Design Accelerates blog №2 # Innovating together
20.09.2020. Living longer, better.
Why design accelerates impact for entrepreneurs.
This blog contributes to an on-going debate about the role design can play in the Healthy Ageing agenda. John Mathers and Julian Grice are embedding design thinking in the UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge and share insights on how design thinking accelerates innovation, increases adoption and creates value for product and service providers. And in the challenging times our population is facing it’s increasingly important that as we age, we age healthily.
Our older population has changed from being a minor segment to be ignored to become a hugely important and vibrant part of our economy. The Healthy Ageing Challenge is leading the UK’s biggest transformation in the lives of older people funding a raft of innovative projects.
In a series of three Design Acceleration blogs we examine the impact of the pandemic on the healthy ageing challenge, emerging shifts in consumer behaviour and ways entrepreneurs can generate value from design thinking.
Your feedback will shape the UK’s healthy ageing agenda, so if you’d like to participate in our quest to co-design a heathy ageing accelerator email John at john.mathers2@btinternet.com
Innovating together
In our first Design Accelerates blog Thinking Bigger (23.08.20) we took a snapshot of how the pandemic has exacerbated healthy ageing challenges and highlighted emerging opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovators.
Now we’re taking a look at why collaboration between entrepreneurs and designers is vital to social and commercial success, exploring three issues:
1. Never the same again — shifts in behaviour
2. Power of imagination — understanding what old means
3. Three brains beat one — the chemistry of collaboration
Along the way we’ve grabbed the views of three expert protagonists — the entrepreneur, the ageing guru and the designer: Adi Kasliwal, CEO of Personal Alarm Watch is an entrepreneur who has gone the whole nine design yards from genesis to scale up; Jackie Marshall-Cyrus independent living and healthy ageing specialist and former Independent Living Innovation Platform lead at Innovate UK; and Paul Priestman globally renowned designer who works with corporations on future thinking, anticipating and addressing tomorrow’s challenges through design.
1/ Never the same again- shifts in behaviour
In August 2020 retail stalwart M&S hit the headlines announcing that total sales in its clothing and home arm had plunged 29.9% in the eight weeks since shops reopened, with store sales tumbling 47.9%; however online sales had surged 39.2%. At the height of lockdown, M&S boss Steve Rowe said customers might “never shop the same way again” after the coronavirus crisis, and he is right. This is a wow moment in retail highlighting the dramatic shift in consumer behaviour.
Mr Rowe said: “In May we outlined our plans to learn from the crisis, accelerate our transformation and deliver a stronger, more agile business in a world in which some customer habits were changed forever. Three months on and our ‘Never the Same Again’ programme is progressing.”
Analyst and pundit Benedict Evans reviews global consumer data. “The headline numbers on how ecommerce and retail have changed during lockdown are pretty dramatic. The UK went from 20% ecommerce penetration to over 30% in two months, and the USA from 17% to 22%. This spike partly reflects a shift in the denominator: digital increased while sales at most physical retail declined, except for groceries. This effect was much stronger in the UK, where lockdown was much deeper.”
Source: Benedict Evans and ONS August 2020
Rethinking retail
This is not a blip. It’s permanent. Benedict Evans claims “absolute UK ecommerce has remained strong even as the lockdown has eased.”
Kian Bakhtiari writes for Forbes about how rapidly consumer behaviour opens up new markets for products and services. “The shutdown of physical stores has forced consumers to question their deep-seated shopping habits. People who had previously been reluctant to shop online are setting up online accounts and experiencing an entirely new customer journey. And once they get a taste for online convenience, they may never go back to their old ways. For a long time, e-commerce has been eating away the heels of offline retail. But the global lockdown has accelerated an existing trend that has been on the horizon for decades.
Worldwide e-commerce sales hut $3 trillion in 2019, an increase of 18% from the year before. In contrast, traditional retail has been struggling with closures, job losses and single-digit annual growth rates even before the pandemic. Yet, despite the rapid growth of e-commerce, it’s still a relatively small piece of the pie (14%) so there’s huge headroom for consumer growth and provider development.”
Silver Spending power
Not only are older people going digital, they are spending more. And older people in particular are self-helping from their sofas to overcome issues, trusting intermediaries, service aggregators and crowdsourced rankings to buy services.
