Output
High
• Figure 2.
Interaction level
(input/output)
for situations of
incidental usage.
Design solutions
under curve B
represent service
improvement
over designs
under curve A.
Ultrasound
Airport
Airplane
Ne w FedEx
Supermarket
New
McDonald’s
B
Bank
Old FedEx
Low
Old
McDonald’s
A
Input
Low
High
familiarity is influenced by
domain knowledge and experience. Incidental users may experience a service as a one-time (or
first-time) encounter, a sequence
of encounters, or as a series of
repeated, similar service encounters [ 1]. An example of a one-time
encounter is a young couple
experiencing their first prenatal
ultrasound—most couples will not
decipher the images and data that
appear on the monitor. Having
an indication of what is being
measured could help couples
feel more involved and informed,
making the experience less stressful. In addition, the added infor-
mation may open a channel of
communication between the physician and the couple. Conversely,
a patient coming back for a weekly treatment might gradually gain
enough knowledge to understand
the information presented on the
monitor.
• Cooperation. In incidental use
situations, cooperation between
a primary (active) user and the
incidental user are the heart
of the service provided to the
customer. Cooperation can take
place on two levels. One level is
functional, where the primary
user is in charge of a system
that the incidental user cannot
Information
(Reduced Uncertainty)
B
High
A
New McDonald’s
cash registers
4
FedEx
tracking system
July + August 2009
• Figure 3.
Gathered
information as
function of user’s
level of control.
Old McDonald’s
cash registers
interactions
Standard
parcel service
Low
Low (Passive)
User
Control
High (Active)
(or may not) operate—using a
cash register to ring up groceries. The other level is where the
primary user is a domain expert,
contributing his knowledge to
the service—a physician filling
in a form or interpreting medical
information during an appointment.
• Interaction and Control. In the
purest sense of the phenomenon,
the incidental user is completely
passive in terms of his ability to
interact with the system. Under
other circumstances, however,
the incidental user has some ability to control the system’s input
and output. Such control can
range from communicating with
the active user to directly interacting with the system (e.g., typing in a parcel’s tracking number
in the FedEx online tracking
system, or selecting a seat on a
commercial flight).
Limited system output prevents incidental users from providing relevant input as feedback
to the system. Improved information display, as in the new
McDonald’s registers, enables
customers to verify the data,
thus signaling transparency, promoting trust, and improving the
service experience.
Figure 2 presents examples of
incidental usage, mapped according to the level of output and
input opportunities available to
the incidental user. In many service situations, good design solutions can push the envelope of
available opportunities, e.g., from
curve A to curve B, improve the
incidental user’s level of control
over the situation, and reduce
uncertainty.
• The Setting. As with any
design problem, it is important
to consider the context in which
service occurs. For example,
