Design Principle - Building

Innovation around
Experiences
Lecture 6

What is the PI?

The PI is a document to present your
analysis of a situation and your insight
into it (be it an expansion/achievement or
lack of it). You then make use of those
insights to come up with an innovative
idea that can meaningfully benefit a
community.

What is innovation?

Innovation:

a feasible idea that is wellsuited/modified for a specific context

and time, creating value for the user and
the creator

What is feasible? What is idea? What is meant

by creating value for the user and the creator?
Feasible:

Possibility of an idea that can be done to

achieve the intended objectives

Idea:

can be a product or a programme

Creating

value for the user: To meet the needs of

the user
Creating

value for the creator: The design of the

idea allow user to benefit from it

What will happen when the phone rings?

Making use of the insights in the

first 300 words of your PI to
come up with an innovative idea
Identifying another community to
benefit
Designing an innovative idea that built
around experiences through examining
the affordances and signifiers of the
idea

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Apply
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around experiences through examining

the affordances and signifiers of the

idea
Explaining the feasibility of an idea that
through examining the affordances and
signifiers of the idea

Skills and Tools to be

Used
Explaining the feasibility of an idea that
through examining the affordances and
signifiers of the idea

What is affordance?
An affordance is a relationship between
the properties of an object (or features of a
programme) and
the capabilities of the user that determine just
how the object/programme could possibly be
used

has a back affords

seating and
resting

soft material affords

seating for a
longer period
of time

pink in colour, looks elegant - allow me to

invite special guest to the house and enjoy
the warmth of my family

The wireless mic affords voice

projection, but does not afford
gathering of people to a common
direction.

The loud hailer affords voice

projection and gathering of people to
a common direction.

1. Identify the different community you are targeting, their

context, intent and needs

2. Proposed Idea

3. Identify and describe the features of your proposed idea or

how it will work

4. Infer the affordances that the features of your proposed idea

offered

5. How did you make use of the affordances to address the

needs or suit the characteristics of the community?

1. Identify the different community you are targeting, their

context, intent and needs
Consumers are willing to spend more money for better
enhancement of lifestyle. They care a lot about the quality of the
services or products purchased. They may be attracted to freebies
though they dont really need the freebies.

Lets say: the finding from BP1 is that the nature of

expansion is that it is accumulative.
2. Proposed Idea

2. Proposed Idea

A loyalty programme
3. Identify and describe the features of your proposed idea or
how it will work

Rewards systems - which allow the user to gain some

credits from the purchase of their merchandise and use the
credits later on to redeem some rewards, for e.g.: rebate
off the next purchase, some freebies in the next purchase

4. Infer the affordances that the features of your proposed idea

offered

3. Identify and describe the features of your proposed idea or

how it will work

Rewards systems - which allow the user to gain some credits

from the purchase of their merchandise and use the credits
later on to redeem some rewards, for e.g.: rebate off the next
purchase, some freebies in the next purchase

4. Infer the affordances that the features of your proposed idea

offered

The first purchase of the service allows the users to

experience the quality of the service without requiring any
prior commitment.
Tangible progression towards attaining the freebies

4. Infer the affordances that the features of your proposed idea

offered
The first purchase of the service allows the users to experience the
quality of the service without requiring any prior commitment.
Tangible progression towards attaining the freebies

5. How did you make use of the affordances to address the

needs or suit the characteristics of the community?

Users are willing to spend money to enhance their lifestyle.

Therefore I make use of this affordance to let them
experience the quality of my product first and how it will
enhance their lifestyle. After they experience the quality,
they will (might) be motivated (by the rewards) to continue
enjoying the positive enhancement of their lifestyle brought
about by the quality of my product/service.

1. Identify the different community you are targeting, their

context, intent and needs

2. Proposed Idea

3. Identify and describe the features of your proposed idea or

how it will work

4. Infer the affordances that the features of your proposed idea

offered

5. How did you make use of the affordances to address the

needs or suit the characteristics of the community?

1. Identify the different community you are targeting, their

context, intent and needs

2. Proposed Idea

3. Identify and describe the features of your proposed idea or

how it will work

4. Infer the affordances that the features of your proposed idea

offered

5. How did you make use of the affordances to address the

needs or suit the characteristics of the community?

1. Identify the different community you are targeting, their

context, intent and needs

2. Proposed Idea

3. Identify and describe the features of your proposed idea or

how it will work

4. Infer the affordances that the features of your proposed idea

offered

5. How did you make use of the affordances to address the

needs or suit the characteristics of the community?