Lord David Willets, former Government Minister and Executive Chair of the New Resolution Foundation recently joined a Centre for Ageing Better debate arguing that, for the first-time, consumption of the over 65’s exceeds those of the 18–29 group. This baby boomer generation entering their 50’s today is larger and more affluent that any previous generation and no longer, on average, poor.
They are able to make choices and express preferences for well-designed solutions. Well-designed solutions aren’t necessarily more expensive and this generation uniquely has the experience of good design and the spending power to invest in it.
Source: New Resolution Foundation
Entrepreneurs view: Adi Kasliwal “At Personal Alarm Watch we have included older people in every single step of our design process. I think this is crucial for developing a service or product that will not only support healthy ageing but also something people can be proud of. It has propelled us to being the highest rated alarm service in the UK and we will continue to get design input as we grow”
Up until now the digital adoption curve, exponentially rising quarter on quarter, has been fuelled by marketers dream category — youth. Now it’s the silver consumer — sometimes dumped unfairly in the digital divide — who are powering this climb in clicks.
2/ Power of imagination — understanding what old means
With new patterns of behaviour unmapped by the trend forecasters, futurists scratching their heads and data analysts trying to make sense of the numbers what do we know about this burgeoning segment who are simply labelled ‘old’?
Smashing Stereotypes
Doddery but dear? is powerful research from the Centre for Ageing Better that examines age stereotypes, concluding that one in three people in the UK report experiencing age prejudice or age discrimination. Ageism is a combination of how we think about age (stereotypes), how we feel about age (prejudice) and how we behave in relation to age (discrimination).
Here are some of the key points from the study that we all need to consider about older market.
1/When do we get old?
Studies have revealed significant variations in how older people are perceived in different domains of life, which can affect older people’s life satisfaction.
· First, people are categorised as old at different points depending on the domain, being categorised as old at 60 in a work domain, but at 70 in a family and relationship domain.
· Second, older people are viewed more positively in some domains, such as family and religion, and more negatively in others, such as health and friends.
· Third, in domains where older people were evaluated more positively, this predicted higher life satisfaction.
· Fourth, people from older age groups tended to evaluate older people more positively, and believe that old age started later, than younger people.ve that old age started later, than younger people.
Source: Centre for Ageing Better: Doddery but Dear? 2020
2/Positives and Negatives
Representations of older people are predominantly negative, driven by age stereotypes that position older people as high-warmth but low- competence, in decline and dependent. These stereotypes can be embodied by people as they age, more strongly endorsed by younger people, eliciting pity and behaviours that can be both helpful and harmful. Ageist narratives surround us in popular culture and policy debate, negatively affecting older people’s self-perceptions and encouraging unfair and discriminatory behaviours .
Source: Centre for Ageing Better: Doddery but Dear?
3/Group think, feel and do
Older people are generally presented as a homogenised group, lacking individual and intersectional definition. These representations dominate in language, policy and media, although a shift toward more visible and positive representations of older people appears to be underway, more visible and positive representations of older people seems to be underway.
Source: Centre for Ageing Better: Doddery but Dear? 2020
4/ Old is complex category
One of the most compelling findings is that 31% of respondents saw people in their 20’s and people in their 70’s as individuals rather than as group.
The perceived similarity of people in their 20’s and 70’s varies by respondents’ age group. Older age groups were less likely to view people in their 20’s and in their 70s’ as two groups within the same community and more likely to think that they should be seen as individuals and not affiliated with an age group.
The segmentation of older people into a third age or young-old, in which older people are still active and healthy, and a fourth age or old-old, of older people who are less healthy and more dependent, supports this distinction and marks old age as a complex category in which older-old people are still marginalised and ‘othered’ (Powell & Wahidin, 2008). (Powell & Wahidin, 2008).
Innovators’ and entrepreneurs need to get greater grip around understanding a complex, multi- dimensional older market and develop data-driven segmentation.
Because there is no established Experian or Mosaic data-pond for these new emerging consumer groupings for entrepreneurs to fish in, and build their business case, designers are ideally placed to understand user’s needs, initially from a qualitative perspective, until the data is crunched into algorithms. And we know how reliable they are!
Social rather than individual motives
Not only are big spending older consumers moving seamlessly online to self-help, they are purchasing in packs. Kian Bakhtiari neatly explains the changing community values in play.
