Design Essay: Designing For Mash-ups
MASH-UP: 1. A musical genre which consists of the combination of the music from one song with the acapella from another. Typically, the music and vocals belong to completely different genres and strive for musical epiphanies that add up to more than the sum of their parts. 2. A website or web application that uses content and functionality from more than one source to create a completely new service.
(Source: wikipedia)
Who, exactly, do we design for? For a long time this question has been answered by segmenting customers into groups clustered by similar behaviors, perceptions, possessions, ages, family status, and so on. The inputs to this approach have been largely provided with quantitative authority by market research, which has led to tiers of products designed to align with customers of different income tiers (5-Series for Gucci buyers, Chevy Cobalt for recent graduates).
But this approach is starting to fall apart.
We can see evidence all around us that people are much more complex than these simple tiers; shoppers pull up to Wal-Mart in their Porsche Cayennes, and people in old Honda Civics shop at Gucci. We are not monolithic people that exhibit continuously consistent patterns of thought, emotion and behavior. Instead we are complex, multi-faceted mash-ups, like the music mash-ups in the first definition above.
Designers can't rely on one-dimensional personas and mood boards to capture these complexities - a new way of understanding people's needs, behaviors and perceptions is required. One approach is to define "behavior modes": different ways in which people behave and use a vehicle, and which can cut across demographic types. Many behavior modes can exist in one person or family, even within the same day. Unearthing, recognizing and defining behavior modes free us to create cars which are more reflective of their owners, and which don't fall into simple stereotypes.
Some examples of car behavior modes might be:
- Kid Taxi: Shuttling kids around to and from school, friends' houses, sports activities,
- Wheeled Office: Getting work done while on the road, whether you are a mobile salesperson or a modern mobile knowledge worker, or
- Culture Carriage: Using the car as civilized and perhaps extravagant transport to cultural activities like a theatre premier or opera.
Behavior modes allow a more sophisticated approach to tiering (in contrast to the approach exemplified historically by GM with their brand ladder), and mean that behavioral insights can be leveraged across brands. Behavior modes also change fairly slowly, providing nuanced insights that can be used for product planning several years out.
So what does this mean for automotive design itself? A few possible ramifications for aesthetics, features, and platform development come to mind, some of which we are starting to see in current production vehicles.
Not designing for the past:
Outmoded and historically-based definitions of car customers are still used in most studios - but by constantly calling these into question designers can consider more useful and contemporary ways of describing the people they are designing for. For example, the historical assumption has always been, rightly or wrongly, that luxury buyers wanted big cars and economy buyers wanted small cars. Today, as one wag has quipped, "Luxury is the new black". Everyone wants it, even if it's just treating yourself in small ways. We are seeing this emerge in the premium compact segment primarily in Europe, with cars such as the new Volvo C30, Mini, and Audi A3. The familiar equation of cheap equals small is outdated: just because the car is practical and well-suited to urban driving by being small does not mean that wanting to feel luxurious and cosseted is not a behavior mode of the buyer.
Avoid schizophrenia:
Mash-up people consist of behaviors that may seem contradictory, but it is important to realize that to the individual person they seem internally consistent. Multiple behavior modes do not imply schizophrenic tendencies. Likewise car designs need to have an internal logic to them that make sense even as they inspire with their unexpectedness, which will be taken as "That's what I've always wanted!" Likewise, music mash-ups are not random combinations: they work because of their thoughtful juxtaposition. The trick is in finding the right combination for the vehicle under development.
Be open:
Predicting and supporting all the behavior modes of a customer is increasingly a practical impossibility. The web companies described in part two of the mash-up description given at the beginning of the article, show an alternative approach by creating "open" frameworks on which others can build in interesting, unexpected ways. Google Maps and photo website Flickr are excellent examples. In terms of automotive behavior modes this might mean facilitating the change from Kid Taxi to Culture Carriage on a Friday night. As Toyota is demonstrating with Scion this leads to an increase in customer loyalty, not a decrease. The days when a single company can "own" all the customer experience touch-points are waning. Even Apple Computer, a famously closed company, has created fanatic loyalty amongst iPod users in part by fostering a community of after-market manufacturers that essential mash up the iPod.
Clearly designing vehicles for modern people is difficult: translating their complex behaviors into vehicles will result in a bounty of contradictions and lead to major design headaches. But that's the whole point: drivers and passengers - that is to say ordinary people - live in a world today that is rampant with contradictions and competing pressures of cost, time, relaxation, status, environmentalism, and social relationships. And creating a coherent, appealing and relevant design requires thinking about people holistically with a deep understanding of their lives outside their cars.
