The Institute of Customer Experience is a not for profit initiative by Human Factors International Inc. Its mission includes:
With the increased globalization of the world, the issue of how global customer experience can be delivered to customers across the world is gaining significance. Is there a successful framework to deliver global customer experience? Much has been written (and practiced) about Localisation and Internationalisation. The Institute of Customer Experience would like to share and discuss the best practices it has created and its ongoing research programs in the area. In addition, we hope to create a forum that also turns its gaze to the future. What will global customer experience be like in 5, 10, or 15 years?
Someone said that political geographers should always be suspicious of straight lines on a map. However, today the 'lines' on the map are so blurred in the world of global customer experience that it is not really clear where the boundaries lie for global product/service creation, production and consumption.
In such an ecosystem, we have been researching what is going on in the world of global customer experience. How are organisations grappling with the challenges of deciding whether to take a product or service that works well in a specific geography and roll it out in other geographies, with customization as needed versus creating specific products/services for each geography? What is the best way to validate concepts internationally? Find qualified vendors across countries? OR create your own teams equipped to do that? OR a blend? OR, is there a completely new way to deliver customer experience for a global audience?
While we would like to share our work in this area, we also want to bring together diverse ideas on this topic. We would also like to bring to you information about research programs we have started on this topic, partnerships we have created and interesting news from around the world of global customer experience, now and looking at the future.
Are there topics on global customer experience that, as an organization, you would like researched? Perhaps we could initiate some industry wide research, jointly funded by several organizations, with the aim of sharing the results amongst themselves and also with the UX community.
ICE Team
Apala Lahiri Chavan
Futurist Braveheart Kunoichi, CEO
Apala's world is about discovery, invention, creation and she feels that maintaining balance between polarities is where everything becomes possible. She feels that the future of UX will be about individuals creating their own user experience and that experience will involve blurring the lines between the real and the virtual.
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Ananya Roy
The Reliable Adventurer-Warrior
Ananya applies HFI's research methodologies for user research in emerging markets and cross-cultural design. She feels that the future of UX involves a lot of play.
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Mathivanan Rajendran
The Storytelling Shinobi
Mathi believes the core of innovation lies in bringing out its story. For him the User is the Hero of his Journey. The sounds around him the BGM, the other users his co-actors, the technology the sets and props, and the entire eco-system a movie. Akin to a dream catcher, he would like to see his role as that of an 'Experience-Catcher', capturing experiences and retelling them in ways that can foster innovation.
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Kalika Sharma
The Pattern-finding Problem-solver
Kalika is interested in exploring how users can get involved in designing their own experiences. She believes that all users in the future will also be creators, so UX will become all about crafting emotionally durable experiences and empowering individuals in their creations.
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Khushboo Biyani
The Collaborative Visualiser
Khushboo's career has been a lot about experimentation and learning, she has tried to stay hungry and foolish so far and definitely does not want to change that too much in the future… she isn’t so sure about what the future of UX will be, but is raring to go and find out by interaction, keeping her eyes and ears open and of course looking back at what the past of UX has been
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Mrinal Kanti Rai
The Purist
Mrinal strategises about ways to influence user behaviour for designing better experiences, using his unique point of view from the cusp of art and science. He believes the future of UX will emerge from an interdisciplinary amalgamation of sociology, psychology and technology.
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Ankush Samant
The Observant Explorer
Ankush finds emerging trends in cultures, technology, society and businesses that drive User Experiences, and builds ideas around it. He feels the future of UX is convergence of ideas, creating faster disruptions with bigger impacts.
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Utpala Wandhare
The Synthesizer
Utpala applies 'Design Thinking' for business transformation which is strategic and research driven. She feels the future of UX will be various disciplines coming together combining the outward market inputs and customer needs with the inward latent needs of end user driving the engine.
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Radhika Ramadoss
The Creative Curator
The love for aesthetics, form and color swept Radhika towards the field of design. Falling between art and science, design helps her make sense of the world and arrive at simpler solutions for even the smallest challenge she encounters. This, coupled with understanding users and engaging with cultures deeply, helps her curate stories and create meaningful user experiences. According to her, the future of UX will be more and more human!
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Deepa Ready
Deepa is cultural anthropologist to her very core who is interested in how ethnography can be used to study and create UX, whose future she believes lies in deepening the conversation between fantastic virtual worlds and tactile lived realities. She's also a teacher and a writer, mostly of things academic, and a passionate foodie.
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Prashant Vutha
Inquisitive Megamind
Inclusive and Open Expression of Design is what inspired Prashant be a part of HFI. Through HFI Prashant envisions a future where design is incorporated in everyday life and is open for everyone. ‘Design for everyone and Everyone for Design’ is a desirable future
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Kiran Patil
Kiran believes in usability for all for all the time. For him usability is not a practice but a way of life. Usability should be embedded in all the aspects of everyone’s life and not kept limited to application in certain things only.
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Sonal Malhotra
The kaleidoscope
Sonal is passionate about designing user experiences emerging from a confluence of physical and virtual realities. Her vision for the future entails smarter object-environment-human interactions leading to simple yet highly efficient & meaningful living.
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Snehshikha Gupta
The Pattern Decoder
Sneha is fascinated by design. Design for Sneha is to transform the insights, that emerge from observing the various patterns, people and cultures, into tangible and feasible design solutions that could bring a noticeable change in people’s lives and thinking.
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