value systems

3.1/ values into 6 groups

every day, we have many types of values around us.  it takes effort for a beginner to understand and organise them clearly since values are subject to context and culture.  below is a pragmatic approach to understand different concepts of value, their natures, and their subtle relationships.

we focus on the USER, and we organise all the values into six groups.  no clear division between groups; they all depend on the context, the cultural background, and the perspective we stand.

from the bottom up, the Utility Values (or the functional values) describe the rational properties of the objects, tasks, or activities.  they are not human values, and we don't discuss this group.

then, the Sympathetic Values (or values on the surface dimension) describe the performing values while the user engages with the objects, tasks, or activities.  the user is the subject, but this is not our core focus.

now, the top - the Empathetic Values (or values in the deeper dimension), the subject is the values inside the user think and feel, including values outside the user, values inside the user, values between the user and others, and values between the user and the greater contexts.  these are the focuses of the discussions.

3.2/ emotions are not human values

happy, joy, excited, anger, fear, love, pride, surprise . . .

we often confuse emotions as human values !  simply put, emotions are the sentimental outcome on the surface that is influenced by the values hidden deep inside the minds of people.  

emotions also provide trace of reflecting the user values, user think and feel in the context.

in the example 2 - khun Nui feels happy when she met the deadline and she also feels guilty when she switched on the air conditioning for some hours. 

'feel happy' and 'feel guilty' are emotions and reflected her expectations.  we can follow up and dive deep into her values in her mind too.

in the example of nong Gam using an iPhone, she feels happy talking to her friends on FaceTime; the face-to-face experience makes her share ideas better.  

'feel happy' is an emotion from fulfilling a rational task, but it doesn't tell us the complete story of the value deep inside the mind of nong Gam.

in some instances, emotions could be intense and positive; they may influence the user's behaviour too.  therefore, we capture emotions as affective responses, we must dive deep into the context and understand the user values and the motivation inside the mind of user.

beliefs, identities

are wholly conceptual and are entirely invisible to others.  they govern who we are as a person and what we want to be; they influence all our decisions in life.  our upbringing in the past (our religion, our parent's family, our own family, our educations, our jobs, our friends . . .) influences our character and personality traits today; and, any decision won't change our beliefs and identities suddenly.

we would not discuss them in detail since beliefs and identities would not alter our everyday decisions and choices, nor in the area of innovation and new product new service creation.

meanings, purposes

are our highest moral command centre in life and are the conceptual feedback loops for checking whether we are doing the right things (which are influenced by beliefs and identities).  they are relatively consistent in different situations and contexts over time.  for example, I am conscious of the environment and I feel the responsibility; in some situations, I may make more effort to protect the environment; in others, I may be more relaxed; yet overall, it is consistent.  

in the area of innovation and new product new service creation, meanings and purposes govern our value decisions every day - what decisions and choices to make.

values, attitudes, behaviour

are the main body of discussions that influence our everyday value decisions and choices.  they are relatively tangible and traceable through qualitative methods.  values initiate various attitude responses and influence our choices of behaviours.  more discussion on values and attitudes is below.

in the area of innovation and new product new service creation, if we can understand the high-level value decisions of the user, we could offer meaningful and relevant concepts specific to the contexts.

motivations, drivers

could be rational and emotional and are undoubtedly tangible and visible.  emotional motivations and value drivers are powerful, supporting the top-down value decision that connects value-attitude-motivation-experience.

in the area of innovation and new product new service creation, we often elaborate the sense of motivations and drivers and make them unconsciously influence consumers.

experiences, emotions

focus on anticipating experiences and emotions before we make any choices and decisions; they are an integral part of our motivations and drivers.  we could plan experiences and emotions as extensive as an offering or we integrate them as micro-moments in the touchpoints (I-want-to-go, I-want-to-know, I-want-to-do, I-want-to-buy).

once we have a deep understanding of user values, attitudes, behaviours, motivations and drivers, and then we apply a lot of creativity in elaborating experiences and emotions in the area of innovation and new product new service creation.

interactions, activities

are technically outside the value system.  but, from the perspective of user research, this is the most significant point.  we often start our user observation and bottom-up assessment from the user interactions and activities with the current solutions; then, we examine the experiences and emotions, the motivations and drivers, and then the user values, attitudes and behaviours.

more discussion on the bottom-up assessment is below.

now, we zoom into the core of the value system - the values and the attitudes, they are tightly connected in all value discussions.  once our meanings and purposes confirm we are doing the right things, our values kick in and allow us to make decisions and choices in the context.  next, the cognitive attitude comes to the debate - do we understand the situation ?  if we do, we come to the behavioural attitude and the affective attitude - what should we do, and what experience should we anticipate ?  the answers to these three questions will change from one context to another.

for example, in the context of khun Pla is answering a call from her friend while she is driving.  first, in her mind, 'be in focus' has a meaning to her.  then, she may have various values, like 'be nice to my friends', 'be important to my friends', and more . . .  next, her cognitive attitude knows it is unsafe to pick up the phone, but her value of 'be important to my friends' overrides this consideration; her behavioural attitude triggers her to answer the call, as she expects 'she is a good companion to her friend, her friend will like her'.

otherwise, khun Pla's value on safety may choose a different trade-off value decision.  or, if khun Pla knows this is a call from her boss, then her behavioural attitude and her affective attitude may lead to a different behaviour and expectation.

how would we know the meanings and the values of the user ?  

whether we take a snapshot and want to understand the values of the user, or we are in a structured user research with qualitative methods, we start the assessment from bottom up - from user context to user emotional responses to user goals to user decisions.  then, we could make our best educated guess on the values of the user and the meanings of the user.

first, we observe what the user does and how the user interacts with the current solutions in the user context; we pay attention to the subtle rational evidence and emotional evidence.  second, understand the flow of experience and the emotional responses between stakeholders in the context.  

then, we examine what the user aims for and what the user achieves as a goal.  last but not least, we understand how the user makes the decisions and choices and how the user behaves in the decision process.

since this is a reversed assessment from the bottom-up, and there are many conceptual and organic logics in between, getting familiar with these qualitative methods may take some time.

the elements of value approach extends the Abraham Maslow’s 'hierarchy of needs' further into the value discussion.  the model suggests that products and services deliver fundamental elements of value that address four kinds of needs : functional, emotional, life changing, and social impact.  in the area of innovation and new products new services creation, the higher elements offered, and the more elements provided, the greater chance to meet the relevamcy, the significancy, and the expectation of the customers.

for example, we could put Starbucks, iPhone 15, and Grab Taxi into the model, and we could see each of them is mapping to different elements at different levels.  now, you have a better picture how each product or service connects to the customers.

from the perspective of adding value, we may consider in two different dimensions : one is simply increasing the magtitude of the existing elements of value, and make them stronger, another one is creating new elements of value and make new engagement with the customers.

more reading on 'the elements of value', on Harvard Business Review, Sep 2016.