Ferg's Blog

A Big Day for British Youth and Winter Sports – An Inspiration For The Rest of Us?

Fergus Bisset — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:58:16 +0000

As all of us will most likely now be aware the Winter Olympic Games have started in Vancouver Canada. It’s now day four of the games and that means the first day of cross-country skiing events. These events are obviously close to my heart as something of a cross-country ski enthusiast and it is great to know that for the first time in 16 years Great Britain will have representatives in these events. Andrew Musgrave and Andrew Young will be competing in the Mens 15km freestyle event whilst Fiona Hughes will compete in the Ladies 10km. A shout out also to Ireland’s PJ Barron who will be racing as well in this afternoon’s events and trains with the rest of the British team.

Andrew Young and Andrew Musgrave Ahead of the Olympics (photo credit: PJ Barron)

This is a fantastic achievement not just for the three individuals in question but for all the coaching team who have helped get them there over the past ten years, British Nordic Development Squad coaches Roy Young, Anghared Evans, Ekaterina Rachel, Keith Spencer, Marek Pasterny, Pete Gurney, Roger Homyer and Steve Boyd and Al Dargie as well as club coaches at a number of local clubs across the UK such as the Cairngorm Biathlon and Nordic Ski Club and Huntly Nordic Ski Club.

It is also testament to the competitiveness of the rest of the squad that these three individuals have been pushed to this level of performance. It is perhaps overlooked when the Olympics comes around and the focus is on the top three places, just how much work goes into preparing, training, resting and equipping all the athletes in the field, not just to get them to the start line today but every day over the past four years since the last games or longer. There has also been a huge amount of effort and commitment from a significant number of athletes who didn’t make it this year and whom having missed out this time are already planning the next four years to take them to Soichi 2014, not to mention all the British Championships, World Junior Championships, World Cup and World Championship campaigns in the interim.

Indeed, four years ago if you had asked me what my central ambition in life was, it was to be on the start line alongside these guys, I gave it my best shot but its a hundred times harder than those guys out there will make it look today. That is a credit not only to them but their coaches, families and supporters no matter the results today. Indeed, it is so great from a Motivational perspective to see all of them and Andrew Musgrave in particular, in their interviews for the BBC, talk about how these Games are about experience and providing performance benchmarks for future years performance. As anybody who has read up on Motivational Theory or competed in elite level sport will know, successful performance and sustaining motivated behaviour comes as a result of focusing on your own (intrinsic) performance, not simply measuring it based on extrinsic rewards such as medals, money or praise.

I’ve talked about this a lot on this blog, with reference to Dweck’s (2000) Entity and Incremental ‘implict theories’ of behaviour and with reference to my own models of motivated behaviour (http://www.fergusbisset.com/blog/2009/12/09/modelling-motivation-in-the-design-of-products-systems-and-services/ and http://www.fergusbisset.com/blog/2009/12/03/managing-motivation/) that underline the value of encouraging ourselves and the people we work with to consider their behaviour in terms of their long term aims and ambitions – Mastery Orientation if you will.

Whilst it is these three young skiers that will represent all of us in Great Britain in the races this evening. I believe that what they and all their competitors from all the other nations have achieved and will continue to achieve represents a way of thinking and a behaviour that all of us can benefit from considering:

How we work together in teams or families to achieve our shared objectives – how do we support, share and inspire ourselves and those around to achieve our personal and shared aims, whatever those aims might be.
How we reflect, think and introspect upon our own performance – how does it fit with our personal values and aims and how does it compare with those around us – is our day to day behaviour going to take us where we want to be in four to five years time?
Do we enjoy our day to day experiences and the challenges and pleasures they throw up enough for our long terms aims to be worthwhile? We’re all aware of the phrase “Life’s too short…” How do we manage and regulate our own day to day performances and how we interact with the world around us to ensure we are fulfilling our potential and contributing as much as possible to those around us and our dreams and ambition?

Where do you want to be in four years time? And for the designers and behavioural change professionals amongst us, how do we design products, systems and services that support this level of experience, thought and performance? What else can we learn from the Olympics and Olympians in terms of how to energise and support human motivation and performance?

