The Wrap #13 | Fin-tech might change everything
A shot of thinking fuel, brought to you each month by Futurestate Design Co.
Hello September. This month we discover that anything farther than 15 minutes from home is just so passé. We expose why your design team’s clever UX tricks may be backfiring all over the place, and why fish might hold the future of robots and flying... in their fins.
“Just nipping out to get everything”
What’s going on?
Back in 2015, Carlos Moreno proposed the idea of the ‘15 minute neighbourhood’. Now he’s working with the Paris mayor to make the vision of a life where everything is within easy reach a reality.
Why it matters
Granted, it took a pandemic to wake up the masses, but the idea of having everything you need within a 15 minute walk or cycle of home (including work) is gaining some real traction.
The concept is far more fascinating than it seems - neighbourhoods effectively becoming micro-cities for local residents, reducing the need for travel, building community, speeding up decision-making at a local level… and much more.
Read this Wired piece then think about the parallels with modern business. Centralisation makes decision-making slow and reduces team creativity, productivity and happiness – people are just too far away. Instead think about how to create self-reliant organisational neighbourhoods where everyone can get what they need ‘nearby’ – from resources to a sense of community.
Read the original on WIRED UK
That clever manipulation of your customers’ behaviour? It’s not so clever after all.
What’s going on?
When companies use design ‘tricks’ to nudge or manipulate the choices their users make, they might not just be creating a future problem for themselves: they could be undermining the entire digital economy.
Why it matters
It turns out that doing the right thing is the right thing to do after all. After a plague of cunning design and (sometimes dark) UX patterns spread across digital services, the impacts are being felt. While you think it’s clever to present pricing, or terms, or privacy choices, or any number of important pieces of information in ways designed to manipulate what a customer does to your benefit, you need to consider the bigger picture.
Every time someone feels they’ve been tricked or are being manipulated by a digital experience, their trust – in all of them – is eroded.
If you rely on actively discouraging your customers from fully comprehending what they choose or can do, you’ve got, and are contributing to, a much bigger cumulative problem. Be prepared for unexpected consequences.
Read the original on Harvard Business Review
Forget Fintech. Fin-tech is the future.
What’s going on?
As usual, nature seems to have figured stuff out already. The design of fish fins is remarkable, albeit still not fully understood, and it could lead to some revolutionary new engineering approaches.
Why it matters
It’s the same old story: look in unusual places for inspiration and you might make the kind of breakthrough that changes everything. Few people would think to look at Nemo’s tail action when they considered how to make a robot better able to hold someone’s hand, or an aircraft whose wings responded to the nature of the air around them.
We’re always awe-struck by this kind of science because it reminds us that unless you take the time to really ask the ‘what if?’ questions – or simply look in unexpected places for inspiration – you’re unlikely to take a big leap forward.
Of course, it goes without saying that the innovations that emerge from this breakthrough will also need plenty of chips…
Read the original on Fast Company