The document outlines an approach called "OUTFITTING" which integrates elements of service design, product design, and user experience design. It involves identifying user "fibers" or jobs that need help, grouping these into "threads", mapping threads to user journeys or "yarns", designing products to help with fibers, and combining related products into systems to accomplish yarns. This unified approach helps design solutions that include both products and services. The story illustrates how a family business applied this process to transform their business from selling to helping users and find ongoing success.

1. OUT
FIT

2. An expanded definition of user
experience that incorporates
elements of service design
and product design.
Out·fit·ting:

3. THE SHIFT

4. THE SHIFT
People are spending more time,
money, and attention on products
and services that don’t exist in the
real world.
We’re seeing a shift…

5. FROM HARDWARE TO
SOFTWARE

6. FROM REAL TO VIRTUAL

7. FROM US TO YOU

8. FROM PRODUCTS TO
SERVICES

9. THE STORY

10. It’s 1960 and Wilma Wrong has just turned 30. She’s been a telephone
switchboard operator for the past decade, and has seen steady growth in
her career. She’s wants her daughter, Wendy, to learn what it takes to be
a good switchboard operator.
How may I
direct your
call?

11. In 1980 Wendy, Wilma’s daughter, turned 30. Direct dial has been around
for years, and most switchboard operators are obsolete. Wendy made the
decision to get trained as a call centre as a customer service rep.
How may I
help you, sir?

12. In 1990, after spending a decade as a customer service representative,
Wendy was replaced with an interactive voice response system. At the
age of 40, Wendy decided to accept a job as a telemarketer.
We can sell
you 12 at the
same price!

13. By the millennium (2000) Wendy was starting to think about retirement,
but needed to save more money. Her sales had slowed over the past few
years; all her colleagues have been telling her to start using the internet.
Start using
the what
now?

14. Over the next year, Wendy Wrong spends a lot of time developing her
email list, setting up a website, and joining social networks.

15. By 2005, Wendy has a thriving online affiliate store with loyal customers.
Wendy has used her years of communication, customer service, and
sales skills to build a successful online business; but now what?

16. Wendy’s daughter, Whitney, is now 25 and is one of the first ‘digital
natives’. Whitney has been helping with her mom’s online business since
she was young. Whitney believes she knows where to take the company.
Stop working
so hard. It’s
time to get
smarter.

17. Where Wendy was focused on communication, Whitney is focused on
understanding her customers. Whitney employs powerful tracking code,
and with equally-powerful analysis tools, she’s able to get a sense of what
communication tools are most effective.

18. By 2010, Whitney has optimized the online store her mother had started.
She’s pulling in more traffic, converting more customers, and is building a
brand people like interacting with. She’s created extensions of her store
that exist within social networks, and wants to figure out what to do next.

19. Whitney has been so focused on incremental optimization, she’s not sure
how to get the store to the next level. For the first time, the Wrong family
decides to hire an outside consultant for advice.

20. The consultant examines Whitney’s business for weeks. He finally, writes
something down on a small scrap of paper, folds the paper, and leaves
the paper on Whitney’s desk before leaving.

21. Stop
selling.
Start
helping.
This is what was written: “Stop selling. Start helping.” Whitney was about
to run after the consultant in anger. How could these 4 words make a
difference to her business.

22. Whitney Wrong felt like she’d been ripped off. She was on the verge of
crying, when she heard a knock at the door. She opened the door to see
FedEx with an envelope. Whitney tears it open, and finds a presentation
printed out, and stapled with a note.
WTF?

23. This is the
final deck I got
from the
consultant.

24. THE NEED
Dear Whitney,
This is how you take
your business to the
next level. Remember:
Stop selling. Start
helping.

25. I NEED HELP
Almost every product and service is designed to help us get things done. Using ‘the desired outcome’ as the common
starting point for both service and product design, we can produce solutions that include both products and services, as
well as solutions that are neither strictly product or service.
Stop thinking about what you want the user to do, and start thinking about how you can help the user do things.
For instance:
buy our credit card scanner.
collecting credit card payment from customers visiting the
store.
sharing files in a secure environment with your team.sign up for a free account.
finding the most interesting articles from all the rss feeds you
subscribe to.
download and install the RSS manager to your computer.
keeping track of your email contacts online.enter all your email contacts in the address book.
You need helpI want you to

26. UNIFICATION

27. UNIFICATION
OUTFITTING is an integrated
approach to product and service
design. It determines what a user
needs help with and creates a
product-service solution.

28. OUTFITTING
Service
Design
Product
DesignCX

29. OUTFITTING
Fibers are jobs users need help with. Threads are categories of related
jobs or tasks. Yarns are threads mapped to customer touch points.
Products are unique entities, produced to help users accomplish a job. A
system is a group of related products, used to support yarns.
FIBERS
THREADS YARNS
SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

30. OUTFITTING | FIBER SELECTION
FIBERS
THREADS YARNS
SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

31. SELECTING FIBERS
UNDERSTANDING your users is important to
selecting the fibers that make up your
business. Fibers are jobs that users
want help with. It’s best to think about
these jobs without the context of an
existing product or service.

32. SELECTING FIBERS
It’s useful to use this as a framework for
identifying fibers:
“My users want help __________
____________ ____________.”
(action)
(object) (context)

33. SELECTING FIBERS
For example:
“My users want help __________ ______
__________________________.”
cooking dinner
with the ingredients available in the fridge
(action) (object)
(context)

34. OUTFITTING | THREADING FIBERS
FIBERS
THREADS YARNS
SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

35. CREATING THREADS
THREADING involves grouping similar fibers
(jobs), and finding a common thread
between multiple fibers.
Fibers are often incomplete jobs; threading
helps ensure fibers are tracked back to a
root job. Therefore, threads should always
represent a COMPLETE JOB.