Good luck to Andrew, Andrew and Fi as well as to all of the rest of us!

Interview with Dan Pink on Motivation

Fergus Bisset — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:38:04 +0000

As part of the ongoing promotion of his new book Drive, Dan Pink gives an interview discussing some of the underlying theories and principles which he has repackaged as a management book. I’m looking forward to reading the book which comes out here in the UK at the end of this month. Dan is also due to speak at the RSA in a couple of weeks time which again I’m very much looking forward to.

I think this publication is very exciting for those of us involved in motivation research and for forward thinking business managers at whom this book seems to be aimed. Based on both this interview and his Ted talk last year Dan seems to be leveraging, at least conceptually, Hullian Drive Theory which allows him utilise the straightforward metaphor and illustrate the important point that motivation is about energisation of human behaviour. This theory whilst hugely influential in the field of motivation and educational psychology is largely discredited now by the more recent interpretation that it does not fully accomdate explanation of Avoidance behaviour. To put more simply, Drive Theory does not explain risk taking or more intrinsic forms of pleasure seeking behaviour. For a discussion on Approach-Avoidance behaviour and freely downloadable research papers see http://www.psych.rochester.edu/research/apav/.

It’s nice though to see Pink make mention of Autonomy as a component of motivation and a factor which forms a big part of Deci and Ryan’s Self Determination Theory which I have been leveraging heavily in my own work on designing motivation. I feel that their Organismic theory of motivation is far more adaptable and useful as an explanation for motivation than Drive Theory mentioned above. The question of how designers can utilise an organismic theory of motivation is the subject of my recent chapter contributed to the This is Service Design Thinking publication. It’s perhaps apt that Self Determination Theory and Service Design Thinking share the same acronym as they are well placed to conceptualise and design for intrinsic, rather than extrinsic forms of motivation.

It’s nice to see the mention of a sports person as a metaphor for motivated behaviour and I would hope that this reoccurs throughout the book, as someone who has myself become so interested in motivation by approaching it (no pun intended ) from a sports psychology and elite performance background.

Davos 15km - P. Vordenberg - teamtoday.org

I agree ultimately with Pink’s sentiment that people generally need more feedback, annual reviews and even biannual reviews are not going to motivate employees in the best possible way. But I’m a bit confused then as towards the end of the above interview he is so quick to dismiss (or avoid) addressing the work on Anticipated Feedback (Bandura) as a motivator. The original research on this can be found here, but it basically suggests that anticipated social feedback (as a feed-forward mechanism) is a major primary motivator in individuals. Again, put more simply, this is the notion that if you can visualise a positive response to your work you are more likely to be motivated towards and successful in accomplishing it. This is also another reason why I think Service Design Thinking with its emphasis on visualising complexity to understand it and adapt it is so well placed to understand and promote motivation. I’d hoped that in the current era of social media and game changing, hierarchy busting, technology and given that he is speaking to a blogger for a video that is being posted on YouTube Pink might have addressed this more fully…

Either way I think this publication signals that 2010 will be the year that Motivation really hits the mainstream, similarly perhaps to how ‘Design Thinking’ hit the mainstream last year off the back of Brown and Martin’s publications. Much like with those two volumes though, one could imagine that the release of Pink’s book signals that there will be an increase in demand amongst senior management for creative and innovative practitioners who not only understand motivation but also who possess the tools to create and facilitate motivating systems, products and services.

What do you think? Do you think 2010 will be the year of motivation or are there other emerging trends and topics that trump motivation in the understanding and design for behavioural change?

