Businesses turn to science to boost the bottom line
The scientists brought cameras with heated lenses that wouldn’t fog in the steam of the shower. Their subject — a man contacted through a Web site for nudists — led them to his bathroom so they could film him showering before work. There, they watched his every move, noting how often he adjusted the temperature, whether his hands were soapy and how long he stood under the stream of water.
Later, those scientists would put on bathing suits and step into their own shower, this one in the basement of a Boston office building and equipped with a dry-erase board for taking notes. Their methods may not sound very businesslike, but their work was very important to the bottom line of a company that sells shower heads.
Design Continuum Inc.’s research methods represent an important trend in business: corporations are increasingly hiring anthropologists to help them sell their products and services to the public.
“If you want to innovate, the innovation has to come from real needs expressed through the values, attitudes or behaviors of consumers. And the only way you’re going to get at that is by studying people,” said Harry West, the firm’s vice president of strategy and innovation.
Few professions sound less corporate than anthropologist. The title conjures images of a bespectacled scientist squatting atop a Mayan ruin or living among a far-off tribe. But few branches of science are more useful to understanding how consumers behave.
That’s why businesses increasingly demand the services of anthropologists, sociologists and engineers at design firms like Boston-based Design Continuum and IDEO in Palo Alto, Calif. Meanwhile, large companies like Microsoft Corp. are adding anthropologists to their own staffs.
In addition to the shower head Design Continuum designed for Moen, its work has included the Reebok Pump sneaker and Master Lock padlocks. IDEO has helped Pepsico Inc. design new cups for fast food restaurants and helped Apple Computer Inc. build its first mouse. Both firms have worked on Procter & Gamble Co.’s successful Swiffer line.
Focus groups, questionnaires and surveys have long been the preferred tools of businesses wanting insight on customers. But companies are increasingly recognizing the value of watching a consumer in his or her environment.
The main benefit is this: People often can’t tell you why they behave in a certain way. Or their answer might not give you the whole story. Many of our behaviors are so wired into our unconscious that they become “thoughtless acts,” in the words of Jane Fulton Suri, the leader of IDEO’s human factors design.
One example of this would be the morning shower, which adults have repeated thousands of times in their lives. “People are completely unaware of what it is they are doing, but it’s very obvious when you watch people,” West said.
In stressful situations — such as a trip to the emergency room — people are too distracted to provide feedback to service providers during or after their experience. That’s why IDEO sent a team of its designers and hospital executives to shadow patients and doctors at DePaul Medical Center in St. Louis four years ago. Team members were also instructed to pretend they were patients and write down their observations in the emergency room. “If you are seriously injured you’re thinking about your injury as much as anything,” Suri said.
Businesses typically come to firms like IDEO and Design Continuum with two types of problems. Either they want to improve an existing product or service — like the company that owns DePaul. Or they want to explore new business opportunities, such as Moen, which had primarily manufactured faucets when it asked Design Continuum to help it build shower heads.
Some companies, such as Microsoft, have assembled their own teams of social scientists. Two years ago, the Microsoft division that builds mouses and keyboards expanded its research team to include two psychologists, a zoologist, an anthropologist and a mechanical engineer. Six have PhDs in their fields of expertise. Microsoft also has anthropologists in its software divisions.
“It’s very easy to go and hire a third party design firm or research firm,” said Andy Cargile, the user experience manager for Microsoft’s hardware division. “But I think you get a lot more value when your own people understand customer needs at kind of a DNA level and are the ones creating these insights.”
In December of 2003, Microsoft sent researchers to watch people use computers in their homes. They asked other consumers to take pictures of their computer desks, and some were given keyboards that logged their keystrokes. In a few homes, motion-activated cameras were trained on the family computer.
The open-ended study of computer hardware, which has involved about 500 households in the U.S. and other countries, is still being mined for data. But early on, researchers discovered that people like to use their computers while relaxing on the couch, often watching TV at the same time.
This year, Microsoft released a wireless keyboard that also includes a built-in mouse and remote control. It has a rubberized underside so people can hold it in their laps.