Opinion

When envisioning the futurestate of a company or a service, we’re usually faced with the challenge of designing for a customer that doesn’t exist yet. What do we mean by this? Well, they exist in the obvious sense, they’re just not ‘there’ yet.

Customer-led design is an accepted norm these days; a go-to approach for innovation teams. But there’s a fundamental flaw in customer-led design when you’re trying to take a real leap forward: customers can’t lead you there.

9th January 2021 marked Wilson Fletcher’s 18th birthday. The coming-of-age party we’d planned obviously won’t be happening (our 21st definitely got a scale-up) but it’s an amazing milestone for us to hit. Some reflections on the journey so far…

Keeping a focus on customers throughout the design process has long been the domain of the persona, but we rarely use them in favour of two more powerful and applicable tools; behavioural archetypes and behavioural modes.

Futurestate design is all about revealing hidden potential and shaping a clear vision of your next big transformational step. Now it’s time to focus on the people who will get you there.

If you’ve been following the series so far, you’ll know by now that the core purpose of futurestate design is to release you from the bonds of legacy thinking and behaviours.