Ruby Steel
Senior Design Strategist at Smart Design
Personalising Products and Services People Actually Want
Personalisation is more than just a trend - it’s here to stay. From custom-made trainers to finance chatbots, the world of products and services has been revolutionised by the ability of getting personal. But like any powerful tool, personalisation must be used with skill and applied selectively to avoid falling into the “uncanny valley” - or even worse - becoming as frustrating as Clippy the “helpful” Microsoft paperclip.
At Smart they believe there’s an opportunity to go beyond the data and design solutions that respond effectively to what people want, both functionally and emotionally. In this workshop Nathaniel and Ruby will share lessons learnt from working on personalisation across different industries, including: sports and wellness, finance, media, and transportation. In addition, there will be a series of interactive exercises to get you thinking about the different facets of designing a successful personalised experience or solution, focusing on:
- What should you actually personalise?
- Where should you live on the spectrum from mass-produced solution, to fully customised offering?
- When and how should you enhance, or suppress the perception of choice?
- How can static products evolve into personalised services?
- What are the boundaries of your customer’s digital domain? Where should their content “live,” and how should it be accessed?
- How to extend your offering beyond your traditional context and into your customer’s personal life, to add value?
About Ruby Steel
Ruby spends her time understanding people and seeing the world through their eyes to shape meaningful, human-centered experiences. With a background that includes user-centered research, co-creation and product, service and experience design, Ruby is particularly adept at healthcare and is happiest when she is making a positive impact on people’s lives. Clients include Ford, UCB, Samsung, Coloplast and HP.