Type: Individual Assignment; report

Length: Max. 6 pages for the body part (excluding title page, reference list, and appendices)

Weighting: 40% of final course mark

Due Date and Submission: Friday 29st March 2024, 2.00 pm uploaded via Turnitin (see Blackboard folder)

Scenarios/Industries: 7 options, presented by Liquid Interactive during the lecture in Week 1 (see list at the end of this document).

Background:

In this assignment, you will select one of the 7 scenarios presented by Liquid Interactive in week 1 and analyse it. You will need to identify a category of end-users and one (or a limited number of) experience in the scenario that presents significant challenges/areas for improvement for those end-users. You will unpack the experience from the end-user’s perspective, deeply analyse it, and illustrate your findings in a report. Your report will need to contain a detailed user journey map of the  selected experience, together of evidence of empathy building.

Following a design-led approach, you will need to ‘put yourself’ in the shoes of the identified category of end-users, to collect as much information as possible about them and build empathy with them.

Keep in mind, though: Assessment 1 does not require you to ideate products/services. You will do just that in Assessment 2. In Assessment 1, you will stop at the ‘data gathering about users’ needs’ stage.

What you will need to do:

Broadly speaking, your work will be organised in two parts.

First, you will need to provide a critical, synthetic overview of the scenario and associated industry(ies). Imagine you are describing the scenario to someone that is not familiar with it and wants to better understand it. Just as designers build a minimum subject matter expertise in the topics they address, you will report evidence of your deep understanding of the  scenario and its associated challenges as a starting point for the second part.

Second, you will need to move your  focus  onto  a  selected  category  of end-users  and  a  specific experience they ‘live’ in that scenario.  Who  are these end-users? How can you define them as a ‘category’? What characteristics do they have? How big is the category? What stages is the experience composed of? When does it start? When does it end? What are the pain-points for the end-users? What the challenges? What the opportunities for improvement?  In short, you will need to conduct a deep analysis of a category of end-users and experience and represent them through a user journey map and other design thinking tools.

What data will you collect for your report:

It is essential for you to utilise primary and secondary information sources in the two parts of your work: to analyse the selected scenario, and to build an understanding of, and ultimately empathy with, your identified end-users.

Primary information  sources include qualitative (e.g., interviews or focus groups with end-users), quantitative (e.g., surveys to extract descriptive statistics of a phenomenon) or quali-quantitative data collection methods (e.g., online questionnaires).

Secondary information sources include academic (e.g., research papers on the industry/scenario and/or the end-users) and grey literature (e.g., consulting reports on the same aspects), statistics websites, online fora, information publicly available on social media, etc.

There are no requirements in terms of how much primary and/or secondary information you create or utilise. Keep in mind, however, that a good designer always interacts directly with their end-users; purely relying on secondary information sources can greatly jeopardize a designer’s ability to build empathy.

Please keep in mind that significant time will be spent in the classroom to ‘teach’ you how to conduct primary data collection and how to do coursework research for teaching and learning purposes ethically. Make sure you familiarise yourself with such contents before you proceed with primary data collection.

Structure of your work:

The following offers an indication of how you should structure your work:

Part A) Scenario analysis:

Start your work by providing an analysis of the selected scenario/industry. Examine recent and current   business,   economic,   and    social   trends,   emerging   challenges,   key-players,   emerging products/services,  etc.  Conduct research  and  support  your  analysis with  solid  evidence. Use  the selected scenario as a starting point and expand your work to include different sources. This analysis will be fundamental for you to be able to identify an appropriate category of end-users: the more you know about your scenario and its associated issues, the easier will be for you to ‘find’ people to assist.

Part B) User journey mapping:

The core component of the assignment requires you to identify one category of users in the selected scenario/industry, and one experience (or a set of experiences) they ‘live’ in that scenario. Remember to provide a solid justification as for why you believe that category of end-users is relevant and why you selected the experience (or experiences) you selected (e.g., how compelling the issues that those end-users are facing are; how many end-users are there; how ‘compelling’ is the selected experience in the scenario; etc.).

