Experiences: Service Experiences

This is a sample chapter from Andrew Hinton’s new book, Understanding Context: Environment, Language, and Information Architecture, in which he explores the principles and processes that shape and change context for users. Chapter 21, “Narratives and Situations,” is one of the chapters from the book’s final segment on “Composing Context.”

Chapter 21: Narratives and Situations

The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms.—Muriel Rukeyser

People Make Sense Through Stories

Before composing something new we should understand what is already there. But we’ve already established that there is no stable, persistent “context” to begin with—that it emerges through action. So, how do we understand the current state if it won’t sit still? The key is in studying the experience from the points of view of the agents involved and how they think and behave. Those points of view provide the dynamic landscape—and the principles we derive from it—that puts everything else into perspective. These agents can be individual users, groups of them, organizations, and even digital actors. Let’s begin with how humans work—and how they understand their experience as narrative. Recall our working definition: context is an agent’s understanding of the relationships between the elements of the agent’s environment. Read More

When I talk to companies, customers, and colleagues about UX strategy and the importance of understanding the end-to-end customer experience, I often tell stories about seemingly trivial parts of an experience with a brand that can have huge impacts. Small things can have significant impacts on customer acquisition and loyalty—and companies often overlook or under-prioritize them. For example:

• The process of exchanging a pair of shoes to get the right size may be so cumbersome that you don’t even want to bother with it.
• A meal that you have at a restaurant leaves a bad taste in your mouth—not because it wasn’t delicious, but because the server was inattentive and rude.
• Navigating a company’s interactive voice response (IVR) system to speak to a real person on the phone becomes a test of rage restraint, because it’s so abundantly clear that they want to make it as hard as possible.

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Artificial Intelligence (Al) is no longer just a futuristic idea. It is already in use in the applications that people use every day, from personal recommendations to filing for unemployment, checking the status of benefits, or renewing a driver’s license. By harnessing the power of AI, governments are helping citizens to access essential services such as healthcare, tax filing, legal aid, and documentation. But navigating government Web sites is often a complex, time-consuming, and frustrating experience for both government employees and citizen users.

Some government contact centers just aren’t yet where they need to be. Their development teams are often overwhelmed, with a never-ending backlog, juggling disconnected systems, and wasting time on repetitive tasks that AI could easily automate—for example, answering routine queries, sorting documents, or guiding users through filling out basic forms. Now that the public’s expectations are higher, it’s important for governments to avail themselves of the opportunity of using Al to improve their citizens’ lives, enhance accessibility, and grow their economy. Doing this can build trust in public services and improve service delivery. In this article, I’ll explore some key ways in which AI can enhance the user experience of government Web sites. Read More