A great deal of effort is being spent on customer experience and user experience that misses the point, experience is about desire, not process or fulfilment.

Desire drives behaviour

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) proposed the concept of psychological hedonism, which asserts that the “fundamental motivation of all human action is the desire for pleasure”. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1588–1679) claimed that “self-consciousness is desire.” Psychologists often describe desires as different from emotions as they are mechanical and a response to chemical imbalance or lack, such as the stomach which needs food, the body needs oxygen, as opposed to, emotions that arise from a person’s mental state. There is a huge study in this area but that not the focus here, if we can agree that desire is a key driver in behaviour how is customer experience and user experience meeting this central requirement? The image above is one key to desire but not the only one.

Reactive behaviour

In accepting the above we open the digital realm to a fundamental understanding that changes the paradigm from understood and herded users into a much wilder and complex behavioural model that explains why user experience and customer consultancy is not scaleable or easily globalised.

Desire affects the digital business paradigm

The constant attrition and expense of the current digital model is hugely frustrating for business, if they buy plant equipment there is a defined cost, depreciation, training model and risk factors, in digital much of what they are sold is hopeful. Key performance indicators are fudged and often refined later (as unattainable) however if desire is considered the starting point and an opportunity this disruptor can change the outcome and all the project outputs.

Understanding desire for disruptive innovation

Many of the current bunch of disruptive innovations are technology lead, where people have attributed their desires to the capabilities and experiences provided. This works with cutting edge or refocused technologies, how does it work with travel, banking, food shopping? Engaging customers in desire based research with a sub focus on a concept like banking as a counterpoint enables the target audience to create the disruption rather than be disaffected they become the leaders of product revolutions.

Delivering disruptive innovation in a consultancy

UCD Innovation Process © Karl Smith 2001

The exact method of delivering disruptive innovation in a consultancy or client side is proprietary to Karl Smith.