(Thanks to @arnoldbeekes for the original link)

Introduction to the Fundamentals of Motivation

Fergus Bisset — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:40:29 +0000

I am currently writing a short chapter for the forthcoming Service Design textbook This is Service Design Thinking. In the spirit of co-creation and participatory design which this publication is attempting to embody I would be very interested to hear what you think about my introduction and the scope of the chapter I am writing. I would really welcome your feedback and suggestions. Presently, it reads as follows:

Motivation has been described as the “energisation and direction of human behaviour” (Reeve, 2005). A fundamental concept in the understanding, regulation and support of human behaviour, Motivation has been debated and discussed for time immemorial. From Confucian and Sanskrit philosophy in the East to that of the Greek political philosophers and Christian biblical scholars in the West: The symbiotic relationship of the individual and their environment and attempts to understand the governing principles of this relationship have been one of the most central questions to ‘energise and direct’ humanity’s thoughts, beliefs and creativity. Defining not only the social structures of the societies in which we live but the political, educational and creative philosophies that govern and sustain them.

Mook (1987) provides a fuller account of the historical evolution of Motivation and in turn the recursive nature of Motivation within society. History builds a case for how significantly a society or community’s conception of ‘motivation’ underpins its philosophical and political stance and behaviour. For example Pre-Enlightenment era Europe was governed by the Christian church and thus the values of the church transcended national boundary, in much the same way that for example modern day Islam and Judaism often transcends or paradoxically in the case of countries such as Iran and Israel respectively, epitomises national or political identity.

There is little escaping the fact that our motivations or how we explain and conceptualise them digs deeper into our own psyche and that of our societies than very often as designers we are prepared or entitled to look. Furthermore, if Design Thinking and Service Design hold the key to solving larger more complex social problems as (Burns, Cottam, Vanstone, & Winhall, 2006), Brown (2009), Martin (2009), Loevlie (2009) and Miller and Rudnick (2009) have claimed, do we need to start being more capable and comfortable at asking those questions and visualising and conceptualising the responses?

This chapter seeks to explore as succinctly as 8000 characters allows what modern day psychology and its literature can contribute to overcoming these sometimes uncomfortable ethical, political and social conceptualisations and how, in addition to existing and established Service Design tools and processes, it might be able to support us ‘design thinkers’ as we seek to ‘energise and direct’ human behaviour through the design and creation of innovative products, systems and services.

Thank you all in anticipation of your help and really looking forward to hearing from you, either via Twitter or via the comments form below:

You Say You Want A Revolution… a Service Design Revolution

Fergus Bisset — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:06:11 +0000

Lucy Kimbell this week wrapped up her thoughts on where Service Design sits at the end of 2009 and looks ahead to 2010. It taps into something that I’ve been increasingly feeling for a little while…her mention of the need for Service Design to reflect more heavily on its politics, scope and knowledge are as challenging as they are important.

My own feeling, perhaps fuelled by what has been an incredibly busy end to the year, is that I can’t help but feel that some of the vanguard spirit has been exhausted within the Service Design Twitter and Blogger community. Maybe, trying to reflect on that sentiment more positively, the vanguard spirit has just been diluted by the huge surge in interest and comment on Service Design that I think is the resounding feature of 2009.

But that is a danger, if those voices once so regular and prominent in campaigning for the values and politics of Service Design have now retreated to ‘the coffee houses‘ instead of more publicly sharing their thinking, the Service Design community is the worse for it.

If nothing else, it prompts the question:

“Is the surge in interest and enthusiasm for Service Design and Service Design Thinking because of its novelty or because if its integrity?”

My background in studying history as seen me draw parallels between the evolution in Service Design and the Russian Revolution previously in response to articles by other Service Design ‘Thinkers’, Jaimes Nel and Nick Marsh. My concern back then, was that there appeared to be a schism emerging between Service Design practioners and Service Design academics. I tongue in cheek, compared this to the Red/White Russian Bolshevik split, the split between those that believed that their ‘democratic communist utopia’ had to be pragmatically (and by consequence brutally) enforced as opposed to those who believed that remaining true to the ideals of the ‘revolution’ would ultimately see it prosper and flourish. This philosophical stance appeared to be supplemented by Bill Hollins citing Marx and Engels in his presentation on Service Design at a British Standards Institute gig a few weeks ago.

