Emotion behind users’ unexpected behaviour can be a powerful source for innovation. Insights into the users’ subconscious, addressing questions such as “What he wants to be” or “How she wants to feel” in the context of products, service, business model or brand, allow us to deliver superior input to the design stage. When designers are able to ask and answer “For whom are we designing?” their ideas will become more target user-oriented and practical.
Goals
This workshop will give participants the experience of seeking emotional insights from ethnographic research, and the method of developing ideas that fit the user’s “emotional goals.” Participants can use these techniques in their next project to make design/planning phase more user-centered and actionable.
Key benefits
Provide participants with:
- Methods to maximize emotional insights from ethnographic research
- Hands-on procedure to deliver those insights into idea development phase
Structure/Schedule [TOTAL 180 minutes]
Introduction [20]
A) Research Simulation #1- Observational Research [40]
Facilitators will show a short video of ethnographic research of a Japanese user in a daily life situation related to a business category. Participants will work in small groups to list the insights found from user’s behaviour and exchange ideas about a theme to propose to designers for a project related to the business category.
B) Research Simulation #2 – In Depth Interview [40]
Participants in the same groups will then watch a video of an in-depth interview about the same theme, which focuses on bringing out the user’s thoughts and feelings by using pictures and clippings.
C) Definition of Emotional Goal and the mission of service/product [20]
Participants will pick out the key emotions which are important for deciding a theme for the project, then collect insights relating to those emotions. We will define the user’s high level emotional goal, and the functional outcome that the user expects after using a product or service to achieve the emotional goal.
D) Emotional Design and Idea Assessment [60]
Following the definition of the emotional goal and the functional outcome, we will discuss possible ideas for the project theme to present to the designers. We will compare those ideas to those we prepared for designers in Step A above. Discussion about Pros/Cons of setting the emotional goal will follow.
Target audience
Corporate ethnographers, designers, marketers and strategists who have a strong interest in using findings from ethnographic research for planning mid-to-long term brand strategy or starting new businesses.
Organizers
Carl Kay, Director of International Research at Daishinsha.
Kay’s experience includes two decades as an entrepreneur in both the US and Japan as well as consulting, writing, teaching and venture investing. He helps Daishinsha identify and implement in Japan cutting edge methodologies in research and user-centered design.
Wakako Kitamura
An ethnographer of Daishinsha’s Marketing Communication Technologies, which helps companies apply human-centered research to understand their target customers, and design marketing communication to align clients’ business goals with their customers' needs. She is interested in designing services such as new educational program or medical support system.
