Comments on: What animal emotions can tell us about customer experience design

By: Mary Walker

Mary Walker — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 04:36:59 +0000

I completely agree. Most of the enjoyment is in the seeking, not in enjoying the final prize. It's no fun when you find what you're looking for too quickly or too easily.

As you mention — you can observe this in animals. Dogs chase things because the chasing is fun for them. As the saying goes, if a dog actually caught a car, the dog wouldn't know what to do with it.

Ditto cats — one reason cats play with their prey is to make the hunting/seeking part last longer. Unless a cat is super hungry, it won't necessarily rush to kill. It's not as much fun when the prey dies too fast.

Fortunately humans have invented ways to fulfill our seeking drive without having to kill things (and we've even invented ways for us to redirect our dogs' and cats' seeking drive — into training, tricks, toys, etc.).

By: Helen_Driscoll

Helen_Driscoll — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:32:33 +0000

One factor that has been left out — is the idea, picture, smell, whatever it is that drives the seeker. The primary mover of the seeker human. (We have lots of dogs, and they usually get a scent of something, then go looking for it. Our customers are primarily seeker types. I discovered early on, they came to us with a picture or sensory combination, in their mind, and my job was to anticipate what those pictures/combination of senses, will be, and design products for them. I remember one customer saying to me "I knew something better had to be out there." (She was an astronomer, so I guess "seeker" describes her well !) I'm a seeker type too, and I don't like the finding to be too easy.

By: marycw

marycw — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:19:50 +0000

Hi Peter — thanks for reading and commenting. Completely agree with your point about the importance of empathy and attentiveness for staying in sync with the customer's experience.

Combine that with all the new Web 2.0 tools that allow for much more 1:1 interaction and grassroots organizing (a la Clay Shirky's observations) — and you get a very different power dynamic from the one that many of the traditional sales and marketing techniques were based on.

By: peter spear

peter spear — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:04:48 +0000

mary

very happy to have found your blog and i especially enjoy this post because it animates the real need for empathy and attentiveness to the experience of the consumer/customer. i try to frame my thinking around notions of helpfulness for this reason. successful marketplace propositions are those that are helpful to those they are able to serve.

looking forward to keepin up with your thoughts.

By: marycw

marycw — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:19:56 +0000

Thanks Steven. I've enjoyed reading your blogs and your tweets.

And I agree with you about education. As industries and institutions age, they develop geological layers of sediment that can lock them into old ways of doing things…it becomes more about protecting the existing interest groups than evolving and moving forward. That's certainly a big problem with much of the US education system.

By: Steven Devijver

Steven Devijver — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:04:51 +0000

Hey Mary, Great review! This reminds me of 'The objective of education is learning, not teaching.' Thanks for sharing.