual and sustainable growth model. The behavior model encompassing behavior modeling, behavior change and persuasive design combines the best practices from psychology, change management, design and product engineering areas.
Mantras for changing behaviors
FBM is a powerful model which is applicable across different industries, product lines and market segments. It is very apt in the scenarios where you wish to make a long term behavior change, with an aim to make a positive habit among your customers and users. Here are some tips and guidelines, given by Prof. Fogg, based on the points discussed in this post.
- Behavior depends on how motivated users are, their ability and response to the right triggers for action
- People’s behaviors can be changed by motivating them, making it simple and/or inciting them to act
- Place triggers on the paths of motivated people who are able to do the behaviors
- Habits can be formed in people through behavior change
- Focus on increasing ability by making tasks easier for users
- Help people do what they already want to do
Hope you enjoyed reading this post and it is as helpful to you as the previous ones. Until next post, ciao!
Tags: agile, appeal, behavior, British, campaign, change, design, development, Get, Innovative, lean, Legion, London, mantra, mantravadi, model, Pardha, persuasion, poppy, product, Prof. B.J.Fogg, Reading, Royal, Saradhi, solutions, Stanford, startup, texavi, University
Posted in Agile Development, Behavior Modeling & Design, Business Analysis, Innovation, Product Development, User Analysis, User Experience, User-centered Design | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011
In 2006, Apple and Nike joined hands to develop Nike+iPod, that changed not only the way people listen to music on the move, but also the way they manage their fitness and in effect, their health and lifestyle. Just about the same time, Nintendo launched Wii, that changed the way people play games from being passive to an active, out-of-your-couch experience . A decade ago, Google changed the way people navigated by shifting their focus from browsing to searching and now Facebook has changed the way people stay connected. All these products, beyond doubt, set out to change the behaviors of people who are motivated (I am not quite there yet:-) and are capable, if they are provided with the right resources.
You can change people’s behaviors
All the companies and products I mentioned above, proved that it is possible to use behavior modeling and design to effectively persuade people to do something positive. In this post and a few upcoming posts, I will touch upon how these companies and others have been successful in using the power of persuasion and behavior design. They have been effective not just in creating great products and services, but also in persuading and changing the behaviors of millions of customers and users, worldwide. Let us analyze and understand how they could do it and what really is the secret behind their success. In doing this, I draw my insights from Prof. B.J.Fogg’s Behavior Model (a.k.a FBM) to explain the relationship among behavior, motivation, ability and triggers. But first, let us understand persuasion and behaviors, in detail, in this post.
Persuasion as an art and science
Persuasion has been an art we have all been familiar with and it definitely is not new to us, human beings . Right from the time we are born and as we grow up into being professionals, we have been using different persuasive techniques to deal with family, friends, colleagues and customers. Marketers and advertisers, through the ages, have been successful in persuading us to look at, buy and use products and services. Its only recently that product companies have been looking at using persuasion and changing customers’ behaviors through structured and proven methodologies. More recently product companies like Fit Bit and DailyFeats-Jawbone launched wearable devices that help track your movements and proactively suggest ways to improve your fitness and health. Both these devices have been designed to persuade people to change their behavior, from a passive to a more active lifestyle. The key here is they have been successful in implementing the Persuasion and design and develop products to help change behaviors in a pragmatic manner.
What is a behavior
We keep hearing about goals, needs, tasks and activities, being used in our professional and personal spheres. Now you might be wondering how behaviors are different from these. Behaviors are perhaps more fundamentally ‘human’ and ingrained in us as human beings, than say, tasks or activities. No wonder then that behaviors could be separated from the other superficial aspects, such as activities and tasks . This is how I look at behaviors and I am not taking this from any specific source or resource. The personality of an individual can be dependent on both her attitude and behaviors. There are numerous theories suggesting ways to bring about attitude change. But as Prof. B.J.Fogg suggests, behaviors are better separated from attitudes for a clear definition and a focused approach to behavior change. So, I will follow the same approach and focus merely on defining target behaviors and bringing about the desired changes in behaviors of people.
Creating habits, not just products
Behaviors can come in different shapes and sizes. You might want to classify behaviors into different types based on the longevity or duration of their occurrence.
- Get people engaged in a one-time behavior Eg., Replace all bulbs in house with eco-friendly energy-saving ones
- Do it over some duration or for a defined period. Eg., Take bus/train to go to office, 3 days in a week
- Do it continuously over a long term, almost as a habit. Eg., Use hand-sanitizers to keep hands safe from viruses
It is in the last category, lies the interest of most organizations and products. Which company wouldn’t like to have customers using their product on a continual basis? Or better still getting habituated to using the product to the extent of forming an addiction. Recent examples for this have been Google, Facebook and Twitter…all of them did implement this long term behavior change in a smart way by creating habits in people, successfully. Google created searching as a habit by replacing it with the browsing navigation. Facebook created the habit of checking out what your friends are up to and sharing with your friends your recent escapades. Twitter provided a way for people to express and update their activities in a short sentence. If you want to be successful in your business, then start looking beyond your product’s features and users’ needs. It is time, you looked at making positive behavioral changes to your users in different contexts.
Behaviors and their flavors
Behaviors can also be looked at from the perspective of what you like to do to them. Some times, you may want to induce new behaviors, while in other instances, you want to change the existing behaviors – increase, decrease, or altogether stop them.
