What's Been Missing?

Think about your own life and the lives of people you know. Our relationships are complicated and convoluted; our behaviors can be quirky and erratic. Sometimes we act as individuals, sometimes as groups, sometimes as both at the same time. In short, people's lives are messy. It is quite difficult to capture or describe this complexity in terms of consumption, messaging, rationality, utility, or even tasks and goals. The relationships we have with products and services are no less complex.

For example, Proctor & Gamble created Old Spice High Endurance Hair & Body Wash as part of the company's Old Spice line of products. This new product combined shampoo and body wash, and it was a direct result of research that revealed the blurred boundaries of people's everyday lives. After collecting hours of videotape documenting the showering habits of sample male customers, Proctor & Gamble came to understand something very important and interesting about the way that many men approach getting themselves clean. "We kept seeing men using body wash on their hair."[14]

When we're trying to understand our "users" and "customers," we have to remember that they're people just like us, and just like us they regularly cross understood boundaries and categories. They mix and match products to serve previously unidentified needs, and they have motivations and passions that can't be reduced to utilitarian goals. People are inconsistent, often inarticulate, and they challenge social ...

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