The elephant in the room: bringing innovation into RFID applications Summary report Date: 22 nd March Venue: Design Council, 34 Bow Street, London WC2E 7DL Plot and Resonance Design 2005
Why a seminar As keen observers of technology developments and an eye for the disruptive, we saw that there was sufficient hype emerging from RFID developers and enough friction from consumer groups to warrant some deeper exploration. We found that, as compelling as the technology appeared, it s application seemed to be restricted to date to a range of supply chain solutions, missing a huge opportunity for designing applications that created value and promoted huge benefits to the business and consumers. We invited a small business audience to a seminar to explore how user-centred approaches could benefit their development of RFID, and to identify the barriers they felt existed to actually making it work outside of the supply chain. Premise of the seminar Can we continue to develop RFID applications as technology push and contend with the consequences, or do we create something innovative? In this half day seminar, Gill Wildman and Rob Van Kranenberg explored the space for human centred innovation in RFID applications with a business audience. We know that public sector organisations are identifying and using new technologies to create better public services. We know that businesses are faced with challenges in bringing new technologies into products and services to create new sources of value. Current pilots using RFID appear to be merely technology push not innovation driven development missing new business opportunities in products and services that delight staff and customers. Everyone is pleased when they get the technology to work, and that is difficult enough, but they are not building into the pilots the human dimensions that could make the pilots beneficial in a wider way. It s no doubt that RFID has the potential to be a paradigm-shifting technology. Often such technologies demand a change in behaviour from not only the user but also the business or organisation implementing it. Just look what happened with computing and the web. There are some great lessons from previous technology paradigm shifts that we can access. The challenge for us is do we continue to develop RFID applications as technology push, or do we utilise the knowledge that already exists to create something entirely new? It s like there is an elephant in the room, and no-one has noticed it.
Presentations From Privacy to Privacies Rob Van Kranenburg Rob discussed his perspective on RFID: 1. Sustainable disruptive technologies exist in complex contexts 2. RFID introduces some human issues into ambient intelligence 3. Trust and visibilty successes or failures 4. From the safety point of view with EMF 5. From the privacy point of view - perceptions are key 6. From the business point of view potential for new alliances 7. From the politics point of view Why? What? How? Gill Wildman Gill explored how we can use this technology in a way that actually enhances the users experience, moving them on from aversion to adoption, and learning in the process. RFID is a technology that is about close connections we can build into the systems etiquette and politeness. We can create new visual scenarios of future RFID stories using an RFID passive and active environment to envisage future needs. Here are two examples from the seminar.
Scenarios are a powerful way of thinking and visualising how RFID based systems might enhance people s lives. When combined with bringing users into the development process, and prototyping services, they enable companies and organsiations to bring future applications to life.
What are the methods for understanding the human dimension of technology adoption? Design research methods have many methods for understanding what users think rather than what they say. This provides insights into products and services that can be created for new business opportunities. We can take lessons from the history of technology development, and apply the fundamentals of innovation. Create new visualisations of possible future that engage business needs, technology feasibility and user desires. Create a development process that clearly identifies the 3 different perspectives the business needs, the technology feasibility and the consumer desires - creating a balance. Bring your users into the development process gives you unique insights into what works, and helps you avoid expensive changes at later stages. Use creative people with your teams to envisage a range of possible futures and opportunities that extend your understanding about what this technology can achieve for you.
Our questions as organizers of this event How do we motivate the industry into thinking outside of the supply chain box so that they can explore what the technology can do, and what people might want from it? It is clear that there is a sense of urgency in designing scenarios for future RFID services. Without bringing users into the development process, RFID could be relegated to the backroom, rather than it bringing out to create new applications that no-one has even considered as yet, creating new forms of value, even creating new markets that do not as yet exist. That is our next step. Seminar feedback Out of a possible score of 30 we were given 24 points for giving the group interesting insights. They found the discussion and the exploring of user testing of RFID systems useful. We asked them what was their biggest challenging issue Implementation, User requirements before integration, Experimentation, Separating privacy issues for RFID to ubicomp/information and Corporate culture.
Organisers and presenters Rob Van Kranenburg Rob van Kranenburg has developed online learning environments at the Departement Leraren Opleiding in Ghent, and has worked as teacher-coordinator of the New Media program within the Film and Television studies Department of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). He was on the national Dutch Steering Committee on Media Education for two years. After the UvA he worked with John Thackara on the Doors of Perception 7 conference (Amsterdam, 14-16 November 2002). This Doors conference focused on the design challenge of pervasive computing. He then mentored a postgraduate course 'Theatricality' at Arts Performance Theatricality in Antwerp, taught at the Willem de Kooning Academy, MA PostStJoost (Breda) and now at interaction design EMMA, HKU, Utrecht. Rob founded Resonance Design to explore how resonance, not interaction is now shaping our emergent digital connectivities. He is part-time co Director of the Virtual Platform, a new media network organization in Holland. Contact: Rob Van Kranenburg http://www.virtueelplatform.nl/person-1024.25.html&lang=en http://blogger.xs4all.nl/kranenbu/ 0031 (0) 641930235 kranenbu@xs4all.nl Gill Wildman As a cofounder and principal of Plot, Gill Wildman is passionate about the design of people-centred systems. Gill believes businesses and other organisations need to realise the value of both end-user participation and interdisciplinary collaboration to succeed with their innovation strategies and design initiatives. Gill's early work, as a researcher and developer of local services, used the community development approach, which emphasises linking local networks and agencies to userneeds. This was amplified and extended by pioneering the use of social visualisations, and other creative design methods. Later, expanding on these themes as a designer, and then as a strategic design management consultant, Gill has influenced the direction of many public and private sector organisations. The Humanising Technology initiative for the Design Council introduced user-centred design approaches to early-stage UK technology start-ups and brokered collaborations between many talented designers and scientists. Gill was Assistant director of the Design, Strategy and Innovation MA at Brunel University, has been active in shaping the definition of Service Design for the British Standards Institute, and is currently an Industry board member for Innovative Product Design and Interactive Media Design at Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee.
Contact: Gill Wildman gill@plotsite.net www.plotsite.net Thanks To the Design Council for letting us host the event at Bow Street, Sabrina for organizing the refreshments and to all of the participants for making it such a challenging discussion. Plot and Resonance Design 2005