DesignOutcome

Part 1.

A case for facility assessment and its applications to architecture

I start with two observations:

First:
I have observed that, an organization’s facilities are like a website. Sound bass-ackward in a post dot-com reality? I don’t think so. That’s because they both can and should be broken down and examined for usability - their responsiveness to the end user.

Second:
Architects are design professionals who struggle year after year among the same group of competitors, in the same commission races. Outside of some marginal competitive edges originating from differing design styles, and advances in building technology and materials (available to all competitors), there seems little in the way of business value differentiation among the firms. The lack of thought leadership of the value of business return attained through satisfying end user/customers is ‘weak sauce’ as we say in Houston, Texas.

How can this be?

Architects are trained as problems solvers to solve client problems. Yes, they do that, but perhaps they need to solve the client’s customer problems instead.

Firms, who specialize in a deeper understanding and including the client’s end user, tend to be engineering-based analysts, or architectural programming specialists, or marketing companies functioning as project consultants – for example, the ‘macro’ end of land planning that extends backwards toward architecture. For the ‘micro’ end of the scale, if you are a large retail chain you probably hire marketing analysts as part of your facility development team with architectural knowledge of the user environment to assist in store layouts. So, this is really a few and far between case.

What’s lacking?

Well, it’s in architecture, ‘the mother of the arts’. Architectural practitioners used to be holistic purveyors of the built space. They handled it all: site location and planning, the exterior, the interior, pretty much all the hold-it-up-and-cover-it-up stuff.

The most brilliant of these had keenly intuitive senses and composed from a holistic concept. They walked the site and could mentally sense people walking around and through the finished structure with them. They built the structure many times in their minds, trying to satisfy the user and those ghostly people providing them with inspiration. And this happened long before they organized a team of masons to begin the build. Then things got complicated and most practitioners decided specialization was required to provide adequate services at reasonable profit.

Enter the poor user/customer

Today’s enlightened marketeers have dragged ‘user/customers’ into the spotlight as ‘experts’ who know exactly what they want and need. This is fair and unfair. They may know what they want, and by extension, what they might commit money to, but probably don’t know the affects and impact of their desires. How does a purchase translate in a world of building materials to a ‘friendly shopping environment’? There are many interpretations, and some of them end up being right.

Parallel to this, and just as confused, building owners strive to meet the customers’ physical needs but have trouble translating them into facility needs. They go to architects for help.

As we saw in the 90’s many new virtual organizations sprung up around web sites with their products and services delivered electronically. The new physical product businesses were re-fitted to JIT inventory and delivery processes. In the brave new world of personally-delivered services, businesses organized around a facility that allows them to deliver specifically on a promise of service by providing the specialty technical and physical functions to do that. Fast service auto lubrication is one example.

Whoops wait just a second, there. Am I implying that there should also be direct user cause and affect connection from facility to the organization itself? Am I implying that business follows form?

Yes.

That's what originally happened for FedEx (different story now with Kinko's is joined at their hip). Isn’t that what happens for the fulfillment function of Amazon? Of course, so why shouldn’t this be the norm for service delivery businesses and their facilities in a face-to-face environment?

Here is a gap that needs filling. Architects should consider grabbing it before someone relegates them into an even smaller paradigm.

The power of converging ideas

[Part two - I'm on a jag here]

Can organizations see physical environment analysis as a tool for solving business needs, or is this another market test device for a new fast food sandwich? After surveying the how much and what to wrap it in, ok, even the taste of the sandwich itself, did the place it was sold ever factor into the experience?

They knows it when they sees it

If you have a conversation with a neighbor and ask them to give you a personal recommendation for something that had a serious and costly impact on them -
like a hospital procedure or the subsequent hospital stay - they will give you information that points directly to how the hospital/organization is planned, managed and operated.

With just a few questions more, you will find knowledge of things just behind the curtain that makes complete sense of their complaints or praises. They don't have to know why something happened, good or bad. That doesn't really matter to them, because they came to a point where they simply made up their mind that it either compels them to recommend, or repels them and they can't let anyone else suffer their fate. And they're insistent on telling you every dang thing about it - grab a chair neighbor, you gotta hear this.

