OUTFITTING

An expanded definition of user experience that incorporates elements of service design and product design.

Out·fit·ting:

THE SHIFT

THE SHIFTPeople are spending more time,

money, and attention on products and services that don’t exist in the

real world.

We’re seeing a shift…

FROM HARDWARE TO SOFTWARE

FROM REAL TO VIRTUAL

FROM US TO YOU

FROM PRODUCTS TO SERVICES

THE STORY

It’s 1960 and Wilma Wrong has just turned 30. She’s been a telephone

switchboard operator for the past decade, and has seen steady growth in

her career. She’s wants her daughter, Wendy, to learn what it takes to be

a good switchboard operator.

How may I direct your

call?

In 1980 Wendy, Wilma’s daughter, turned 30. Direct dial has been around

for years, and most switchboard operators are obsolete. Wendy made the

decision to get trained as a call centre as a customer service rep.

How may I help you, sir?

In 1990, after spending a decade as a customer service representative,

Wendy was replaced with an interactive voice response system. At the

age of 40, Wendy decided to accept a job as a telemarketer.

We can sell you 12 at the same price!

By the millennium (2000) Wendy was starting to think about retirement,

but needed to save more money. Her sales had slowed over the past few

years; all her colleagues have been telling her to start using the internet.

Start using the what

now?

Over the next year, Wendy Wrong spends a lot of time developing her

email list, setting up a website, and joining social networks.

By 2005, Wendy has a thriving online affiliate store with loyal customers.

Wendy has used her years of communication, customer service, and

sales skills to build a successful online business; but now what?

Wendy’s daughter, Whitney, is now 25 and is one of the first ‘digital

natives’. Whitney has been helping with her mom’s online business since

she was young. Whitney believes she knows where to take the company.

Stop working so hard. It’s time to get

smarter.

Where Wendy was focused on communication, Whitney is focused on

understanding her customers. Whitney employs powerful tracking code,

and with equally-powerful analysis tools, she’s able to get a sense of what

communication tools are most effective.

By 2010, Whitney has optimized the online store her mother had started.

She’s pulling in more traffic, converting more customers, and is building a

brand people like interacting with. She’s created extensions of her store

that exist within social networks, and wants to figure out what to do next.

Whitney has been so focused on incremental optimization, she’s not sure

how to get the store to the next level. For the first time, the Wrong family

decides to hire an outside consultant for advice.

The consultant examines Whitney’s business for weeks. He finally, writes

something down on a small scrap of paper, folds the paper, and leaves

the paper on Whitney’s desk before leaving.

Stop

selling.

Start

helping

.

This is what was written: “Stop selling. Start helping.” Whitney was about

to run after the consultant in anger. How could these 4 words make a

difference to her business.

Whitney Wrong felt like she’d been ripped off. She was on the verge of

crying, when she heard a knock at the door. She opened the door to see

FedEx with an envelope. Whitney tears it open, and finds a presentation

printed out, and stapled with a note.

WTF?

This is thefinal deck I got

from the consultant.

THE NEEDDear Whitney,

This is how you take your business to the next level. Remember: Stop selling. Start helping.

I NEED HELPAlmost every product and service is designed to help us get things done. Using ‘the desired outcome’ as the common starting point for both service and product design, we can produce solutions that include both products and services, as well as solutions that are neither strictly product or service.

Stop thinking about what you want the user to do, and start thinking about how you can help the user do things.

For instance:

buy our credit card scanner. collecting credit card payment from customers visiting the store.

sharing files in a secure environment with your team.sign up for a free account.

finding the most interesting articles from all the rss feeds you subscribe to.download and install the RSS manager to your computer.

keeping track of your email contacts online.enter all your email contacts in the address book.

You need helpI want you to

UNIFICATION

UNIFICATION

OUTFITTING is an integrated approach to product and service design. It determines what a user

needs help with and creates a product-service solution.

OUTFITTING

ServiceDesign

ProductDesignCX

OUTFITTING

Fibers are jobs users need help with. Threads are categories of related jobs or tasks. Yarns are threads mapped to customer touch points. Products are unique entities, produced to help users accomplish a job. A system is a group of related products, used to support yarns.

FIBERS

THREADS YARNS

SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

OUTFITTING | FIBER SELECTION

FIBERS

THREADS YARNS

SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

SELECTING FIBERS

UNDERSTANDING your users is important to selecting the fibers that make up your

business. Fibers are jobs that users want help with. It’s best to think about these jobs without the context of an existing product or service.

SELECTING FIBERS

It’s useful to use this as a framework for identifying fibers:

“My users want help __________

____________ ____________.”

(action)

(object) (context)

SELECTING FIBERS

For example:

“My users want help __________ ______

__________________________.”

cooking dinner

with the ingredients available in the fridge

(action) (object)

(context)

OUTFITTING | THREADING FIBERS

FIBERS

THREADS YARNS

SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

CREATING THREADS

THREADING involves grouping similar fibers (jobs), and finding a common thread between multiple fibers.

Fibers are often incomplete jobs; threading helps ensure fibers are tracked back to a root job. Therefore, threads should always represent a COMPLETE JOB.

