On 9th of April we started an intensive week in Service design and innovation where we worked on another project. The project was concerning an application for conferences and the challenge was to increase the engagement by focusing on experience-related innovation. During this week we learned about different approaches and techniques related to service design. After this intensive week we did a presentation about those techniques and approaches, applied on Quiver.
The techniques helped us mapping out the eco-system of our target audience, making us understand our users even better.
Later, we did the same for our potential partners. Segmenting them made us realize we should first focus on onboarding businesses that are providing experiences. Dividing these partners into commercial ones and the once providing experiences made another challenge for the future arise; how do we include the commercial partners in the application without it just being advertisement. After several brainstorm-sessions concerning Quiver, we came up with the idea to layer our community and make the brands part of them. They would come in when we work around a form-feature. The businesses could have some sort of moderating role in the community where they can help, advise and talk with other people in the community.
The next thing we did was to set up very detailed persona’s including drivers, tribes and trends followed by the final user. Setting up a canvas concerning the persona’s helped a lot doing this. We set up 2 different canvasses; one for the surfers and one for the businesses providing surf-related experiences.
Then we looked again at the Customer Journey Mapping of the current services existing in the market, closer or similar to Quiver. Using another canvas helped us to identify emotional status, pains and opportunities and the back office during the steps of this CJM.
During this research concerning our target audience we kept a canvas aside to map out relevant trends and drivers identifying the context and trends that influence or affect our service we want to provide.
After mapping out the pain points and the related emotions in the Customer Journey mapping, we could setup a story board on how our user flow should look like. Keeping everything in mind we’ve learned during this service design process, we drew out a visual sequence of the planned implementation of the service we will provide. We tested and adjusted this story board based on feedback of potential users.
Doing this was very helpful to keep a clear goal. Often with all these different techniques, new ideas, direction shifts and adjustments it is very helpful to keep a simple story board next to you to see how the user would have to experience the app in order to keep your design user-centered and user-friendly.
Finally, we set up a final Blueprint explaining all the backup office, moments of monetization in relation to CJM and a way to demonstrate the viability of the service at a financial and logistic level.
Next up is a contemporary commerce week in the Rotterdam Business School where we will learn more about pricing and marketing.
Stay tuned!