Based on your understanding of the scenario/industry, provide a detailed description of such users and their features: who are they, what are their intrinsic characteristics, what are their needs, what are their pain-points, what opportunities do they see in operating in that scenario/industry, what are they trying to achieve by using the products and services offered in that scenario/industry, what ‘jobs’ do they need to get done, what are their ‘moments of truth’, etc. Apply the tools and techniques learnt in EIBS7300 and gather real-world data about the users. Build a user journey map that synthesizes your findings about the users and their experience.

What tools can you use:

As for the scenario analysis, feel free to utilise the tools and techniques that you deem most appropriate. As for the User Journey Mapping part, make sure you select the appropriate DT tools and techniques and demonstrate you can use them effectively. Overall goal is to demonstrate you have built empathy with your end-users. Indicatively, any of the tools/techniques presented between week 01 and week 05 of the course can be utilised, but a user journey map must be included. Ensure you support your findings with solid evidence.

Contents of your report:

a) Title page, containing the following (excluded frompage count):

-     Course title

-    Assessment title

-    Date

-    Your name

-     Student number

-     Selected scenario

b) Scenario/industry analysis

c) User journey map:

-     How doI justify the category of end-users and experiences I have selected?

You could utilise several criteria to justify your choice. Generally speaking, no choice is wrong as long  as you establish solid evidence to prove your selection. Putting yourself in the ‘shoes’ of an entrepreneur that would want to enter the market and offer solutions for the problems of the category of end-users’ could be a helpful exercise. Where would you start? Which category do you think could turn into the best market segment? Which one would it be ‘easy’ to start with?

Similarly, you could reflect on how ‘painful’ is the experience you selected to focus on and justify your choice by using solid evidence. How many people ‘feel the pain’ of that experience or some of its components? Is there significant room for improvement of that experience or just marginal? Are you focusing on an irrelevant experience? Etc.

-      Can a type of organisation be a category of end-users?

Design-led approaches to problem solving are best suited for problem spaces in which human end-users can be identified relatively easily. This way, designers can leverage the potential of empathy building and  get  to  the  ‘heart’  of users/customers,  without  the  influence  of mediating/moderating  effects. Building empathy with and demonstrating a deep understanding of the pains and gains, jobs to be done, etc.  of,  for  example,  medium-sized  transportation businesses  operating  in  the  FMCG  industry  in Australia can be extremely challenging. Who would you build empathy with? Who would be your information source? Whom would you interview? The CEO? The board? How would you be able to consider, and record, nuances in the viewpoints of your respondents with regards to what their most compelling pains and gains are?

It would be different, however, if your category of end-users were operators or ‘sole traders’ operating in the same industry, or employees of a client organisation. See where the human element helps you with narrowing the scope of potential categories of end-users? 

SCENARIOS/INDUSTRIES OPTIONS (7)

Presented by Liquid Interactive in Week 1

Select one of the following scenarios for your Assessment 1.

Option 1

Industry: HIGHER EDUCATION (HE)

Scenario: The growth of the HE industry in the last 20+ years has been exponential. According to the World Bank, the number of students in HE institutions has increased from 89 million in 1998 to 200 million in 2017. Demand for HE services is increasing worldwide and pressure on HE institutions is mounting. Such institutions have moved from being simple deliverers of education, to become providers

of a broad set of services for their students: from accommodation to job placement; from food & beverage to entertainment; from sports to some financial services, etc. To keep up with our rapidly changing society, and adapt to global scale phenomena (e.g., the pandemic), universities and other tertiary institutions had to become more creative also in terms of the channels they utilise to deliver

such services: online education, digital libraries, virtual job fairs, but also smart payment systems, customised enrolment options, ‘freemium’ subscription services, etc. are nowadays commonplace in HE institutions. At the same time, the word ‘students’ has come to encompass a much wider spread of

individuals: age groups, employment status, country of provenance, professional and personal goals, etc. all contribute to create a highly differentiated mix of users, with their specific features, needs, opportunities, painpoints, personal attitudes, feelings, etc. Besides students, academics have a growing

voice in what services universities should deliver and how: far from being considered simple ‘executors’ of teaching programs, academics have seen their roles within universities diversify further, in an attempt to bring them ‘out of the Ivory Tower’ and enhance the impact of their work on societies. Orchestrating  the work of academics to meet students’ and broader stakeholder groups’ requirements (e.g., local  communities,  government  organisations,  society  in  general),  universities  are  facing  important  innovation challenges.

