“My biggest takeaway … is don’t start with the digital interface, start back with the person’s life, because the moment you’re designing the interface [first], you’ve got it wrong.” - Dr. Al Mathers, Head of Research, The Good Things Foundation

 

In our next podcast, released later this week, we explore the impact Covid has had on further disenfranchising those parts of society who were already starting to be left behind as organisations rush to digitise so many aspects of the customer experience.

 

Covid has not only accelerated the adoption of many digital touch points for many but, in doing so, has also exacerbated the digital divide for others. For every anecdote about the benefits of ditching the commute for Zoom there are others of families struggling to home-school their kids with a single computer and slow broadband. For every story about judging the desirability of a street by the number of double-parked Ocado vans, there are others about the growing need for food banks.

 

The fact is, the benefits of digital are still not distributed evenly and for many digital has if anything had a negative impact on their day-to-day lives (consider how a loyal, elderly customer of  a local baker’s must feel to be suddenly told they are ‘not allowed’ to pay with cash any more). What’’s more, the benefits of digital are not shared equally between brands and their customers more generally (as anyone who has ever tried asking a remotely complicated question with a chatbot will agree).

 

This led us to realise a huge opportunity for businesses exists if we simply flip the way we think about digital transformation. Rather than starting from the premise that digital is an opportunity to cut costs and generally make life easier for ourselves, imagine what could happen if first we were to ask: ‘How can we use digital to reach more people and make their lives easier?’

 

Check out the podcast.