Its your turn to try!

3. Identify and describe the features of your proposed idea or how

it will work

Expiry System - the reward points will expire after a certain

period of time of acceptable length.

4. Infer the affordances that the features of your proposed idea

offered

This creates a sense of urgency to the users to return for

repeated purchase. It will be a waste of a good opportunity
if they let the points expire when the time frame is
reasonable.
5. How did you make use of the affordances to address the
needs or suit the characteristics of the community?

4. Infer the affordances that the features of your proposed idea

offered

This creates a sense of urgency to the users to return for

repeated purchase. It will be a waste of a good opportunity if
they let the points expire when the time frame is reasonable.

5. How did you make use of the affordances to address the

needs or suit the characteristics of the community?
Users may be attracted to freebies if they are satisfied with the
quality of the product/service experienced. Therefore I make use of
this affordance to let them experience more of the product/service
with some perks in a given time frame. After the intensive period of
trying out the good quality, they will be loyal consumers of my
product/service.

To be effective, affordances have to be

discoverableperceivable
Perceived affordances help people figure out
what actions are possible without the need for
labels or instructions.
If an affordance cannot be perceived, some
means of signalling its presence is required

What is a signifier? What is

the purpose of a signifier?
Signifier refers to any mark or sound, any
perceivable indicator that communicates
appropriate behaviour to a person.
Signifiers communicate where/how the action
should take place.

6. What are the signifiers to communicate the use of the features

of your proposed idea?

Notifications sent via emails, smses, smartphone apps

7. How did you use signifier to communicate when and how the
user should use the features of your proposed idea?

to give you the latest information of the new products to

redeem, remind you of your positive experience to
encourage you to patronise the store again, to remind you
of the accumulated points and expiry date

Why is email chosen over other form of

notifications?

6. What are the signifiers to communicate the use of the features

of your proposed idea?

The benefits of the rewards system are printed on the card

7. How did you use signifier to communicate when and how the
user should use the features of your proposed idea?

it makes it easy for user to refer to and understand, clear

instructions on how the system works without a third party
to explain

Are signifiers just about the written information

for user to understand what is going on?

1. Identify the different community you are targeting, their context,

intent and needs

2. Proposed Idea

3. Identify and describe the features of your proposed idea or how it

3
will work

4. Infer the affordances that the features of your proposed idea

offered

5. How did you make use of the affordances to address the needs or
5
suit the characteristics of the community?
6. What are the signifiers to communicate the use of the features of
6
your proposed idea?
7. How did you use signifier to communicate when and how the user
7
should use the features of your proposed idea?

Skills and Tools to be

Used
Explaining the feasibility of an idea that
through examining the affordances and
signifiers of the idea

Your homework this weekend?

Create an individual worksheet using the
findings from BP1 to design a feasible idea to
benefit another community
Next week, bring it to show your ST:
Step 1-7 of explaining your the feasibility of
an idea that through examining the
affordances and signifiers of the idea

THE END

Additional points to
emphasise in class:

Affordances

Affordances are neutral. There is no positive / negative

affordances.

For example: glass offers transparency and brittleness but

brittleness is not a negative affordance as it can actually be
applied to great benefit in contexts/situations that require easy
breaking so that people wont be trapped and die e.g, bus.

Affordances

Affordances are neutral. There is no positive / negative

affordances.

For example: glass offers transparency and brittleness but

brittleness is not a negative affordance as it can actually be
applied to great benefit in contexts/situations that require easy
breaking so that people wont be trapped and die e.g, bus.

Hence, this use of features to explain affordances depends on

the application to benefit.

There is no negative affordances - it is actually the bad use of

features resulting in what we call bad design.

Signifiers

Signifiers need not always visual ones - it could be

other senses like sound as mentioned during the
lecture.

Signifiers can be strong and weak.

The numbering to collect the stamps is a signifier here. It

tells the user what action they should take to claim the
rewards. However, how to enhance the use of signifier in
this stamp card?

This change
in the
numbering
helps the
user to count
down to their
rewards,
which is not
present in the
original
design.

Identify
the
signifiers
used.

Signifiers
Other strong signifiers are such as:

colour codes (red/blue signifying different

washrooms)

different symbols used

metal studs on MRT floors/braille in elevators for

the blind not to fall onto tracks and/or press the
wrong button

THE END