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Raw notes from Day 1 (morning) at Emergence 2007

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Friday night

Jamin Hegeman, Shelley Evenson: About the conference

Martin Wattenberg, Fernanda Viegas: Visual thinking at a global scale

  • Many eyes with lots of examples of death, drinking, oil and political speeches.
  • Community angle lets visualizations evolve along with the discussions.
  • Text analysis: tag clouds, word trees.
  • Article about Blog discussions of the visualizations.
  • Integration into other sites: Visualizing Earmarks.
  • And many more stories where these visualizations are making a difference. Scientific discovery, personal expression, journalism and advocacy, social interaction/fun.
  • Target pain points (traditional) vs. Erogenous zones.
  • This is an example of "visualization as a service", instead of as an application.

Harold Hambrose: Service as a discipline, Designers at the helm

  • From last year: Service triangle (where technology is in the middle). His model: Technology (off to the side) to enable the human providers of the service.
  • Examples: 911 call center, diner menu system. These "back stage" systems often not designed by designers.
  • Designers are: observers, communicators (visually), modelers, problem solvers.
  • Health service examples from Electronic Ink.
  • Start with observing and drawing the relationships, processes, etc. Visual artifact example: data visualization of transfers to other hospital units, leads to recommendations on physical organziation. Then can come some technology recomendations, like wireless devices.
  • Net: this group of people had no means of drawing pictures (models) to understand what is going on at a high level.
  • Documenting "breakdowns" (not all are bad things).
  • Biggest problem: Selling design here. Quickly provide value (within a week).
  • Needed for insurance, healthcare, etc. - but Design Education needs this the most. "Why would we ever send a designer into a hospital? We do posters."
  • Designers are unique because as they analyze, they start thinking of the solutions (vs. just documenting the problems).
  • Collaborate with human factors, and many others, so it is really the multi-disciplinary team that is the key.

Claudio Pinhanez: Services as Customer-Intensive Systems

  • What is the difference between manufacturing-thinking and service-thinking?
  • Negative definition of "services" - what it is not. Can go too far - everything is a service. Both useless.
  • Definitions of "customer" - the person who pays vs. the person who recieves the value.
  • Customer-intensive is when the "production" cannot really start until the customer arrives (car repair, hospital). YOU are on the conveyor belt.
  • Customer-centered view: provider and receiver, part of the process, it waits for me, it uses me.
  • Official list of services (NAICS) - which are not customer-intensive industries? Movie-making, publishing (including shrink-wrapped software).
  • Continuum of manufacturing to service models.
  • Minimize the perceived time (e.g., fix the PC overnight).
  • Measure of quality of a service includes the process.
  • Emotionally-loaded.
  • Product designers vs. services designers.
  • Good: human-centricity. Bad: New methods needed because of customer intensity. Ugly: Theater director type skills needed, not artistic talent (people, timing, emotions).
  • What happens when the customer is a business? Navy does not know how to procure a service.
  • Back-end systems are impregnated with customer stuff.
  • Question: Utility company, put customer consuming electrons at the center of the model.
  • Question: B2b services, pace-layering.
  • Question: Is service design fundamentally different from product design? Design of the iPod (vs. designing iTunes store).

Time for lunch

(Reformatted September 14th for easier scanning)

Comments

Heh.. Bill and I were colleagues at the BGSU Writing Lab. Wonderful guy.. I'd wondered what became of him. Small world! (Or.. small campus.)