Trotsky by Germeister from Flickr

In reality of course it is perhaps more likely that the Vanguard Reds (led by Lenin) just felt threatened by the intellectualism and ideas of Trotsky’s Whites and sought to establish control (and absolute power) rather than adhere to the values and ideals of revolution.

But what has this to do with Service Design I hear you ask? Well, I hope that the murmurs of discontent following the Service Design Network Conference about it being too academic are not the seeds of a wider and deeper disaffection that might lead to a purge of the intellectuals… Lucy’s response on Twitter on this topic was perhaps one of my favourite tweets of the year (regrettably no longer searchable) but her thinking can also be found in this post.

Personally, it is the politics, enthusiasm and equality of Service Design that attracted me to it in the first place. To continue to string out my metaphor, Industrial Design was the Tsarist Autocracy, ruled by and for the benefit of the elite, subjugating users to a largely passive role in the process of designing products, therefore creating services largely unintentionally and repressing the role of the majority of users in creating value. Irrespectively, taxing them for the use of inadequate public and private services. Service design, social design and the participatory methods that underpin them present a new vision or world order that is different to that.

Were the Trotsky-ist Whites in Russia naive to think that their revolution would occur and be sustainable without militant action, perhaps, but the truth is we will never really know. Am I naive to think that Service Design as a professional discipline might for those involved in it genuinely be about empowering users in the process of value creation, as opposed to the next masquerade of the design industry and corporate culture – perhaps, again, only time will tell.

The fact is that the ’socialist’ experiment failed in Russia because economically it could not compete with the West, much of the recent 20-years-on reflection on the fall of the Berlin Wall reiterates such a view. Just as equally, Service Design as a philosophy could fail if its economic imperatives become too far divorced from it’s social, humanitarian and political responsibilities. If nothing else history tells us that quick opportunistic grabs of power and control don’t tend to be socially, economically or politically sustainable.

What do you think, does Service Design have enough integrity as a discipline?

As a discipline do you think Service Designers spend enough time reflecting on the politics, history and philosophy behind their processes?

How much can historical and philosophical reflection help simplify modern day complexity?

Modelling Motivation in the Design of Products, Systems and Services

Fergus Bisset — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:02:08 +0000

View more presentations from Fergus Bisset.

This is a fairly comprehensive presentation of the underlying philosophy and research behind my masters work in helping designers visualise and support motivation in the design of everyday products and services. I’ve obviously talked about the development of this work extensively on this blog so I’d like to take the chance to thank all of you who have visited and contributed comments and support – its helped me refine and adapt my ideas thus far and I really appreciate it!

I’m hoping to add an audio summary of the presentation at some point, but otherwise the presentation gives an overview of the foundations of my framework of motivation in design, the research behind it and then a few examples of products and services that have either been directed by this conceptualisation or whose success as ‘motivational platforms’ can be interpreted by using the framework.

People may also recognise a few of the case studies from the Nordic Service Design Conference – thanks to the presenters their for their explanations, this presentation also served as an opportunity for me to pass on what I’d learned and enjoyed from that conference to my colleagues at the HCDI at Brunel.

As ever comments and questions are gratefully appreciated and if you are interested in finding our more or understanding how this framework can be applied to your own design or service propositions then please get in touch.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy!

Managing Motivation

Fergus Bisset — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:05:26 +0000

Julian Birkinshaw from the excellent Unstructure blog has asked me to contribute to the discussion he has eloquently started on the role of employee motivation in the changing dynamic of today’s business environment. This in part follows on from Arne van Oosterom’s Made With Care discussion on Wenovski.

In support of his discussion of how managers might support employee Motivation, Julian leverages the same Self Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan, 1985, 2000, 2004) that has formed the basis of my own research. His coverage of the Material, Social and Personal drivers of Motivation need little further coverage as I’ve referred to them on my blog and associated discussions using Deci and Ryan’s original terms of Autonomy, Relatedness and Competence. Julian suggests that managers should utilise these three aspects of human psychological capability to help turn ‘extrinsically regulated‘ organisational objectives into ‘identified‘ personal motives of employees. In otherwords, managers should use the prospects of material, social and personal rewards to encourage employees to take ownership of organisational objectives and become more personally intrinsically rewarding. I would also supplement this with Valerand’s, (2003) definition that motivation occurs on “global, contextual and situational” levels of recursion.

