The Convenience TradeoffBy Peter Sigrist, 33 Digital

Convenience

If everyone is busy making everything, how can anyone perfect anything? We start to confuse convenience with joy.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZmIiIXuZ0

Apple by Design, 2013

Convenience

Convenience

Convenience such as anytime access and speed of recovery “was by far the best predictor across all information seeking.”

Source: http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/library/2011/connaway-lisr.pdf

Dervin & Reinhard, 2006

The 1970s format wars

Sony: Betamax JVC: VHS Quasar: Great Time Machine

Philips: Video 2000

Sanyo: V-Cord

Quality

Price

Content

Recording time

The 1970s format wars

The principle factor in the success of VHS was how many times you would need to change the tape.

Source: James Lardner, Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the VCR Wars, 1987

THE SIREN SONG OF CONVENIENCE

The age of desire

The age of desireWe’re getting close to a science fiction fantasy, where we believe we are entitled to have everything we desire. This is a credo that’s taking over in user interface design.

Source: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=desire+paths&year_start=1988&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

A Flickr obessionA search on Flickr for “desire path” reveals the strange obsession with unplanned paths across lawns and through the snow, revealing routes of maximal convenience.

When convenience is in chargeBut what happens when convenience is the only factor?

When convenience is in chargeConvenience alone leads to design of questionable value. In such cases, the focus has typically been on only one type of convenience, such as time-saving.

Convenience alone leads to dead endsYou don’t need anyone to tell you that these inventions are bad. Yet it’s worth considering why. It’s all about affordance.

Taxonomy of convenience

Source: http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=5956

Time saving/ buying

Effort saving

Appropri-ateness

Portability

Accessibility

Avoidance of unpleasant-

ness

Six categories of convenience (Yale & Venkatesh, 1986)

How enjoyable/creative is the time spent? How valuable is the time taken?

How much easier is a task, thanks to a product or service?

How much does a product or service fit a given need?

How much can a product or service stop an activity feeling

like a chore?

How much a product or service can be used wherever and

whenever a consumer wants

Affordance

Affordance

The value of a well-designed object is when it has such a rich set of affordances that the people who use it can do things with it that the designer never imagined.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Zb_5VxuM

Don Norman, 1994

Affordance

Source: http://humansindesign.com/post/6808883501/why-is-this-iphone-from-studioneat-accessory-awesome

Watching movies

Reading the morning paper

Stop-motion videography

Long exposure photography

Mini-computerFacetime

(Hands free)

Mobile affordance

• Connection to leisure services• Workplace and productivity

enhancements• Connections to friends and

colleagues• Notifications and active life

management• News and current affairs• Life-enhancing ideas and inspiration• Public safety information• Government and utility services• Self-tracking and performance

monitoring• Handiness and comfort

A non-complete list of the things a well designed mobile device should afford.

Mobile versus wearable

• All of the mobile affordances still apply, but in addition:

• Invisible and instantaneous access to information

• Audio and physical inputs and outputs

• Instant switch between public/network/private states

• Secret/subtle relationship with information sources

Does changing the context or definition help? What if we talk about personal or wearable computing instead of mobile devices? Do we think of different affordances?

The affordance conclusionWe’re going more Not so much

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Kirk Source: http://whitemenwearinggoogleglass.tumblr.com/

So what?

What does it mean for comms

Most communications decisions are still made using the paradigm of:• mass media• brand control• bi-directional relationships

What does it mean for comms

We need are entering the age of peer to peer relationships, which means:• information flows fast, free• the public does the talking• communicators need a new

language

What it means for commsSkills/knowledge• Techniques for

activating peer to peer comms through WOM and social

• Data and insights• Development and

design• A/B test and learn

Impact• Value-based

measurement• Culture of risk• Managing with less

control• Structured for

responsiveness

The journey

What is the journey we need to go on as clients and agencies?

Learn the language

Practice the skills

Test and be ready to fail

Peter Sigrist, July 2013Managing director, 33 Digital@psigrist