Closure Experiences in Digital

Closure
Experiences
Joe Macleod. @mrmacleod @ClosureExp 
www.closureexperiences.com
in Digital

What
What is a Closure Experience
Why the customer life cycle is biased
What created this situation
How it has impacted us
Good and bad Closure Experiences

The satisfactory conclusion to a product or
service relationship. Each party feeling
satisﬁed with the completed transaction, it
being a fair, just conclusion without
negative consequence.
Closure
”
”

1. 2. 3.
Any consumer experience can
be broken down into 3 stages
On-Boarding Off-BoardingUsage
The stable, committed
relationship between the user
and the service they use, or
the product they own.
It is the effort it takes to get the
customer to commit to the
product or service relationship.
The start of the relationship.
It is the effort it takes to neutralise the
effects of the engagement. To
complete the agreed engagement. It is
the conclusion of the relationship.

engagement
time
Starting
Experiences
Closure
Experiences
Fuelled by commerce Fuelled by society
Language of self actualisation Language of safety and security
Joe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

Packaging
Advertising
Marketing
engagement
time
Examples include…
T&Cs
Inactivity / dormancy
Break the contract
Examples include…
Recycle
Starting
Experiences
Closure
Experiences

engagement
time
The
interest
gap
Packaging
Advertising
MarketingExamples include…
T&Cs
Inactivity / dormancy
Break the contract
Examples include…
Recycle
Starting
Experiences
Closure
Experiences

The customer life cycle
is biased
There is a gap of interest
Consumers and industry in
codependent denial

services
products
digital
…the consequences
we see in

Life was hard,
El Ángelus. Jean-François Millet. CCJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

death was familiar,
Ars Moriendi. Meister E.S.Joe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

funerals were meaningful
A Burial at Ornans by Gustave Courbet. CCJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

heaven was an
attractive reward,
Belshazzar’s Feast. John MartinJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

Plague arrived
Antonis MilanosJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

meaningless death
Scène de la peste de 1720 à la Tourette by Michel SerreJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

miss-managed
Raphael's Portrait of Leo X with cardinals Giulio de' MediciJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.
Hacking access with indulgences

Protestent uprising
Scène de la peste de 1720 à la Tourette by Michel SerreJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.
Day of reckoning

Work in the eyes of God
Joe Macleod. Closure Experiences. Eisenwalzwerk. Adolph Menzel

Re-invest in the eyes of God

Increased wages
Joe Macleod. Closure Experiences. CWD Negative Collection, Orange & District Historical Society
work less? buy more?

Medicine learnt to
control death,
Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross.Thomas EakinsJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

and hid it away.
Gross Clinic on display at the Army Post HospitalJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

Consume
Heaven on Earth
without end
Joe Macleod. Closure Experiences. American Abundance for allVintage ad Wheaties sweepstakes 1958

Death gave birth to
Heaven
Work was un-Godly
Death was an expected
part of life
Heaven is abundant
on Earth
Work and
investment Godly.
Death is hidden
from life
So…

Closure changed…
Closure had value
and a vocabulary
Closure is hidden,
overlooked and
unwanted

The Consumer Lifecycle.
A short history of unbalancing

Waste and
Closure
Waste and closure were
actionable and attached
to consumption.
15th century
A simple world view.
Consumer
experiences

15th century
life death
rebirth
use

Industrial Revolution. 1760
Eisenwalzwerk. Adolph Menzel
Lose control of work waste
Consumption becomes easier Waste becomes less actionable.
Closure becomes more diﬀicult.
Products produced at scale

Department Stores. 1796
I can buy all my things in one place

Dr John Snow. Cholera. 1854
I can buy all my things in one place I can spread invisible germs

Modern Advertising and Marketing. 1850
I can live my dreams through products

Progressive Obsolescence. 1929
I can throw things away

Bank of America launch BankAmericard. 1958
Rolando Pujol
I don’t need money, just credit

Silent Spring. 1962
Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives
We can impact the food chain

Apollo 8. Earthrise. 1968
NASA
We can impact whole Earth

Public Internet services. 1980
www.thinglink.com
A new inﬁnite landscape to create in

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 1988
British Library
We are heating the Earth

Amazon.com introduce “1-Click" 1999
1 click shopping

Global Financial Crisis. 2007-10
Occupy Wall Street
Too big to failA new inﬁnite landscape to create in
1 click shopping

1.8 billion photos each day in 2014
Too big to failA new inﬁnite landscape to create in
Ease of sharing
1 click shopping