As I’ve mentioned in the discussion on Wenovski a great example of an organisation doing this is Zappos, an American online retailer, that uses it’s employees to amongst other things model the clothes they sell. Specifically this example is appealing to an employee’s underlying Relatedness and Competence ‘needs’ and allowing them to fulfill those ‘needs’ on behalf of the organisation, which in turn benefits the organisation’s own Relatedness and Competence objectives, by providing customers with a familiar, down to earth and empathetic marketing touch point. Literally in this case the employee is embodying the organisation. This, if successful, and it is proving very successful for Zappos, will in the long term also enhance the organisations global Autonomy by boosting sales (the material outcome) as well as it’s social outcome (what customers think) and its personal, or personnel outcome by enhancing its relationship with its employees.

Motivational Framework v0.1 cc Fergus Bisset

As one of the commenters on Unstructure Marc Buyens said, “these are not new concepts”, but I think the difference is that re-conceptualising these as motivational constructs or regulatory mechanisms can have quite a powerful effect on the way an organisation manages them. The above diagram indicates another few ways from the literature of conceptualising both how and why to target ‘management interventions’. For example, these help determine at what stage you are energising as opposed to directing employee/customer behaviour and whether or not you are doing so to instil awareness of issues or to reaffirm employee confidence or satisfaction.

Indeed, motivation is all around us, it is the root of our every behaviour and that’s a critical point I’d like to bring to this conversation, motivation whether positive or negative (demotivation) will occur whether you want it to or not. Within your organisation, your staff and colleagues, and yourself. Deci and Ryan’s theory is an organismic one, that is, it perceives that we as humans are naturally predisposed to grow and organically adapt to our environment, seeking out new challenges, responsibilities and recognition in order to fulfil these underlying psychological needs. The question to managers is perhaps best asked, not might you support motivation, but rather how are you currently regulating motivation within your organisation? How are you directing or maintaining the energisation of the behaviour in your organisation?

A very innovative approach to this I discovered yesterday, came via the Swedish TV Licensing Authority with their Tack (Thank You) campaign. Allowing individuals who upon paying their tv licences to submit a picture of themselves and be integrated to a well highly produced and aspirational “thank you” video. Actually, anyone can have a go, which does kind of undermine the point a little, but its powerful stuff – underlining the point that for managers the best way to motivate your employees is to integrate them into the middle of the organisation and allow them to take ownership and participate in the critical issues of the organisation and become an evangelist for them.

From a Self Determination perspective at least, every employee has those Personal ‘Material, Social and Competence ‘Needs” Julian mentions, fulfilment of these results in happiness for the individual. However, because of the nested and recursive nature of self determined behaviour and societies, organisations also have ‘Material, Social and Competence‘ ‘Needs’. The obvious question for managers then is how are you facilitating the fulfilment of both of these first order (happiness) and second order ‘needs’ (success) and in doing so creating a motivated, energised and purposeful organisation? As I shared on Twitter yesterday:

“Success is getting what you want (contextual/global – extrinsic). Happiness is wanting what you get (situational – intrinsic).”

Five Minutes of Fame at the Nordic Service Design Conference Dinner

Fergus Bisset — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:43:50 +0000

20091130NordicSDC_dinner_34, originally uploaded by Nina Lysbakken.

Thanks to Nina Lysbakken for this picture taken during the presentation from team from Livework Oslo talking about the results of the Service Design Challenge. This was a great co-created dinner, during what was a fantastic conference – more to come on all of it later, just as soon as I get a chance!

Other Insights...

