Santa is a UX

What if the kids were right? What if Santa Claus really existed!
The 24th of December has arrived… For Santa Claus and his company, it's the tense flow between the management of resources to process each child's letter and the logistics to bring them a gift on time. 

Santa's List: A User-Centered Process

guillaume-bourdages-468908
We are interested in the workings of this company that is so successful in terms of user experience. For this, we spoke with several children to find out about their use of the annual service offered by this famous bearded man. According to them, all you need to do is:

  • Service Eligibility : Have been good all year (or almost)
  • Product selection : Carefully choose your gift(s) and write your letter
  • Validate your basket : Send the letter to the North Pole by mail or email 
  • Delivery : Be patient until December 25
  • Discovery : Open/tear the packaging of family gifts 
  • Use Case : Play with the packaging and also the content

If you don't believe it, it doesn't work! says Léa, 5 years old

This experience from the user's perspective is foolproof.

However, on the North Pole side, what happens between the sending of the letter and the delivery of the gift? We would have liked to go to the North Pole to question the first concerned or at least his elves. But we would have had to mount an expedition worthy of Atlantis, and at UX-Republic we always have a few things to do, impossible to be absent for such a long trip. We therefore asked the question to our sample of users about what they imagined.

Waiting, an important phase of the Experience

Léa posted her letter to Santa on the way to school on November 30, to make sure her letter arrived on time. Since then, she has been waiting...
In order not to disappoint the hopes of Léa (and the other children), Santa Claus has set up an ultra-efficient service for processing letters that arrive discreetly at his center in the North Pole. Upon receipt, the letter is categorized, analyzed and verified. The big check is to make sure that Léa has earned her gift. Is it sprite-filled service, artificial intelligence, or somewhere in between where technology assists sprites in their daily tasks? Everything is possible.
arun-kuchibhotla-179756
Meanwhile, Léa waits. Christmas is everywhere in the streets. But, where an online order reassures us about the availability of our products and the follow-up of our delivery, the North Pole is silent. Expectation and surprise are part of the Christmas experience!

Adapt, the potential of new technologies

Léa asked for a green piano, because it's her favorite color. She insisted on this choice! However, the warehouses are out of stock. An alert ticket has been sent to the toy workshop. In order not to leave the little girl without an instrument, the craftsman elf who specializes in pianos goes to the augmented reality service.
The Christmas Reality application allows the object to be projected in the room. An elf on a mission in Léa's town goes to make sure that a piano of another color will match Léa's room. Once this modification has been validated, the piano will be referenced, packaged and assigned to Léa pending delivery on December 24.

Deliver: communicate on the route of the package

E-merchants are constantly improving their delivery service. From now on, we can be delivered within the hour, during the day, at the office, at home, in a street. We can even be delivered to our home in our absence. Couriers and deliverers must always be more efficient, and perhaps we will soon receive our parcels by drones. All these advances are currently triggering a lot of debate, particularly on the intrusion into privacy.
ben-white-170542
The North Pole center also follows the evolution of user demands. The delivery service is increasingly adapting to user needs. Today, not all families celebrate Christmas on the morning of the 25th. Some open gifts on the evening of the 24th, which requires more precision and discretion in the delivery of packages.
Let's hope Léa's piano will be delivered on time!

Unwrapping gifts: a continuity of UX

Our budding musician resists so as not to close her eyes on the evening of the 24th. She wants to hear the sleigh landing, and even hopes to see Santa Claus. But, like all children, the sandman does his work. It is in the morning that she will discover a large package under the tree!
Well wrapped in beautiful paper and with pretty ribbon, Léa wonders excitedly if Santa Claus will have lived up to her expectations. Already, the packaging is so pretty that she dares not open it. Father Christmas has understood the importance of taking care of his “unpacking” to preserve the quality of a successful User Experience.
And then, neither one nor two, the package is torn. It's a blue piano!

Accompany the evolution of its user

For the number of years that Santa Claus has been delivering gifts, he has built a data center that any e-merchant dreams of. A service of ultra-specialized elves in data tracking and processing all requests in order to be able to anticipate the production of toys for the following years. This data is well saved and is only used to improve the service. However, we can ask ourselves the question of the conservation of this information.
guilherme-stecanella-465088

Take away

Perhaps the biggest inconsistency for us adults is this: how can Santa Claus deliver millions of presents in one night? So let's assume the kids are really right. This would mean that there is a service made up of thousands of state-of-the-art elves capable of breaking into our home without our knowledge to drop off a gift. Honestly, it sends shivers down the spine: no control, numerical and/or technological superiority… If we really believed in it, we would all be on high alert!
But suppose that the children is right about this old bearded man also means that there is a service based on transparency, the quality of the relationship, the use of personal data without the intention of profit, which deposits a gift just for the smile of a child. Maybe I'll start to believe it, won't you?
This reverie on the process of this service is not, however, preposterous. The new regulations on the management of personal data, the Time Well Spent movement or the questions recently raised by Facebook executives suggest the possibility of a new approach to e-commerce and more broadly to online digital services.
Merry Christmas to all! Don't forget to leave treats for Santa, he loves them.
Manon Campait, UX-Evangelist @UXRepublic