Right to be forgotten. 2014
Too big to fail
I cant undo sharing
Ease of sharing
1 click shopping

Consumer experiences are ﬂuid and frequent
Waste and closure are distant and less actionable
21st century
Waste and
Closure
Consumer
experiences

This imbalance in the customer lifecycle has developed a
psychosis that is represented in all of us by 2 selfs.
Waste and
Closure
Consumer
experiences
Consumer
Self Civil Self

Actionable
waste
Consumer
experiences
Consumer
Self
Civil Self

The Psychological
Impact of Closure

Ernest Becker
Denial of Death
Terror
Management
Theory
“most human action is taken to ignore
or avoid the inevitability of death”

Terror
Management
Theory
We are all in denial
that things end.

Terror Management Theory
Kasser and Sheldon
2000
Researchers attempted to
connect consumption to
Liberation. M.C. Escher 1955Joe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

Kasser and Sheldon
2000
“suggested that concerns
about mortality, although sub-
conscious, strongly influence
our behaviour and aspirations
about material goods and
economic status”

Kasser and Sheldon
2000
“suggested that concerns
about mortality, although sub-
conscious, strongly influence
our behaviour and aspirations
about material goods and
economic status”
this impacts our relationship
with consumption

Peak End Rule
“people judge experiences based on
their Peak (an intense moment of the
experience) and at their End”
Daniel Kaheman
1990

time
feeling
in-different
agony
joy
+peak
end
-peak
Peak End Rule
Daniel Kaheman. 1990

Peak End Rule

Closure is a powerful
memory moment
Peak End Rule

Closure in the
Digital Landscape

1946 ... Baker Shot- Bikini Atoll 'Operation-Crossroads'
BOMB PROOF

Global population Active internet users
7.210 3.010 2.078
urbanisation 53% penetration 42% penetration 29%
billion billion billion
Source:We Are Social
Emil_Internet_CC
Active social media accounts

1.8 billion photos
each day in 2014
Source: Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends

Storage:
Source : Matthew Komorowski
Chart Last Updated: March 9, 2014 - This graph of hard drive cost, over 35 years.
$0.043 per giga byte
$0.000043 per photo
Source: http://www.statisticbrain.com/average-cost-of-hard-drive-storage/

Storage:
With such an abundance of cheap
storage it is simply no longer economic
to even decide whether to remember or
forget. The three seconds it takes to
choose has become too expensive for
people to use.
Delete.Viktor Mayer-Schonberger

Start ups
Fail Fast >>>

Zombie Apps
Zombie App is an app that
doesn’t appear in the top
three hundred of any of
Apple’s twenty three diﬀerent
genres lists.
Adjust
Last year zombie apps
doubled from 657,778 to
1,136,5021. Out of 1.4 million
on the app store.
If you don't see it on the
App Store, it isn't there.
Over 80 percent of Apps on
App Store are Zombies

Terms & Conditions
T&Cs that only
allow the user
to fail cannot
end amicably
20,000 words 
12 mentions of “Termination” 
6 mentions of “Until” 
2 mentions of “Opt out”
All reference Apple as decision maker in any
situation. User has no apparent power
Closure should be a… fair, just conclusion
without negative consequence.

Social: Unintended Consequences
Photo: Jamie SchuhJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

Social: Unintended Consequences

Storage: Digital Hoarding
BMJ. Picture of patient’s living room, published with his permission,Joe Macleod. Closure Experiences.
“He had four external hard drives containing
the original pictures and four external hard
drives containing backups. He never used or
looked at the pictures he had saved, but was
convinced that they would be of use in the
future.”

Sharing and
Right to be Forgotten?
Article 17. European Union
Right to be forgotten and to
erasure
1. The data subject shall have the
right to obtain from the
controller the erasure of
personal data relating to them
BUT…
“This IP License ends when you
delete your IP content or your
account unless your content
has been shared with others,
and they have not deleted it.”
Facebook Terms and Conditions.
Share…
Share…
Share…

Controlled sharing
By Daniel Case via Wikimedia CommonsJoe Macleod. Closure Experiences.
Facebook sharing fell 5.5%
from mid-2014 to mid-2015
Personal sharing fell 21%
Messenger apps (Whats App, Facebook
Messenger, SnapChat) growing at 25%
more than standard social platforms.
Snapchat has attracted 25
percent more users than
Instagram in the year to
2016

Systematically built to avoid loss
Culturally in denial of digital endings
Legally won’t allow for amicable endings
Commercially create endless start-ups,
who don't do clean shut-downs
Digital

As an interface,
the internet doesn't do endings.