“Moments of crisis often pave the way for social solidarity. The pandemic has afforded western societies a chance to unite, collaborate and serve. Witnessing the power of collective action can change the way individuals relate to others, resulting in an increased sense of community. This cultural shift from “I” to “we” could have a permanent effect on consumer behaviour. Research indicates people from individualist cultures prefer buying products and services associated with being successful and autonomous.
But if society becomes more community-focused, then so will our shopping habits. In other words, buyer motivation will shift from personal gain towards products, services and experiences that can be shared and enjoyed with others. The very act of consumption will no longer be synonymous with social status, but rather social harmony. In short, consumers will become more receptive to brands that demonstrate prosocial behaviour. And so, all future brand activity will need to benefit society, and not only the individual.”
Experts view: Jackie Marshall-Cyrus “It is crucial that design as both an enabler of innovation and economic recovery avoids the pitfalls entrenched in the current discourse around people and lifestyles in later adulthood. If we leapfrog over the pitfalls it may inherently become less about understanding ‘users’, and more about understanding our individual selves and what makes us all human. It will become less about chronological age, need, help, assistance, support, and conditions; and more about self-esteem, self-determination, equity, and assignation of power.
The social, cultural, and economic dynamics of mid- and later adulthood are changing rapidly. To “understand users” demands a radical mind-shift, not just an acknowledgement of it. This means no longer towing the line or being driven by the incipient prejudice, stereotypes, and paternalistic attitudes permeating the length and breadth of society.
This means design leading on the frontier of real societal shifts. There is no blanket ‘understanding’ to be had of people in later adulthood. The population is too diverse and influenced by too many factors for this to be meaningful. What we should strive for is an understanding of why (in the main) we do not identify as being part of this population, the factors that underpin power and self-determination in adulthood, and where we need targeted effort to sustain personhood, happiness, and dignity to the end”.
There is a too much to know and the market is moving fast. Entrepreneurs have hunches but investment is based on more than intuition. Imagination is required to empathise with older users’ needs and wants — a key weapon in the designers’ armoury. Stepping into the shoes of users who are little understood, perceived negatively and are behaving differently is gold dust.
If entrepreneurs collaborate with trusted market providers and design thinkers to prove out their propositions, they won’t blow their seed funding on expensive and pointless digital marketing.
3/ Three brains beat one — the chemistry of collaboration
Unpredictable patterns of consumer behaviour; shifts in spending power; the rise of self-help; emerging socially responsible drivers; lack of readily available data or segmentation; perceptions of the older market as a negative amorphous grouping. There’s a bundle of known unknowns for entrepreneurs to get their heads around.
To exploit the market with confidence collaboration between businesses who have the idea, third sector organisations with market knowledge and designers who can imagine users’ needs is a potent formula.
Nesta’s and Save The Children’s recent research ‘Better Together’ demonstrates how collaboration between the third sector and start-ups can benefit both sides. For third sector organisations, tapping into start-ups’ innovative ideas and ways of working can lead to increased impact. For start-ups, it can make the difference between failing and scaling.
“There is a lot to learn from start-ups not only in terms of the technology they use but also how they work. This can make a potentially disruptive difference in third sector organisations that are used to more traditional ways of working.” Benjamin Kumpf, Head of Innovation, Department for International Development
Nesta’s report aims to help third sector leaders and start-ups understand the value of collaborating and assess whether it is right for them, identify the necessary steps to prepare for, design and carry out collaborations and the key challenges to anticipate.
We’ve picked three tools that entrepreneurs and designers should find useful.
“To build experience, it may be advisable to take a gradual approach, beginning with light-touch collaboration modes such as organising workshops or sharing tools with start-ups, before moving on to the more difficult collaboration modes such as investments or acquisitions. Third sector organisations can also gain familiarity with the start-up world by first creating their own start-up, before embarking on long-term, equity-based collaborations with external start-ups. Good Innovation’s maturity model for charities and start-ups can be helpful to understand what a trajectory may look like for charities seeking to engage with start-ups.”ctory may look like for charities seeking to engage with start-ups.”