Option 2

Industry: HEALTHCARE

Scenario:  In  2024,  the  global  healthcare  sector  faces  significant  challenges  affecting  healthcare professionals, policymakers,  and patients.  Several  countries worldwide  are  experiencing  an  aging population, resulting in higher demand for healthcare services, particularly for chronic illnesses and age-related conditions. On the positive side, technology is transforming healthcare. The integration of electronic  health  records,  telemedicine,  and  artificial  intelligence  enhances  efficiency  but  raises concerns about data  security, patient privacy, and the digital divide. Ensuring equitable access to technological  benefits  remains  an  ongoing  challenge,  also  from  an  ethical  perspective.  Overall, disparities persist in healthcare access, with marginalized communities facing obstacles in obtaining basic  healthcare  due  to  financial  barriers,  geographical  remoteness,  or  systemic  inequalities.  In addition, the COVID- 19 pandemic has thrown in the mix the possibility of another ‘black swan’ event. Global interconnectedness makes countries susceptible to the rapid spread of infectious diseases and healthcare must work on improving their capacity for early detection, rapid response, and international collaboration to mitigate the impact of future pandemics. Healthcare professionals are not exempted from facing significant challenges. Despite working in a profession in constant demand, doctors and nurses are often affected by burnout and stress, work long hours, which leads to high turnover ratios. Finally, as environmental sustainability gains recognition as a critical factor in healthcare, the industry faces pressure to adopt sustainable practices. Balancing the need for quality care with environmental responsibility is an increasingly important goal for healthcare providers.

Option 3

Industry: USER PRIVACY AND CYBERSECURITY

Scenario: According to IBM, the average total cost of a data breach has increased to 4.35 million USD in 2022, setting a record high, at a 2.6% increase compared to the previous year. In Australia alone, during the FY 2021/2022, the Australian Cyber Security Centre has received 76,000 reports for cyber- crimes, a nearly 13% increase from the previous FY. Towards the end of 2022, some of these attacks have involved well-known brands (e.g., Optus, Medibank). Ransomware attacks, cyber-breaches to critical infrastructures, and geopolitical dynamics (e.g., the conflict in Ukraine) have characterized the global  cybersecurity  scenario  in  2022.  Several  are  the  reasons  behind  successful  cyber-attacks

perpetrated to organisations as well as individuals: cybersecurity appears to be a complicated domain for non-experts; digital technologies have increased the number of digital touchpoints for end-users; Covid- 19 and the post-pandemic world have increased the number of online interactions and purchases of goods and services; and a general sense of ‘it won’t happen to me’ often making individuals feel over-confident towards their usage of digital technologies (e.g., sharing passwords, using insecure passwords, etc.).

Option 4

Industry: MINING

Scenario: An industry under constant scrutiny and a lot of pressure from different stakeholders, mining has nonetheless recorded incredible financial results since 2021. The 40 top miners across the world recorded an increase in revenue of 32% and in net profits of 127%. Given the current focus on achieving net zero emission and the present energy transition, demand worldwide for critical minerals is surging (such minerals are utilized for low-emission energy: lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite for energy storage; copper and aluminum for energy transmission; and silicon, uranium and rare earth elements for solar, wind and nuclear energy generation). At the same time, mining is under constant spotlight in terms of its ability to maintain stakeholders’ expectations on sustainability. Environmental (e.g., adverse effects  of  mining  activities)  and   social  challenges   (e.g.,  the  impact  that  mining  has  on  local communities)  are  multiplying  and  miners  cannot  adopt  a  shareholder-focused  approach  to  their businesses anymore. Against this backdrop, mining companies are exploring new avenues to improve their reputation, corroborate their social license to operate and, in short, innovate responsibly.