August 9th, 2009 -- Designers as Coaches (0)
June 22nd, 2009 -- Design for Regime Change (0)
January 3rd, 2010 -- Introduction to the Fundamentals of Motivation (9)
May 5th, 2009 -- How is this relevant to me? Motivational Design and Public Engagement Presentation (2)
July 10th, 2009 -- Language Matters – is ‘design thinking’ dead? (1)
July 10th, 2009 -- Steve Stott Talks About Sketching and Creativity (0)
March 23rd, 2009 -- Public Engagement and Exhibition Design (0)
September 21st, 2009 -- Motivational Design Personas (9)
May 17th, 2009 -- Systems That Encourage You To Think You Can (1)
October 28th, 2009 -- User Needs are Outdated, We Should Be Designing User Goals… (1)

Motivational Design Framework v.0.1

Fergus Bisset — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:25:04 +0000

Apologies for the recent blogging hiatus, in large part due to the launch last week of The Ergonomics Real Design Exhibition at the Design Museum which I have been working on over the last year and half. I’m also recently back from the excellent Nordic Service Design Conference in Oslo. I will post more on both of those things in due course. In the meantime, I’ve also been working on my MPhil in Intrinsically Motivating Design and recently developed a model that I hope to validate as a tool to help designers design Intrinsically Motivating and behaviourally self sustaining systems, services and products. I’ve posted this on Wenovski as well so apologies for the cross posting if you’ve already seen it there. I’d really welcome your feedback on this and if you have any questions or would be interested in offering me an opportunity to validate the model then give me shout either in the comments below or at hello@fergusbisset.com.

My research into Human Motivation and its relationship with design has seen me exploring a lot of organismic theories of human behaviour, those are the theories that suggest we are naturally predisposed or energised to grow or seek new challenges, affiliation or environments in order to remain healthy, happy and fulfilled.

Obviously not everyone is in agreement on the underlying mechanisms of human motivation and behaviour, there are many models, but these are issues that we as designers revisit often in the form of the well intentioned but hideously over-cited and rarely understood Maslow’s Hierarchy is based on such a humanist/organismic perspective.

My own research is exploring a newer an more updated model of which I attach an early draft below, one that also represents the iterative and dynamic nature of human behaviour – something that is overlooked in Maslow’s version.

My model and the research that underpins it (predominantly Deci and Ryan’s Self Determination Theory) indicates that in order to remain psychologically fulfilled we need to balance three psychological needs for AUTONOMY (Self Reflection, Independence, Empowerment), RELATEDNESS (Socialisation, Care and Concern for and from others), COMPETENCE (Feelings of efficacy, self control and accomplishment).

Deci and Ryan’s premise (and mine) is that only by balancing and fulfilling these core psychological needs will we be truely HAPPY and HEALTHY. My model attempts to illustrate how these INTRINSIC (some might say INNATE) psychological needs are often balanced against EXTRINSIC design factors and criteria and just as with Maslow’s Hierarchy if we want as designers to design systems and services that leave us feeling fulfilled they will need to address all of these INNATE HUMAN with EXPLICIT DESIGN capabilities and specifications.

If an intentionally or accidentally designed system cannot SELF REGULATE, or as you say Arne, “balance” EXTRINSIC and INTRINSIC demands it ultimately will become unsustainable.

To help make this idea more explicit I will elaborate – much of industrial design is focussed on the SENSORY features of products, services and systems, whilst interaction design and ’soft design disciplines’ are interested in COGNITIVE levels of interaction. Recently of course, as most of us here will be aware Design has begun to shift towards more ORGANISATIONAL or ‘Service’ perspectives in an attempt to satisfy the ‘NEEDS’ of its users and customers. Or perhaps if I put it more cynically – in an attempt to continue to generate value for stakeholders in the design process. This shift in the focus of design, as is well documented, has occurred as a result of technology that initially enable ‘interfaces’ and more recently high levels of social connectivity and networking.

With my model, I hope to help move design one step closer to exactly the call you’ve made here Arne, by helping designers to understand how their expertise in manipulation of SENSORY, COGNITIVE and ORGANISATIONAL affordances and data can be better focussed on meeting users genuine SOCIAL, COMPETENCE and AUTONOMY needs and in turn designing systems that are by consequence self motivating, sustaining and perhaps as you allude here ‘caring’.

