Sense & Respond Conference with Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden

The farm awakens

Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden were in Paris last night. The opportunity for us to listen, meet and discuss with the mythical duo of Lean-UX.
This event was organized by Keley Consulting and brought together a large number of designers who came to hear the progress of their work on the place of the user in companies and the design of services or products. Throwback to an exciting conference.
Jeff & Josh, excellent speakers, like to take their audience on the wrong foot. This evening, they will talk to us about farmers, tractors and user-centered service... Through the story of an American farmer, they retrace the journey of a customer with the John Deere brand.

Understand user needs

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Based on a farmer's needs, the two authors invite designers to formulate a service design hypothesis. It is absolutely necessary to write this use case. This is also what we practice in our missions with our clients.
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This step requires having a good knowledge of the users and having carried out people representative of its target. To arrive at this type of hypothesis, a workshop Experience map with project stakeholders can be terribly effective. Back to our conference…

Rethinking your business model

Did you know that John Deere is one of the most tech-savvy companies in the world? They are a machine builder, a software company and a research and development center.

Why?

They offer farmers agricultural machinery with advanced technologies in order to optimize and make agricultural production profitable.

They have adapted to the new needs of their customers.

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The workshops of Design Value Proposition can help you connect the expectations of your users and your business model. For an hour, based on your personas and using templates, you work on aligning visions and triggering new market opportunities.

Create features for the brand...

Back to John Deere. Based on the previous steps, the brand with green tractors has built its model on the 4 points below. Let's take the last one:license agreement".
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There is no doubt that this clause appeals to you… The choice was made by the American firm to impose a contractualized relationship on its customers. But, as Josh and Jeff reminded us, what happens when a problem arises?

… and the user finds his solutions

Tractor customers must call on authorized repairers to ensure the follow-up of their tractor. However, it happens that the first garage is several hours from a farm. Farmers can't wait that long to get back to business.
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In a profession, whose culture is the do-it-yourself and where millennials are increasingly represented, they turn to the dark net and Youtube tutorials to find more direct solutions.

The shortest path between your service and a customer is their need!

When a product meets its user

This is the issue that Josh Seiden and Jeff Gothelf have been working on for many years. They had laid the foundation with Lean UX. They continue with Sense & Respond. Thus, after the triad: Think – Make – Test, place at Ship – Sense – Respond.
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In the continuation of Design Thinking and Lean UX, the company is changing to implement a continuous learning process. The two speakers insist on this point. It is no longer possible today for a company to detach itself from the culture and societal context of its users. The refuge of laws or user agreements is no longer one for the authors of Lean UX.
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It's up to the service to adapt, not the user.

Adapt or force use

Taking up the case of John Deere, they specify that the company has opted for the passage in force. It continues to require its customers to subscribe to its repair service. Like Apple or other brands that operate in a closed ecosystem. What does this mean for the user?
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It is indeed one of the major challenges of experience design that is thus posed: to constrain or to satisfy?

As designers, we are regularly brought to ask the question to our customers. The inspirational benchmark, of the type Design Thinking, happens to be an interesting lever for evangelizing customers in their user-centric transformation.
It is also with humor that Jeff and Josh point out that despite John Deere's act of coercion, the company is working very well. However, the question is posed and could be one of the major challenges of the coming years with the evolution of uses.
As they recalled, today, farmers no longer want tractors but a solution to optimize their work...

The time there are a changing

Before leaving

The conference closed with this reminder:
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Invitation is made for all the audience to read Sense & Respond. Without any expectation, many of us will have ordered it on its app from the smartphone.
It was an excellent conference with two service design thinkers who were passionate, convinced and open to discussion. Invigorating.
Sebastien Faure (@sebfaureUX) , Learning & Development Manager @UX-Republic