Option 5

Industry: RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE MARKET

Scenario: The global value of residential real estate has seen a growth by 8% in 2020, to some $258.5 trillion. Residential real estate is by far the world’s most significant store of wealth, more valuable than all global equities and securities combined, and nearly four times the value of the worldwide GDP. In this scenario, the lion’s share is taken by China, which holds 30% of the global residential real estate market value. In the Asian country, the value of residential real estate grew by 13% in 2020, thanks to an increase in supply and in prices as well. Despite the economic pressures caused by the Covid- 19 pandemic, the residential housing market held very well, with house pricing soaring in 60 countries including, among others, Canada, Russia, Germany, the US, France, Brazil, China, and Australia. Factors such as generally low interest rates, ad hoc government policies, and greater flexibility on work- from-home practices by employers have contributed to this phenomenon. In some countries, and large metropolitan cities in particular, the rush to buy a house has been described as a ‘feeding frenzy’ or ‘housing madness’. Yet, things have started to change, in some countries, in particular towards the second part of 2022 and 2023. To respond to significantly high inflation, several central banks have increased interest rates on multiple occasions. The net result is an increase in monthly mortgage repayments and a decrease in buyers’ confidence. This has resulted in a slight decrease in house prices which continued through 2023. In Australia, for example, the Reserve Bank has increased interest rates on several occasions in 2022 and 2023, to the current 4.35%. This has only initially slowed down the growth of house prices, which have grown by an average of 10.4% from January 2023 to January 2024.

Option 6

Industry: TRANSPORT/AIR PASSENGER TRAFFIC

Scenario: After  constantly  growing  since  2008  (2.208  billion), to  reach  4.397 billion passengers worldwide in 2019, worldwide air traffic has experienced an unprecedented decrease as a result of the pandemic. The number of passengers on flights around the world dropped to 1.8 billion in 2020, a 60% loss in global air passenger traffic. The pandemic has halted an upwards trend which, in the last couple of decades, had seen a constant increase in the number and typology of travelling public. The advent of low-cost  carriers, who made  air travel  an  affordable  option  and  started  serving regional  and  less accessible   airports;   globalisation   and   socio-economic   trends;   and   the   affordances   of   digital technologies, which made booking air tickets an easy and convenient process are only a few examples of the factors that led to the increase in air traffic around the globe. Similar to what happened in other industries, the players in this market (e.g., airlines, airports and retailers) have started offering ancillary services on top of their core businesses, to satisfy a clientele which is more and more exigent, especially in a post-pandemic world. In this sense, despite quickly recovering their pre-pandemic revenue levels and achieving profitability, airlines achieved thinner profits for 2023, due to high fuel costs, widespread inflation, and ongoing service disruptions to the industry and its supply chain.

Option 7

Industry: SPORTS AND LEISURE-TIME PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

After enjoying a steady surge in participation and revenue since the early 2000s, the global leisure sports industry faced an unprecedented downturn due to the impact of the pandemic. Now, the industry is promptly recovering and its growth has been fuelled by factors such as increased awareness of the importance of physical activity, the rise of specialized sports facilities, and the integration of technology to enhance the sports experience. In 2022, 41% of Australians aged +15 participated in a sport-related activity at least once a week. The emergence of diverse options for leisure-time physical activity, innovative facilities, and digital platforms has attracted a growing and diverse customer base. Similar to  other  sectors,  stakeholders  in  the  leisure  sports  market,  including  sports  facilities,  equipment manufacturers, and retailers, adapted to the changing environment by diversifying their offerings. Beyond the core activities, ancillary services like specialized training programs, nutritional counselling, and digital subscriptions have gained prominence. The Australian sports industry is estimated to support 128,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs, around 1.5% of the FTE workforce in Australia. At the same time, the industry is also facing several challenges: the explosion of electronic home entertainment makes people spend more time indoors with screens, which competes with traditional leisure activities. The resulting associated sedentary lifestyle contribute to concerns for public health. In addition, the rising cost of living affects leisure sports facilities, with energy prices, in particular, impacting club finances, and making access to leisure activities less affordable for some. Some facility providers are responding by reducing sessions and increasing fees.