Prototyping connected services

Back in July I ran a workshop at UXBristol where participants created a prototype of an end-to-end service using emerging technologies within one hour. This is a summary of how (and why) they did it.
Towards the end there is a video of the final run-through, which is worth watching, even if you don’t have time to read the full article.

Connected services

I’m interested in how emerging technologies are starting to transform services. I’ve written before about the relationship between service design and the Internet of Things (IoT) and how the value of connected devices lies in the underlying service.

That’s why I wanted to shift the emphasis from connected devices to connected services.

But it’s not just IoT that is changing services: big data; machine learning, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, voice interfaces, conversational interfaces and more are all starting to be used within consumer-facing products and services. It’s things like being able to see a map of where your Uber driver is, being able to control Apple Music through speaking to it, or ordering a pizza through Facebook.

Incorporating and getting value from these new technologies is both a challenge and an opportunity for the design of services.

The challenge

In the UXBristol workshop we took one service and worked through prototyping a new connected version of it. The example we used was a fictitious car rental service called “Renty-Car”.

I told participants that a research phase had been undertaken and Renty-Car was now at a point where they wanted to start exploring solutions to the issues that emerged.

Prototype touchpoints to prototype services

Regardless of new technologies, services are potentially very hard to prototype — they’re often intangible, they take place over long periods of time and across multiple channels (e.g. online, phone, face-to-face etc).

We can solve this challenge by prototyping the key moments of interaction within a particular channel — e.g. receiving an email confirmation. These moments are called touchpoints.

So, rather than attempting to prototype the entire Renty-Car service, we would focus on key parts it. However, we still needed to pick which touchpoints to prototype…

Using Service Blueprints to pick what to prototype

I gave participants a service blueprint of the existing Renty-Car service. This is a visual representation of the end-to-end service as well as summary of the discovery research.

The blueprint allowed participants to see the key challenges and issues, from both the point of view of the customer experiencing it and the organisation delivering it. It helped them focus on what they would tackle through prototyping.

So that we could get to prototyping as quickly as possible, I gave each group within the workshop a “starter” idea for solving these pain points. This was a high-level solution which was paired with an emerging technology. For example:

I also gave participants a different service blueprint for the new Renty-Car service that mapped out these early ideas. This helped participants plan their prototypes by showing how their ideas fitted within the wider context of the service.

Different prototyping methods

The goal of our prototyping activities were two-fold:

1. To explore early ideas by learning through making. In this sense, we were looking to create, as Bill Buxton calls them, “sketches” of the experiences — the purpose of which was to explore, question and provoke.
2. To create something that could be shared within an organisation or with users. As Tim Brown writes, a prototype can be a way to describe your strategy so that you can then get feedback and develop it.

In the workshop we used four core methods to prototype various parts of the service. By mixing these methods it allowed us to both explore ideas and to create a piece of tangible strategy.

1. Paper prototyping

This method is commonly used to prototype interfaces by building paper versions of them. It allows you to build and iterate really quickly. In the workshop, participants created paper prototypes of the digital touchpoints within the service.

2. Models (1:1 scale)

Models at actual-size can be used to create a more realistic environment which makes it easier to act out and learn about service experiences (see role playing below). If a solution is product-based, models allow you to explore its physical attributes. We used this in the workshop to prototype in-car experiences.

3. Models (small scale)

Models at a smaller scale allow you to prototype environments and spaces (think architect’s models). More importantly though, they help you think through movement through that space. Participants used it to prototype way-finding solutions through airports and car parks.

4. Role playing

Role playing involves acting out scenarios in order to generate new ideas and insights. The roles undertaken may be human roles e.g. in the workshop, one group used it to prototype interactions between a customer and a call centre agent. More interestingly, the roles may be a human and a product/computer — in the workshop it was used to great effect to prototype voice-based interfaces with devices.

Acting out the service

Once teams had created their prototypes, we went round each group sequentially presenting/acting out the prototypes. By stitching together the various parts, a picture of the whole emerged. Seeing everything come together in this way was a really enjoyable part of the workshop!

This is a video of the final run-through — it’s 5 minutes and well worth watching to see the participants’ ingenious prototypes!

Learning through prototyping

As I expected, the act of creating the prototypes generated a number of insights:

• People found unforeseen issues e.g. if using computer vision to assess if a car has been damaged, what happens if the car is dirty? The group involved designed in a car wash to get around this problem!
• Because we were exploring emerging technology, the prototypes generated questions around what happens when the tech fails. This led to a number of “smart-tech-fallbacks” being created.
• The overlap between the ideas also became clear and you could see how some solutions could solve other problems.

I was happy that participants didn’t just focus on the customer experience – they created prototypes to solve internal (referred to as “backstage”) issues too e.g. an interface to help agents re-assign cars to different customers.

I was also happily surprised by people resourcefulness with materials. One team used post-it notes to create a parking barrier! Bill Buxton describes this as “Le Bricolage”, i.e cobbling things together using found materials.

However, what impressed me most was how the teams managed, in just one hour, to prototype advanced technology and learn from it without any costly development.

Also, by grounding the prototypes in user needs and contextualising them within a wider end-to-end journey that people move through, the emphasis of the ideas shifted from focussing on the technology behind the connected devices/spaces, to considering the connected service.

Workshop take aways

I hope my workshop participants, and now you — the reader, will take away the following learnings:

• You can prototype touchpoints in order to prototype services.
• Service blueprints can be used to pick what touchpoints prototype.
• You can use and combine a range of prototyping methods to explore service ideas.
• You can gain valuable insights about a service through the act of making an early prototype of it.
• When you connect the different parts of a service prototype together (as we did in the video above), even more insights will emerge.
• You can make a new service tangible and shareable (with and organisation or with users) quickly.
• You can start to envision smarter, connected services extremely quickly.

Thanks for reading, I’d love to hear about how you prototype services and if you have any questions, suggestions or comments please feel free to leave comments, or message me on Twitter @stuarttayler1.

Thanks also to the organisers of UXBristol, in particular James Chudley who took the photos of the workshop I’ve used above.