Are you thinking about how your Customer Experience could go wrong?
No one can predict when things go wrong, really wrong. You can plan for error states, empty data sets and poor connectivity — but large scale culture changing events are hard to predict, and even harder to design for. Economic crashes, terrorists, viruses… Each have their own challenges, unknown until it happens.
Katherine Karaus recently wrote:
"Design for the worst-case, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. See how much better your work gets.”
— and I agree. More people need to be thinking about the worst-case-scenario in the context of user and customer experiences.
One available tool is is called “The Tarot Cards of Tech” — the creators designed this set because:
“We’re good at accepting the context of the primary user, but what we’re realizing is that we have to understand the implications of scale, usage, and impact. Human-centered design assumes that by addressing the individual user you’ll create an inherently positive product.”
While the above focuses on areas like excluded users, people losing trust, and addiction of products — could the same principles be applied to larger “zombie apocalypse” scenarios?
Situations like:
If everyone of your customers needed to cancel their service in 48 hours?
If suddenly 40% of your users were new to your platform?
If instead of selling more, you needed to sell less? Limit sales?
If you now were a primary tool vs. a “nice to have”?
If you had to shift 100% of your business from online to off or offline to on?
If everything had to be delivered, time shifted, and/or remote?
If there was a dramatic run on your location, or your location is now empty?
If suppliers can’t deliver goods on time, or at all?
If you needed to quickly reconfigure your retail stores to accommodate…? Everyone being blind? Viruses? People sending personal robots?
If borrowing money becomes almost free?
If people can no longer interact IRL…?
When things are going well, why would you invest good money on any of these? The probability is low, right? But some of these, even before this week I would argue were trends or things you should have been thinking about without having to be a futurist. The ability to cancel anything anytime, sounds like good customer service. As does: designing ways for new users to quickly become power users, shifting more of your business online, and embracing the gig economy. These all things you really should be doing anyways.
Customers will remember brands during a crisis. New brands are given an opportunity to shine, and current brands have the opportunity to comfort or frustrate customers.
We know the only constant is change, and the pace of that change continues to increase. When prioritizing features, when brainstorming the “happy path”, remember to spend some time thinking about large shifts in behaviors, good and bad, and how you could make sure you shine when it happens.