Source: Nesta & Save the Children — Better Together 2020
2/Collaboration modes
By analysing cases of third sector-start-up collaborations, including examples from UNICEF, Save the Children and Alzheimer’s Society, Nesta’s report found that the third sector is experimenting with a range of collaboration models to engage with start-ups, such as co-working spaces, accelerator programmes and investment funds. When the third sector collaborates with start-ups, it can increase its impact in four complementary ways:
1. by supporting start-ups with similar missions and values
2. by rejuvenating internal mindsets, behaviours and methods
3. by solving challenges more effectively together
4. by ensuring the long-term viability of their organisation
Third sector organisations can consider various collaboration modes ranging from one-off events to more structured repeated programmes carried out alone or with external partners. To identify the most suitable mode, third sector organisations should assess the following questions:
· What are the objectives for start-up collaboration?
· What level of resources can be committed to the collaboration?
· What is our level of collaborative maturity in working with start-ups?
Source: Nesta & Save the Children — Better Together 2020
3/Collaboration framework
To get started third sector organisations and start-ups can move from preparing for collaboration to setting the parameters and finally, making the collaboration work.
Source: Nesta & Save the Children — Better Together 2020
The chemistry of collaboration combining entrepreneurs, social enterprises and designers creates a potent fusion of insights and ideas to propel propositions forward, pivot them into adjacent markets and build an ecosystem to accelerate market access.
And it’s designers who provide the bridge between the producers, users and influencers.
Three lens of innovation focusses minds
One tool used by designers to help businesses understand the whole picture of their opportunity is the Three Lens of Innovation tool advocated by UKRI in their newly published Design and Innovation strategic plan 2020–24.
Advances in technology can turn ideas into reality, however the benefits will only be realised if they are adopted and used by people — whether as citizens, consumers or businesses. Ultimately, the success of any new idea depends on human behaviour and decisions. Technology enables supply, but people determine demand.
Successful innovation requires both to be aligned, and it is here that design is crucial and where design thinkers can help businesses use technology to meet user’s needs that is viable to their business.
Source: UKRI Design and Innovation Strategy 2020–24
Is your business focussed on all three lenses equally?
Great design means putting the needs, wishes and behaviours of people at the heart of the innovation process so that new ideas are truly desirable as well as being technically feasible and financially viable. Ask yourself, your team and your investors these three questions:
Q1. People. Are you clear who your users are and what they desire from your product or service?
Q2. Technology. Are people’s desires technically feasible and will they meet their future needs?
Q3. Viability. Is the service that people desire financially viable and commercially attractive?
Designers view: Paul Priestman “Design and technology have an integral role to play in enabling healthy ageing. They can help us encourage positive behaviours and facilitate healthier, independent living for longer, providing both physical and mental benefits. But in order for design for ageing to be successful, it is imperative that we engage with user groups as part of the research and development process. Only by keeping the user at the heart of design thinking, will we be able to create viable solutions that will enhance wellbeing for older generations, and help people lead fuller, healthier and more rewarding lives in an ageing society.”
What next?
For entrepreneurs gearing up for the ageing market with energy, insight and ideas now is the time to ask some important questions:
· Are you tracking trends in emerging behaviours?
· Do you have a deep understanding of your target segment of the ageing market?
· Are you collaborating with the right partners?
· Is your Innovation Lens clear and focussed?
· Are you thinking “design intelligence entrepreneurship”?
Entrepreneurs see opportunities. Designers understand users. Together they can accelerate impact.
John Mathers and Julian Grice advise the UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge, review projects and help organisations capitalise on user-centred design thinking to accelerate innovation, increase adoption and create value for product and service providers to drive growth.
For more information and advice about your Healthy Ageing by Design project contact John or Julian:john.mathers2@btinternet.com or julianmpgrice@gmail.com
Some useful links
For more about the shifts in behaviour:
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2020/8/18/the-ecommerce-surge
For more about design age thinking:
https://www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/research-centres/helen-hamlyn-centre/
https://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/blog/leveraging-design-expertise-for-an-ageing-society%20
https://www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/research-centres/design-age-institute/
UKRI are committed to embedding design into all the Grand Challenges. For more information about UKRI’s Design strategy visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/innovate-uk-launches-four-year-design-strategy
For information and advice about UKRI’s Healthy Ageing Challenge visit: https://www.ukri.org/innovation/industrial-strategy-challenge-fund/healthy-ageing/
If you are interested in contributing to the Healthy Ageing by Design debate then we would like to hear from you — whether you have a personal interest, a story to tell or a bone to pick — the bigger the debate the better.