Their experience really doesn't have to be life-changing. For many people it can be as simple as getting an oil change, or a trip to a new grocery store. As a consumer society we're fully trained by marketing/advertising to look for differences, compare and contrast, and assign value to the things that we spend our time and money on. When convenience is king, time is money and we exercise both, we are in the driver's seat, bubba.

I see this collapsed into a paradigm of the 'friendly neighborhood store'. Many authorities use this analogy. Because of relationships formed and enjoyed with mom and pop proprietors, there's always room for catchup conversation, friendly give and take, flexibility, vigorish, a little something extra because it's going to be returned to you over the long term - where good customer relations live. This particular reality is downright damn difficult when you scale up past a neighborhood store. So, again you gotta find a way to cope, right?

Wal-Mart vs. Starbucks

This isn't to condemn (well ok, maybe just a tad), but to try to explain that we crave 'relationship' and that's so very hard for sellers to create and maintain. Wal-Mart cannot maintain relationships with all its customers, there are just too many people to greet like mom and pop did. Following them around the store to make sales recommendations is pretty much out of the question, and it's creepy, too. Big Box must create 'memorable shopping experiences' in place of relationships. Wal-Mart's hold is not environment, but price.

My parents love the totally overwhelming emotion that washes over them when they shop at Wal-Mart. "It's so big, there are so many things to find - and it’s all really cheap! What a wonderful country!" I know they are members of the Depression generation and humongous choice and cheap prices are exactly what does it for them: it represents the payoff of a better living standard they worked so hard and long for.

Personally, I must beg off - I can't stand to shop there because for me it's consumptive overload. If I weaken and go in for a bottle of shampoo, I'm good for a basketful of crap I don't need. I'm of the Generation of Plenty and this is plenty too much. I’m friendly at the door, but I don't ever see myself creating a relationship with the blue vest folks and neither do they, as long as there are plenty more coming in right behind me.

For a Few Dollars More

For me 3+ dollars worth of coffee in a paper cup can give me quite a luxuriant 'experience.' If I can afford to return often enough each week, I begin to think in terms of relationship with the folks behind the counter. Starbucks has re-created the country store minus the good ol boys and the nasty cowboy coffee on the pot belly stove. Got the scale, got the look, got the sound now, got the comfy chairs, got people like you hangin' out. It's perfectly fine with me to know, yes, I pay for 'cool', but I prefer to buy my ‘coffee experience' there. It just tastes better there, even though I can brew their branded ground coffee at home. Yeah, okay, my home is just not as cool. The environment trumps price here.

As an experiment, I’ve been buying cups of coffee from a little shack by the side of the road some mornings. The price is just slightly below Starbucks, and it is truly a mom and pop; matter of fact, the whole family works there. They use a punch card loyalty program that has already given me the satisfaction of a free cup. They can customize just like Starbucks, and they are set up strictly as a drive-through operation - no comfy chairs, no hang around ambiance. So, I’m trying to see if relationship trumps environment. This is a true test because the environment in my 98 Civic is no match for Starbucks' living room. Smells very...different.

The experiment: If this experience stuff is described, explained, documented, and assigned real business valuation through a sort of organizational MRI, could it help create a framework for rapdily adapting brick-and-mortar reality. We shall see.

DesignOutcome

The power of converging ideas point to hopefully intended consequences.

[Part one – Usability in the real world]

Possibility

If we took best practices of application development and matched them to a deep understanding of what customers do and how they want to do it, we might get a powerful feedback system that allows incremental service or product improvement. It could even affect transactions happening here in Realityville, between the service/product providers and the public.

Usability Convergence

Some years ago the term 'usability' caught my attention and still holds it fixed. Often it is used interchangeably with that marketing buzzmiester, 'user-friendly', usability has been picked up from the web world, consumed by marketing machines and spit out as literally any effort that makes things easier to sell to customers.

