The Convenience Tradeoff

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 desire We’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 obession

A 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 charge

But what happens when convenience is the only factor?

When convenience is in charge

Convenience 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 ends

You 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

Appropriateness Portability

Accessibility

Avoidance of unpleasantness

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-computer Facetime

(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 conclusion

We’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 comms

Skills/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