- New behaviors can be imparted to people. Eg., flossing teeth is new, compared to brushing
- Increase existing behaviors. Eg., Brush teeth twice a day, instead of once
- Decrease existing behaviors. Eg. Take less quantity of fatty food during dinner
- Stop existing behaviors. Eg., Stop smoking (hmm…this is tricky:-)
Now that we have covered the basics of behaviors, we are now geared to get into the details. In the next posts, I shall explain, taking help from Prof.B.J.Fogg’s Behavior Model, how you can be more persuasive in designing and developing your products. Until then, ciao!
Tags: advertisements, Apple, B.J.Fogg, behavior, change, DailyFeats, design, experience, Facebook, FBM, FitBit, fitness, Google, habits, health, Innovative, iPod, JawBone, mantravadi, model, Nike, NikePlus, Pardha, people, persuasion, products, Saradhi, services, solutions, texavi, twitter, user
Posted in Behavior Modeling & Design, Information Technology, Interaction Design, Product Development, User Experience, User-centered Design | 2 Comments »
Saturday, November 12th, 2011
Behavior change it is, if you are wondering what’s hot in the consumer space. I see this as a game changer , with organizations now looking beyond satisfying the explicit needs of users. Simply put, as a product or a services company, you have the power to change the behavior of your users. Apple, Google and Facebook are great examples of how well they understood the behavior modeling and persuasive design and successfully applied it in their products. Numerous products such as FitBit and DailyFeats-Jawbone UP use similar concepts to make people fit and healthy, bringing about a change in their long term habits, resulting in better health and lifestyles. We will talk about these products in the coming posts, in detail, but in this post I focus on the ‘persuasion and behavior design’ boot camp that I attended recently.
Persuasion and Behavior Design Boot Camp by Prof. B.J.Fogg
Last week I participated in the 2-day Persuasion Boot Camp held at San Francisco, USA. The workshop was conducted by Prof. B.J.Fogg, Director of Persuasive Technologies Lab, Stanford University. It was a great experience, learning directly from Prof.Fogg, who is an eminent thought-leader on this subject. In this post, I will briefly touch upon the next 2 paragraphs with my views and then give a few snippets and key takeaways from the workshop. I wish to share with you the learning from this workshop and also my experience applying it. Watch this space for interesting stuff to come in the future posts. For complete set of photos from this workshop, please visit www.facebook.com/texavi
Essence of Boot Camp in few words
I give below a few points briefly on how the workshop was conducted, why I think its different from others and the important takeaways from the boot camp. To start with, the following one-liners summarize the learning.
- Its all about users’ behaviors, not just product’s features
- Solutions, not just problems
- Focus on creating solutions quickly
- Ideate, initiate & Iterate
- This model aligns with the agile development and lean startup
Myths and misconceptions, shattered
The workshop helped address a few myths that we have about product design, development, human psychology and behavior design. I mention below a few misconceptions prevalent in the industry that we should be wary of .
- Blind trust in excessive academic research
- Focus on features is important for products
- Attempts to motivating people on a continuous basis without simplifying the tasks
- Focusing on attitudes, instead of behaviors.
- Everything big is good – big ideas and big initiatives are always successful
- Its difficult to make people adopt to new behaviors
Great content and context
The workshop was refreshingly different not only in the content but also in the context and delivery. Open-house discussions and interactive brain-storming replaced the more traditional ways of presentations. I can say that the highlight of the boot camp was that there was little or almost no usage of computers and Powerpoint presentations. Going by its apt title, the boot camp did its job aiming to make the participants experts in the specific areas. Prof. Fogg chose the topics very carefully and was even more meticulous in their delivery. He ensured that the core concepts are registered in the minds of boot campers using intensive hands-on sessions and role-plays rather than relying on typical pedagogic methodology.
Nice ambiance and a perfect setting
Far from the maddening buzz of the urban landscape, the workshop was conducted in serene ambience. Held in a beautiful guest house located by the riverside, the place was the best fit for learning and sharing . Also Healdsburg is a place surrounded with fertile land and so there is no dearth of natural vegetation. Every household here grows vegetables and fruits and no wonder you get the best quality natural products, direct from nature. This place also boasts of some fine vineyards and wineries around. All of these provide a great backdrop and a wonderful setting for the workshop.
And to wrap it up…
- Good use of different rooms and sometimes outdoors kept the workshop alive and participants active
- Outdoor activities and exercises were nice, thanks to the pleasant weather
- Perfect blend of individual and group exercises made the sessions insightful and interactive, as well
- Assignments right after discussions ensured that we applied the concepts to understand better
- Interactions with alumni and previous bootcampers helped understand the value of the boot camp
- Last but not the least, nice food and to top it all, a grand dinner arranged by the local wine trader
In the next few posts, I shall write more on the behavior model and how you can use the behavior design to create persuasive products and services. Hope you enjoyed reading this post. Until next one, ciao!
Tags: Apple, behavior, BJ, bootcamp, change, design, exercises, experience, Facebook, FitBit, Fogg, Google, habits, Healdsburg, health, Innovative, JawBone, Lab, modeling, Pardha Saradhi Mantravadi, persuasion, product, Prof, psychology, San Francisco, solutions, Stanford, technologies, texavi, training, University, Up, users, workshop
Posted in Behavior Modeling & Design, Innovation, Product Development, User Experience, User-centered Design | 4 Comments »