I use a web application that sends me anything it runs across regarding the term 'user experience'. So far I have been sorry to see that most of the links are PR missives for software releases. I'm waiting to see how it will be attached to realityware applications - stuff happening without the benefit of getting online. I'd expected to see more connotations involving customer service by now.

It's my impression that product development professions like industrial design, interior design and architecture should be converging on this 'customer experience'. The same should be happening for other service industries as well. The impetus comes from milestone studies like Pine and Gilmore's book "The Experience Economy" that says customers are willing to pay for an event (or the event a product produces) that presents memorable, higher-impact, and personal value - an experience rather than a common transaction, or visit, or trip.

So, if marketers (I'm thinking here mainly non-software, non virtual types) are seeing 'the experience' as the vehicle that sells and up-sells products and services, how do you measure this stuff in daily transactions? A trip to the convenience store does not currently have the metrical connectedness that an 800 number on the door nor a grainy security camera capture might imply. To my mind the world of focus groups and surveys capture isolated individuals who cannot give a wide enough and consistently evident look at what's really happening.

I had a chat with Dave Norton who was then a VP of Yamamoto Moss, a Minneapolis-based experience marketing consulting firm (He's now doing good work at Stonemantle). I attended a seminar he gave in Austin some time back, and inquired about how someone might apply some sort of measurable feedback assessments for organizations, he was visibly crestfallen. He said he doubted if there was a market in doing such work. I got the impression that (keeping in mind the firm's Japanese-named partner) a Zen 'experience' is somehow 'not there' if you try to label it. Hmmm...what does this mean?

Measurements

So, we can qual-itatively comment on 'customer service' in terms of the people hired (and hopefully trained) to supply it. We can quant-itatively comment on transaction times and on other numerical efficiencies, but most of these are provided for the benefit of an organization intent on improving how it copes in a role as a provider of goods or services. The organization's goal is how best to spend their assets of money and time to adequately deal with the public. How to best supply a demand in the most profitable way. Hey, no problem there for me. Sounds like a good idea.

But my concern is that it may not be the best way to operate business on a long term basis. I prefer Mayor Ed Koch's approach to setting an organization's prime goal, "How'my doin?" The answer it provides often proves hard to implement since it demands real change.

Ok, Da Point

We pretty much know how to present an organization on the web to a global public. But not too many people are checking up on the place where the user/customer sees all this conventional marketing stuff really happening; the place where all the visual branding, packaging, signage package lives. Do customers see this happening at the bricks and mortar physical touchpoints, the facilities?

This may sound heretical in an age of virtual sites and portals. Think about it: the physical has many more dimensions and therefore is much harder to get right. It includes the architectural flows and space treatments and all physical means used to guide users - the actual, physical touchpoints. Would best practices here deliver qualitative success AND allow for the quantitative ROI metrics? I think so. With just enough tech to capture strong transactional evidence, and a truly matrixed team of analysts, I believe this is not only possible, but profitable if it takes a holistic view of the organization's environment.

The physical enviro...what?

What about looking at the effects any environment has on three important groups: customers, employees, and the organization itself. In this cohesive way, how does it all work? Gilmore and Pine call this physical aspect the 'stage' on which the play is presented. As such it affects the actors (employees) and the audience (customers). I think we should include the investors (organization) too. Why not comment on how the stage could be better set? And not to stop there, what about out in the 'lobby', at the 'ticket counter', and even 'the marquee' out front? Is it too hot, cold or dark? Are the actors well trained and well versed to handle improvisation? Can investors take the long view and let it run to get the kinks worked out?

Next time: What 'it' looks like

The more I discover, the more questions I have.
I happen to enjoy convergences. Mikey Teutul once said, "I love it when a plan comes together". I don't think this is an original quote by this gentleman, as many of his plans fail to start, much less come together.

"But, who'da hell cares what you think!" Senior shouts back.
This shop is certainly an iconic view of the design environment.

I am a fan of the adventures of Paulie, Senior, Vinnie, Mikey and the rest of the Orange County boyz - and on two levels, as far as I can account for: the level of the designer, and of the business owner.