A good
Closure Experience
will be…

Consciously Connected to the
rest of the experience through
Emotional Triggers that are
Actionable by the user in a
Timely manner.
A good Closure Experience will be…

Consciously Connected
Closure is Consciously Connected to the rest of the
experience through Emotional Triggers that are
Actionable by the user in a Timely manner.

Canon fail to link the
starting experience, and
the closure experience -
despite having all the bits.
Nearly 500ml of
redundant space in
Canon packaging.
A printer pioneer, having
operated a cartridge
recycling program since
1990.
Users don’t understand
what ‘benzisothiazol’
means and therefore can’t
action anything about it.
On-Boarding Oﬀ-Boarding
Fill in form, sign
T&Cs - 2300
words.
Usage
Canon Ink Cartridge

CCO by Ryan Stone
Epson’s PaperLab
Keeps closure
visible to the user.
Makes them
responsible for it.
Recycle paper on site.
Put old printed documents
in one end - new paper
comes out the other end.

Emotional Triggers

Starting Experience
= 98% Closure Experience
= 2%
Starting Experience
= 90%
Closure Experience
= 10%
Starting Experience
= 40%
Closure Experience
= 60%
Starting Experience
= 0%
Closure Experience
= 100%
Starts to have
emotional meaning
1972
1995
2006
2012
30% on front,
90% on back
All brand elements
removed - colour,
typography, logo.
Positive emotional
message gone
Emotions can be
triggered to
recognise closure
Plain Cigarette
Packs
Research shown plain packaging makes
the packets less appealing and helps
reinforce health messages. BBC
Darker colours - olive green is proposed
- are favoured ahead of white, as they
are perceived to signify more harm.”

Marie Kondo Tidying Technique
New York Times
Questioning: does a product
‘bring you joy?’ helps the owner
understand the meaning if
ownership and responsibility.
Encourages
emotional endings
with the clutter in
your home
‘Goodbye, and thank you for
teaching me what doesn’t suit
me’

Actionable

HTC One Mini Packaging
Some packaging
mis-places closure
Starting experiences wrapped
up as long term responsibility
Closure experience overlooked
as important or actionable

Reference the
product’s life in
its form.
Collapsable water bottle
The end of the product’s life is
inherent in its form. It shows
potential. Encourages the user
to consider and engage in the
closure experience.

Rando
An antisocial
photo-sharing
app
Anonymity
makes closure
simple
Rando—an app where
serendipity rules the day
and users send and receive
random photos to and
from random people all
over the world.
Closure Experiences. Fjord. 1.10.2015Joe Macleod. Closure Experiences.

Timely

Snapchat
A video
capturing app
that has timed
access
Timed closure
helps people
feel in control.
Enjoy fast and fun
mobile conversation!
Snap a photo or a video,
add a caption, and send
it to a friend. They’ll view
it, laugh, and then the
Snap disappears from
the screen – unless they
take a screenshot!

A commitment
to the perceived
lifetime of the
product
CCO by Ryan Stone
Traditional approaches
of warranty aim to
reassure against failures
in the product. KIA aims
to deliver assurance to
the lifetime of the
product.
Kia
KIA 7 year
warranty
disrupted the
market when it
ﬁrst launched.

Sony’s robot dog, Aibo
Sony no longer
repairs broken
Aibo dogs.
Owners have a
strong bond
with the robot.
91
Make robots
last as long
as real pets.
Owners are now looking
at the death of a beloved
household robot pet.
Similar emotions to real
pet death are being
experienced.

Reﬂection
Rebirth
Peace
Or a mix of them
A good Closure Experience will bring about

Reﬂection
after the Holiday…
Rebirth
Peace

Reﬂection
after the Service Contract…
Rebirth
Peace

Reﬂection
after the Picture
was removed…
Rebirth
Peace

Reﬂection
after the Car was
scrapped…
Rebirth
Peace

Reﬂection
after the Old
computer was
replaced…
Rebirth
Peace

Balancethe l i f e c y c l e

value life, in death.

for every start,

design an end

every emotional

deserves
a

grateful

Goodbye
Joe Macleod. @ClosureExp @mrmacleod www.closureexperiences.com

Closure Experiences in Digital

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Semelhante a Closure Experiences in Digital

Semelhante a Closure Experiences in Digital (20)

Mais de Joe Macleod

Mais de Joe Macleod (16)

Último

Último (20)

Closure Experiences in Digital