Presented to UX Akron on October 12, 2018, by Timothy Keirnan, producer of the Design Critique: Products for People podcast. How we critique products and services based on human values instead of features and technology, and the implications of critical thinking applied to purchasing solutions in one's personal and professional life.

1. Values-Based Critiques of
Customer Experience
by Timothy Keirnan, Producer of Design Critique: Products for People
UX Akron, October 12th, 2018

2. The show started in Spring 2005

3. Why we started the show
• The World Wide Web had filled with blogs and professional media that
promoted and reviewed products & services
• We suspected most consumer and professional reviewers to be
intellectually and morally compromised. Reviews were almost always
positive and usually shallow
• We were concerned in 2005 at the lack of the UX profession’s
presence in the new medium of podcasting (not a problem now)
• We tried mixing long-form product critiques with discussions about
our UX careers’ methods and beloved books

4. Tim & Tom at County Squire Studio
2006, Freedom Township, Michigan

5. 13 years later…still here!

6. Design Critique’s Values
• People are more important than things
• We don’t accept advertising, sponsors, gifts, or review unit loans
• We buy the products/services with our own money
• We admit our biases before expressing our opinions
• We critique all five phases of customer experience, not just a few
hours playing with a product

7. Five Phases Criteria
• Encounter How customers “meet” your product
• Decision How customers decide whether it’s for them or not
• Purchase The ease or pain of the retail experience
• Initial Use Customers’ initial reactions out of the box
• Longitudinal Use Customers’ reactions over time

8. Values Definitions
Merriam Webster says:
“Relative worth, utility, or importance”
I say:
“Principles you care enough about to live by” (philosophical/spiritual)
or
“Preferences with serious reasons behind them”

9. ExampleValues
Not all have a moral basis, but some could.
• Thin versus Thick is really style/vanity versus utility/durability; either is OK!
• Power versus Portability (Corded/pneumatic vs. cordless tools, desktop vs.
laptop computers)
• Immediate Utility versus Long TermValue (win today or over time)
• What impact does the manufacturer have on my environment/culture/health/
world view?

10. Five Phases Critique Worksheet
© 2010 Timothy Keirnan

11. 1996 Saturn SC2

12. 1996 Saturn SC2
• Met all five Products for People criteria for me in 1996
• 368,000 miles over 20 years
• The product AND the experiences around it were terrific
• Saturn did not succeed “holistically commercially” but did a lot of
good for many; a great product is only one ingredient toward success

13. Saturn SC2 Critique

14. Let’s Look at Other Products

15. A question
Can features or technology, in and of themselves, be values?

16. Neil would say no.

17. Read this

18. Postman’s intro to Technopoly
introduction underpins our show
“...Technology does not invite a close examination of its own
consequences...its gifts are not without a heavy cost...it creates a
culture without a moral foundation. It undermines certain mental
processes and social relations that make life worth living.Technology, in
sum, is both friend and enemy.”

19. Lois Mohr Summarizes Technopoly
Postman warned us of what life under a technopoly is like: no human
values involved and citizens vulnerable to manipulation.
1. The primary goal of labor and thought is efficiency.
2. Technical calculation is superior to human judgement.
3. What cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value.
4. Affairs of citizens are best guided by experts.
Tim says: Consider whether you want to live in this kind of world run
by such authoritarian “anti-values”. Your purchases can make the world
a better place by rewarding more respectful values.

20. Lois Mohr Summarizes Technopoly
She nailed it! We should purchase solutions from a desire to enjoy
technology but avoid technopoly. People should be served, not made
servile, by products:
“The overriding belief [of a technopoly] is that technical innovation equals human
progress, so a major goal becomes accommodating ourselves to the new
technologies. Rather than carefully considering the consequences, we blindly
welcome every new innovation, believing that if something can be done, it should
be done.
The result is a society that deifies technology–a culture that seeks its authorization
in technology, finds its satisfactions there, and takes its orders from it.”

21. Design Critique:Products for People
Challenges Tech Cultism
• We discuss designs of products and services from a skeptical perspective
that honors good UX but never automatically assumes that a “new”
product must be “better”.
• We encourage careful consideration about whether adding a product or
service to your life will truly improve it. More than money is at stake.
• We respect the external and internal challenges that product teams had
on their projects and do not hate or make fun of them (usually).

22. Read this

23. Read this

24. Dr. Pippa Malmgren, Observer of Signals
• Dr. Malmgren uses what we in our jobs would call “user research” to observe
people’s behavior in everyday life to better understand economic realities
that quantitative (and overly politicized) data usually misses.
• “Drawing on a wonderful range of examples - from magazine covers and
supermarkets to public protests - SIGNALS is the fascinating story of the
world economy told in the language of everyday objects, places and events.”
• https://youtu.be/DNkY3oeWxWU
• https://youtu.be/fA8Uk-9o7-E
• She is not a UX practitioner, but we can learn from her methods to enhance
our qualitative user research. Read her book Signals.

25. From here to where?
• After years of using the values method for critiquing products and services,
can we use a similar method for designing products and services?
• Could work only if we really do get to know our customers much more
thoroughly than most companies do.
• Would never work with fake personas that are blossoming all over the UX
world these days where actual users are not even observed or interacted
with. Imagining users to design by is inherently flawed and self-referential!
Alan Cooper must be rolling his eyes at this warping of the persona tool.

26. ThankYou Kindly
You can find Design Critique: Products for People at
www.designcritique.net
Email us at designcritique@gmail.com

27. Links
Lois Mohr’s full review of Technopoly (a good summary if you don’t
read the book):
https://archive.ama.org/archive/ResourceLibrary/
JournalofPublicPolicyandMarketing/documents/9412274702.pdf
Dr. Pippa Malmgren on her concept of “signals”:
https://mcalvanyweeklycommentary.com/pippamalmgren/