Hidden in Plain Sight: How to Create Extraordinary Products for Tomorrow's Customers

by Jan Chipchase, Simon Steinhardt

Hidden in Plain Sight by global innovation consultant Jan Chipchase with Simon Steinhardt is a fascinating look at how consumers think and behave. Chipchase, named by Fortune as “one of the 50 smartest people in tech,” has traveled the world, studying people of all nations and their habits, paying attention to the ordinary things that we do every day an how they effect our buying decisions.  Future-focused and provocative, Hidden in Plain How to Create Extraordinary Products for Tomorrow's Customers illuminates exactly what drives consumers to make the choices they do, and demonstrates how all types of businesses can learn to see—and capitalize upon—what is hidden in plain sight today to create businesses tomorrow.

Genres: Design, Business, Nonfiction, Research, Creative, Anthropology

256 pages, Unknown Binding

First published April 16, 2013

Reviews

[KVG · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I went to review this, I glanced at some previous reviews and was stunned to see low ratings. On reflection, I think I get it. Folks may have wanted to read this and come away with clear action items, simple tools, and obvious insights that will help them create great products.

If you read this looking for those things, you will be disappointed. But that's not why you should read it. The book is designed to leave you with more questions than answers, to advance the curiosity that you have when interacting with the world. It helps you step back and look at things from new angles or approach them with unexpected questions. When I pour milk into my coffee at a Starbucks, there's an insane amount of trust behind that process. Why do I have that trust? Hidden in Plain Sight explores things like that.

As a person who designs products in the tech space, this is an essential mindset. When we commit to building something, we need to be sure it's addressing a real need. Looking at the world through a empathy-driven, question-everything approach (as Chipchase advocates) is the only way.

If you're not in this line of work, it's still a good read - chock full of interesting insights into human behavior, creativity, and brand marketing. You may never assemble an ethnographic research team, so it may seem abstract in its usefulness. But if you come away from a book willing to look for new perspectives on why things are the way they are, a spark I'm confident this book will instill in anyone, that's a great read.

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too bad. The subject matter could be fascinating, but the author, despite claims to the contrary, goes after the low-hanging fruit, jumps to conclusions, and over-simplifies. "Design research" and consumer psychology are, after all, much like other kinds of psychology, and much like anthropology. No specialist can truly understand human nature.

For example, the last chapter lists a bunch of complex behaviors. I call them hypocrisies. The author says they're universal. I study them in re' myself and my family, and find none we are guilty of. A second example: the author claims that 'what we carry' always includes money, keys, phone. I almost never carry my phone. Third: they shadowed a young Chinese woman who never let go of her purse, even when trying on boots in a boutique... they assumed she was paranoid and represented many denizens of her city, and a company would benefit if they could design and sell to them something to make them more comfortable... I wonder if she didn't have a personal, individual bad experience.

Now I don't expect the author to pay a lot of attention to outliers. Marketing to the tens of thousands (?) of rural ppl in the US who are still digitally connected only by satellite is not cost-effective compared to marketing to millions of poor but aspiring Bangladeshi. Trying to get me to pay a subscription for a smart-phone is not going to work. But by not considering outliers, design researchers are not considering the whole picture. And they could very well be overlooking ways to improve their products and services for the reluctant adopters, too.

My main complaint, however, with the book is that it's touted as insightful, and the author as especially visionary or talented. However, even though this specialty is unfamiliar to me, the information seemed trite and assumptive. Much like the book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do or the CDC's advice against movie popcorn, my response is "Well, duh." Pay attention, think, explore... you can find what's "hidden" too.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It borders between quick recap of some of Jan's various experiences working around the world and a breakdown of the process and techniques he uses. I would have enjoyed more exploration of the techniques he uses. That said, it was interesting to read through one practitioner's experiences, and he has some interesting (inconclusive) conclusions. I originally thought it might be good for people getting into design research, but after finishing it, I think this book would require a compliment book that has a more how-to try this explicit technique. Some people might be able to glean from Jan's recaps of various experiences, but I think more rigid thinkers might need a bit more structure than he is offering here.