36. CREATING THREADS
For example:
My users want help
identifying when their
toothbrush needs changing
Fibers My users want help
knowing when they can stop
brushing their teeth
My users want help
getting the right amount of
toothpaste on their brush
Thread My users want help
brushing their teeth in the
morning
My users want help
knowing which teeth have been
brushed and which haven’t
My users want help
getting rid of bad breath.

37. CREATING THREADS
The act of creating threads may reveal
additional fibers. Therefore threading and
identifying fibers are dependant on each
other.
Threads will be used to create yarns.

38. OUTFITTING | DEFINE YARNS
FIBERS
THREADS YARNS
SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

39. CREATING YARN
YARNS take root-jobs, identified during
threading, and map them across user touch
points in order to tell stories. These stories
(or user journeys) define the offerings
required of the system.

40. CREATING YARN
For example:
Yarn: I want to get my
family ready on
weekday mornings.
Who: Me
What: Get my family
members ready for
school or work.
Where: Home
When: Weekday
mornings
Why: Each family
member is prepared for
the day.
How: Waking up on
time, getting washroom
chores done, getting
fed, getting daily
necessities packed, and
commuting to work/
school.
online
in person
resource
brush teethwake up
check messages
eat breakfast
check weather
commute
alarm clock toothbrush
tooth paste
washroom
internet
email client
social networks?
Transportation
Music

41. OUTFITTING | PRODUCT DESIGN
FIBERS
THREADS YARNS
SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

42. CREATING PRODUCTS
Products are unique entities that offer a
service intended to help users accomplish a
job (thread). Products should help users get
every fiber of the thread accomplished,
either alone or in conjunction with other
products.

43. CREATING PRODUCTS
For example:
An electric toothbrush could help users get
their teeth brushed in the morning. Certain
feature-sets will be created that speak to
the different fibers required of the product.
A product roadmap will help prioritize
which features make up the launch version.

44. OUTFITTING | SYSTEM DESIGN
FIBERS
THREADS YARNS
SYSTEMSPRODUCTS

45. CREATING SYSTEMS
Systems are collections of products used to
accomplish a yarn (or series of yarns).
Systems map the use of products across
several different planes, and fill in service
offerings.

46. CREATING SYSTEMS
For example, if we wanted to make a
system capable of getting a family ready for
the day, we may think about things like:
• Who will be in charge of ushering the family through their
morning jobs?
• How will the usher track the progress of each family members
jobs?
• How will daily consumable requirements be delivered to the
families home?

47. PRODUCT v. SYSTEM
Feature Sets
Product Backlog
Measurable Output
Company created experience
Benefits of use
Offering Roadmap
Measurable Outcome
User defined experience
More like product design More like service design

48. SUMMARY

49. SUMMARY
OUTFITTING is going to become
more useful the closer our real
lives get to our virtual ones.

50. SUMMARY
Remember these 3 truths:
1. Existentially, we’re all users.
2. Life consists of our experiences.
3. Everything we create is a
service, even if its a product.

51. We’re All Users
We don’t know what we are, where we came from, or what we’re supposed to be doing; so,
we can all think of ourselves as a consciousness using our bodies. Each of us is a user. We
use our bodies to interact with the world around us; but have begun creating technology
capable of being controlled by our minds.
Thinking of the user in this way expands the definition of user experience, but approaches UX
problems in a more holistic way.

52. Life is an Experience
Our lives are made up of products, services, and intelligence. The bed we wake up in is a
product, the alarm that wakes us up is a service, and the dog that licks our face is
intelligence. This may be a simplistic view of life, but it represents basic inputs that create the
majority of our daily experiences. These inputs exist in all experiences; regardless of whether
they exist in reality or not.
The great thing about imagination is that it allows us to experience things without actually
being part of the physical experience. People with good imaginations are able to evaluate
situations by considering scenarios. They use their imaginations to ‘set the scene’ of an
experience with products, services, and intelligence. Life is made up of our experiences.

53. It’s all a Service
I always had a hard time understanding the difference between a product and a service. The
best explanation was from a business professor who essentially said products are tangible
sets of features you can own; and services are intangible sets of benefits that are temporary.
However, products usually ‘serve’ a purpose, and services often require the use of products.
For instance, a shovel is a product; if I use it myself the shovel remains a product, but if
someone else uses it for me, it’s a component of a service.
It gets even more complicated when you start thinking about virtual products, like software.
I’m not the only one who struggles to define what software is. We all know hardware is a
product; but is software a product or a service? The deeper I examined different approaches
to product design and service design, the more I felt like an integrated approach was
necessary.

54. After spending a couple days with the presentation, the consultant had
sent, Whitney Wrong received a phone call. It was the consultant. Whitney
began asking all kinds of questions about how to apply OUTFITTING to
her company.

55. She wound up expanding the consultants role; asking him to help usher
her through the OUTFITTING process. She was thrilled the whole way
through. She found out things she never thought of.

56. It’s now 2020, almost a decade after the consultant had helped Whitney
Wrong. She’s expanded her business in a manageable way. Her brand
has more affinity than ever. The equity in her business has increased more
in the past decade, than in the previous 30 years. Her company several
products with clear feature backlogs, and offering roadmaps. Her
continued success is almost guaranteed.

57. The Wrong family; from Whitney, to Wendy, to Wilma Wrong, have turned
the wrong in their lives around. The Wrong’s are now right.
Feelin’
all right!

58. FOLLOW ME
@thejordanrules
Jordan Julien on Facebook & LinkedIN
thejordanrules on Twitter, Slideshare, Medium, and Flickr