Paulie, the designer of this enterprise, has a weak work ethic that continually pisses off Paul Senior. Yet without Paulie, as Senior well knows, they would not produce custom motorcycles, much less be on TV doing it.

Paul Teutul, Senior, is the man who signs the checks - loud, impatient, hulking, a loving dad and the perfect foil for Paulie. Paul Sr. knows: no bikee, no money, no TV. Regardless of his son's age, he wants to get Paulie to stop being such an airheaded, artsy, unpredictable slacker. Actually, Paul Senior was Mikey at his age. He cuffs Mikey around, he might yell a bit, but in the end he can't help but enjoy Mikey's antics.

Mikey is a piece of work. Mikey has assumed his place in the family pecking order, taking on the important role of royal jester. Mikey has learned if he can get Senior to laugh, his place in the will is assured. My daughter commented that Mikey is really the brains of the outfit. Women know this impirically. Perhaps because he's the only one that in that can see the forest for the trees at all times. He knows more than he shows, and he shows just enough to be tolerated. His sly humor keeps the pot from constantly boiling over.

Vinnie is the consummate production artist. He knows never to assume the role of father or son as he walks the tightrope between Paulie the artiste' and Senior the demanding client. He must keep Paulie on track and keep Senior from busting his ass. He skillfully knows when to come to the fore and when to drop back. He works hard and occasionally gets to bust Paulie's chops, with a bit of buddy trash talk. Vinnie also is Mikey's official babysitter and confidant. He knows Mikey's game and it's a comfort to be able to blow off steam with Mikey around because they both can get away with it.

So, Paulie designs great bikes, Senior growls and shuffles around, Mikey keeps things light, and Vinnie gets the freakin' work out the door. Other Vinnie-like mechanics are part of the keeping the business-a-business and not a hobby.

I initially sided with Paulie - why not? He's the stereotypical design guy. Then, I sided for a while with Senior, wishing he'd just catch an organizational behavioral clue as to how to manage Paulie's nature for his own benefit, if not for forestalling the massive coronary his contract calls for to end the season.

Now, I root for Vinnie and the other 'guys'. The real geniuses in front of the camera. They interpret Paulie's designer gibberish, ignore Senior's rants and still make the shop bundles of cash.

Yes, yes - I know, the Teutul's never really make a bike, they just assemble components and have subs to paint, upholster and package the deal. But isn't that the design mystique? Without the production shop and the unseen experts, "Howda hell you 'spect this spousta get done, anyway, huh?"

Out of a constellation of blogs, you found this one.
Not to say it's a star, but I hope to make your trip worthwhile.

DesignOutcome speaks to the mystery, business and process of design, of designers, their clients, the projects and what happens when all is completed. The good, bad and ugly. A place to separate one's ego from one's work and remark on how ugly that baby really is.

Like successful design, I hope this is a collaborative effort that supports good conversation and lively comments. Above all, let's see if there is a nugget of learning that leads to better work and more satisfying design.

I am a designer trained in print design who has learned environmental graphics, electronic graphics and a smattering of web graphics. Along the way the tools changed, the media changed, the display and life of each work changed. The approach got broader, clients got smarter, and outcomes became more important if only because they can now be seen by a global audience.

I have worked most all levels of experience and situations of my industry as a design consultant, a staff designer, a staff manager, a client knowledge expert, a project manager and an information designer, perhaps the newest role of all. Not sure which was mo' betta than any other one.

I also was smart or bored enough to go back to school for an MBA, which has only served to increase my curiosity more than my net worth. I am particularly curious about convergences, especially those that produce entirely and instantly new markets. Explosions of commerce that patiently sat on a shelf until set off by a spark of a new material, a new 'glue' to stick old things together with, or an insanely bizzarre new way of valuing some old something.

Recent business publications are gloryifying design as the newfound darling of business innovation. As if the words 'creativity' and 'imagination' when packaged in a stylishly matte black box become this thing called Design which can now be taught to other-brained people. Not that I'm about to call it blasphemy, as I kinda like to be associated with those words, but that it's a curious state-of-being-du-jour. What will tomorrow bring?