What does everyone think?

Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective

Fergus Bisset — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:22:50 +0000

Jason Cooper (@jasecoop) fired out some quick Twitter research this afternoon inquiring after people’s perceptions of the self-service checkout machines we are increasingly faced with at supermarkets these days. These have been in the press this week as Tesco announced that it is to open it’s first ‘automated’ store in Northampton.

I have been meaning to write about these for awhile, so thanks Jase for pushing me in that direction.

M&S Self Service Checkout from jaygooby on Flickr

These machines as most of us will doubtless testify are incredibly frustrating. Not once have I ever used one without the human operator having to be summoned to remedy some sensor malfunction or barcode scanning problem. Yet, every time I see one available, even if simultaneously offered the option of a human operator I seem inexplicably drawn to the automatic machine and it’s purgatorial system processes.

Apart from a potential underlying masochistic streak, the only logical explanation I can find is that it is the perception that it will save me time (efficiency) that drives me to persist with these things. Doubtless this is the win for Tesco too. Yet, no sooner have I pressed it’s big green greasy start button and started scanning than it fails to register me place one of my items in the ‘bagging area’. This usually results in a near instant increase in blood pressure and me swearing blind I’ll never use one again.

Indeed, it is always an issue with the ‘bagging area’ on these machines – with either the sensor not registering that you have placed the item there after scanning it or the sensor detecting that somehow there is “an unidentified item in the bagging area.” In either eventuality it stalls and requires someone to come and prod your shopping or swipe their golden keycard until it is satisfied again. Urghh – even thinking about it makes me tense. No wonder that some of the responses that Jason’s questions were generating this afternoon on these machines were strong in their tone.

From a motivational design perspective however, these machines should really be a hands down winner, as I discussed here and again yesterday. The literature would suggest that anything that promotes our autonomy – our ability to do our shopping ourself, should be a strong motivational tool. The fact that at least until this week in Northampton, customers had a choice between machine and human was also a strong piece of motivational design as it offered otherwise inclined service users the chance to further their relatedness (social) goals for the shopping experience. If they preferred to have someone scan their shopping for them instead of scan their own shopping autonomously.

As I perceive it where these ’self-service’ checkouts fall down at the moment is in how they fail to fulfil our competence needs. Every time the sensor fails or the barcode is dirty or scratched, we can’t help but take it personally. The machine and it’s support processes make us feel incompetent. Not so much the fact it doesn’t work, as Eddie Izzard highlights brilliantly that has always been a integral part of supermarket shopping.

No, its the fact that in the majority of these ‘problem’ situations we require some other (usually slouching and disinterested) bod to come and fix it for us that these machines leave us feeling so drained and bitter. Further, it is the fact that they usually have to do this three or four times in one transaction that makes us want to burn effigies of the things. And yet next time round, and for me at least, the allure of autonomously being able to scan my own shopping is enough to suck me back into it’s beeping, monotone voiced vortex.

How could all this be made better then? Well, I’m quite keen to open that question up to you…I also kind of think that this is what Jase is away working on right now…

But, first things first Tesco could sort that ‘bagging area’ sensor out, either by eliminating it completely and demonstrating a bit more trust that users aren’t going to scan one item whilst sneaking others into their bags – surely that sort of behaviour is far more effectively prevented by the humans in Tesco’s employ. Indeed the more I reflect on it, this really seems like a engineering function (feedback process) that looked great on the system flowchart and in the product presentation pitch but that simply is not up to the demands of real world, non-expert operation. Probably as a result of a complete and utter lack of real world testing prior to installation, and the fact that the product development process clearly doesn’t accommodate an iterative design process or user feedback even now the product is in operation.