CREATING THREADS

For example:

My users want helpidentifying when their

toothbrush needs changing

Fibers My users want helpknowing when they can stop

brushing their teeth

My users want helpgetting the right amount of toothpaste on their brush

Thread My users want helpbrushing their teeth in the

morning

My users want helpknowing which teeth have been

brushed and which haven’tMy users want help

getting rid of bad breath.

CREATING THREADS

The act of creating threads may reveal additional fibers. Therefore threading and identifying fibers are dependant on each other.

Threads will be used to create yarns.

OUTFITTING | DEFINE YARNS

FIBERS

THREADS YARNS

SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

CREATING YARN

YARNS take root-jobs, identified during threading, and map them across user touch points in order to tell stories. These stories (or user journeys) define the offerings required of the system.

CREATING YARN

For example:Yarn: I want to get my family ready on weekday mornings.

Who: MeWhat: Get my family members ready for school or work.Where: HomeWhen: Weekday morningsWhy: Each family member is prepared for the day.How: Waking up on time, getting washroom chores done, getting fed, getting daily necessities packed, and commuting to work/school.

online

in person

resource

brush teethwake up

check messages

eat breakfast

check weather

commute

alarm clock toothbrushtooth pastewashroom

internetemail clientsocial networks?

TransportationMusic

OUTFITTING | PRODUCT DESIGN

FIBERS

THREADS YARNS

SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

CREATING PRODUCTS

Products are unique entities that offer a service intended to help users accomplish a job (thread). Products should help users get every fiber of the thread accomplished, either alone or in conjunction with other products.

CREATING PRODUCTS

For example:

An electric toothbrush could help users get their teeth brushed in the morning. Certain feature-sets will be created that speak to the different fibers required of the product. A product roadmap will help prioritize which features make up the launch version.

OUTFITTING | SYSTEM DESIGN

FIBERS

THREADS YARNS

SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

CREATING SYSTEMS

Systems are collections of products used to accomplish a yarn (or series of yarns). Systems map the use of products across several different planes, and fill in service offerings.

CREATING SYSTEMS

For example, if we wanted to make a system capable of getting a family ready for the day, we may think about things like:

• Who will be in charge of ushering the family through their morning jobs?

• How will the usher track the progress of each family members jobs?

• How will daily consumable requirements be delivered to the families home?

PRODUCT v. SYSTEM

Feature SetsProduct BacklogMeasurable OutputCompany created experience

Benefits of useOffering Roadmap Measurable OutcomeUser defined experience

More like product design More like service design

SUMMARY

SUMMARY

OUTFITTING is going to become more useful the closer our real

lives get to our virtual ones.

SUMMARYRemember these 3 truths:1. Existentially, we’re all users.2. Life consists of our experiences.3. Everything we create is a service, even if its a product.

We’re All UsersWe don’t know what we are, where we came from, or what we’re supposed to be doing; so, we can all think of ourselves as a consciousness using our bodies. Each of us is a user. We use our bodies to interact with the world around us; but have begun creating technology capable of being controlled by our minds.

Thinking of the user in this way expands the definition of user experience, but approaches UX problems in a more holistic way.

Life is an ExperienceOur lives are made up of products, services, and intelligence. The bed we wake up in is a product, the alarm that wakes us up is a service, and the dog that licks our face is intelligence. This may be a simplistic view of life, but it represents basic inputs that create the majority of our daily experiences. These inputs exist in all experiences; regardless of whether they exist in reality or not.

The great thing about imagination is that it allows us to experience things without actually being part of the physical experience. People with good imaginations are able to evaluate situations by considering scenarios. They use their imaginations to ‘set the scene’ of an experience with products, services, and intelligence. Life is made up of our experiences.

It’s all a ServiceI always had a hard time understanding the difference between a product and a service. The best explanation was from a business professor who essentially said products are tangible sets of features you can own; and services are intangible sets of benefits that are temporary. However, products usually ‘serve’ a purpose, and services often require the use of products. For instance, a shovel is a product; if I use it myself the shovel remains a product, but if someone else uses it for me, it’s a component of a service.

It gets even more complicated when you start thinking about virtual products, like software. I’m not the only one who struggles to define what software is. We all know hardware is a product; but is software a product or a service? The deeper I examined different approaches to product design and service design, the more I felt like an integrated approach was necessary.

After spending a couple days with the presentation, the consultant had

sent, Whitney Wrong received a phone call. It was the consultant. Whitney

began asking all kinds of questions about how to apply OUTFITTING to

her company.

She wound up expanding the consultants role; asking him to help usher

her through the OUTFITTING process. She was thrilled the whole way

through. She found out things she never thought of.

It’s now 2020, almost a decade after the consultant had helped Whitney

Wrong. She’s expanded her business in a manageable way. Her brand

has more affinity than ever. The equity in her business has increased more

in the past decade, than in the previous 30 years. Her company several

products with clear feature backlogs, and offering roadmaps. Her

continued success is almost guaranteed.

The Wrong family; from Whitney, to Wendy, to Wilma Wrong, have turned

the wrong in their lives around. The Wrong’s are now right.

Feelin’all right!

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