Most of all, and the biggest design issue from a Motivational Design point of view, is the fact that when this flawed functionality inevitably fails, the staff should look us in the eye and explain to us why the machine is having this problem as they solve it for us. Such increased transparency (or supported user skill and knowledge acquisition) will empower users to at least feel like they understand the technology a bit better. Such understanding or ‘mental model’ will help users in the event of a problem feel superior and more capable than the machine. Such an enhanced perception of capability will help restore a little of the behavioural equilibrium within the human-product interaction and ensure that we are just as motivated next time we visit to use the self-service systems. This is indeed, the paradox of automation – the more automated a process the more we rely on non-automated components of the system. Its also why all the unions, consumers groups and sensationalist press should stop their moaning about the so-called “death of the supermarket operator”.

In summary, if Tesco plan to introduce these machines nationwide, they will have to take a more holistic view of the service these machines are supposed to provide as well as realising the fundamental role that their human staff play in ensuring a smooth and seamless consumer experience.

What do you think? How would you redesign these machines to motivate more people to use them?

Theories of Planned Behaviour

Fergus Bisset — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:22:14 +0000

Thanks to Andy Polaine for sharing this tremendous insight in response to my post yesterday. It’s fair to say that those students studying Service Design at Luzern are in great hands.

In his comments he wrapped up a lot of the wider tensions within the Service Design community about the relationship between academia and practice that I know are hot topics of discussion at London events such as Service Design drinks and Service Design thinks at the moment, as well as clearly the Service Design Network Conference held this week.

Indeed, a lot of the background to this post and my own work is fuelled by an urge to bridge some of this tension – between theory and practice as Andy put it – this is synthesis in the truest sense of the word.

For anyone interested further background to these issues can be found here and here.

If I created a strawman yesterday in my discussion of what was said at the Service Design Conference then I apologise. I suppose the essence of what I was attempting to highlight was that despite any personal philosophical or pragmatic differences of opinion that might exist within the community, there appears to be two prevalent ways in which designers classify users. One is to see users as reactive i.e. responsive to extrinsic constraints and the other is to see them as proactive i.e. energised by internal ideas and ambitions (goal oriented).

The reality seems to be that we as humans fluctuate between these states probably faster than we’ll ever be able to measure or generalise accurately (its not going to stop me trying ) and thus we as Service Designers rely on the ethnographic approaches Andy mentions or laboratory based scientific experiments that are well documented in scientific journals to attempt to understand behaviour.

Whether designers are fully concious of the fact that they are making these judgements about users is another issue open to debate and discussion. Indeed, the oft cited definition of Design Research is “to make explicit what is otherwise implicit in the everyday practice of design.” Thus by raising this discussion, I was simply attempting to raise this question within the minds of us designers about how we implicitly view the user we are designing for? As I mention above the answer appears to be as either ‘passive’ or ‘active’ depending on circumstance, context or which particular part of the design or use phase we might be referring to.

Education systems are interesting service examples themselves in how they attempt to balance between encouraging creativity and intrinsically motivated behaviour whilst also controlling these processes with structured curriculum and routines. Indeed, any service we can think of will attempt to strike a balance between generating and controlling value (or creativity, or energy, or money) for all the stakeholders involved.

As Andy clarified in his comment on the last post, Birgit Mager was talking at the Service Design Network Conference about users behaviour being a function of Attitude and The Environment. On further research this would appear to also share perspective with that of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1988) which is also based on Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980).

This classifies user behaviour as a product of:

Attitude (Autonomy)
Social Pressure (Relatedness)
Perceived Behavioural Control (Competence)

What I’m interested in as part of my masters is how we can design systems and services that enhance user perception of these three inherent human psychological capabilities. Doing so successfully or even unsuccessfully will result in behavioural change, but doing so successfully and encouraging users to reflect on these capabilities will result in sustainable behavioural change (at least that’s the theory).

I’m incredibly fortunate that through this platform and as a result of contributions such as Andy’s I can also modify my own attitude and perceived competence as a result of being able to relate my work to you all.

Andy is right though we need to do more to work together and bridge the gaps between academia and professional practice. I don’t plan to stay in academia forever but whilst I’m still here I’d be interested to hear from you all… do you have any questions about Motivation? Is there something that you as a practitioner are working on and feel like you could use a bit of academic insight or research on? Please get in touch here, via twitter or through the comments link below.

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