[Daniel Blazquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read for anyone working in usability, consumer research, and product management. Very easyto read and engaging, and a good ratio of insight to fluff. Very good articulation of natural/innate consumer research techniques that sometimes it is hard to put into words. It contains a few useful frameworks that I am planning on using professionally, such as the "you are what you carry" framework, and the "elements of trust"

[Vikrama Dhiman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not the book I expected.
Mid way I had adjusted my expectations. However, evnn then, I couldn't be uniformly be engrossed in the book. It has a few interesting ideas, and some snippets and insights are really useful - however, that's not the point of this book. You were looking for deeper patterns or insights or practices.
It's still a useful book but unlikely something you'll remember after a while.
Good thing is that it is a fast read.

[Vuk Trifkovic · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible book. Devoid of useful insight or a coherent view. Yes, some bits are mildly amusing, but nothing more than that.

Shame, because topic is very interesting...

[Alice Wardle · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Hidden in Plain Sight: How to Create Extraordinary Product's for Tomorrow's Customer's' by Jan Chipchase is a fantastic book for anyone interested in business, culture, or psychology.

Chipchase is a researcher; he works with businesses to understand the behaviour of a product's target audience, and this involves seeing people in their everyday lives - if you want to see what people want in a product, then watch what they do, listen to what they say, and ask what they are thinking. Really, Chipchase is a permitted stalker or glamourised people-watcher; he watches people very closely (with their permission), and he has a very well-trained eye for any signs that may hint that there is a problem that a new product can solve.

Even if you are not interested in business, Chipchase's richly detailed stories of time he has spent in China, Japan, and Africa, are fascinating. It is always interesting to read how the culture I am used to (Western, British) is different to others, and how we still have many similar needs, but very different ways of satisfying them.

The most notable idea within the book is to look at the everyday actions and tasks that you, and others, do and question them. For example, phones have been getting slimmer and bigger, year on year. Yet, female trouser pocket sizes are not getting any bigger to accommodate this. I realised this dilemma as I tried to stuff my oversized phone into my pocket, yesterday. I then realised that my phone was not oversized (it suits my needs perfectly, and a screen of a smaller size would not suffice), but that my pockets were too small! I think this problem is more prominent in female trousers than male ones, based on what I have seen. Perhaps this is based on the assumption that women will have a handbag or another bag of sorts. Nevertheless, I demand pocket-size utility and equality!

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Hidden in Plain Sight, Jan Chipchase declares his intention to "show you how to look at ordinary human activities in a whole new light, so that you too can crack the social code for the sake of insight, inspiration and quite possibly a career." After reading the book - which I will state upfront I enjoyed - I think that might be overreaching a little. But it does give you new lenses and ways of looking at things and gathering context.

Like the concept of triggers in Chapter 1 - what prompts a user in one way or another at a particular time and place? What pushes people to cross the threshold between doing something and not doing something, to go outside their comfort zone (e.g. to eat a slice of someone's birthday cake even when you're stuffed from lunch; to continue gambling even after a string of losses)? How might we help people stay within their comfort zones?

Or how Chipchase breaks down the different dimensions of trustworthiness in Chapter 6 - authenticity (does this product have qualities consistent with my expectations of what the product should contain), fulfilment (does the product live up to its claims), value, reliability (does the product live up to its claims consistently), safety and recourse. Chipchase explains that consumers in high trust and low trust systems have very different default assumptions; this explains why in China, "the level of abstraction between the animal that was slaughtered and the food that appears on your plate is generally lower than in higher trust systems" - you know this dish really is chicken because you can see the feet, wings, head etc which reinforce its origins.

I'm not sure whether Hidden in Plain Sight will set people off on a new career. But for the intrepid traveller, it offers new ways of exploring a different cultural context. Take the concept of "range of distribution" - how closely people keep their possessions on hand or allows them to spread out gives us a perspective on the perception of risk of the environment (e.g. people carrying their backpacks on their fronts in some countries). Chipchase offers suggested itineraries to help with "cultural calibration" - waking up to observe a city as it wakes up, since the rhythms of the early morning tend to be more consistent and regimented than other times; experience the morning commute and visit transport nodes to check out behaviours like queuing, payment options at shops and kiosks, what is sold for snacks and entertainment; check out the local community's social hub like the hairdresser or barbershop; visit an international chain like McDonald's to see how similar or different it is to other branches around the world; read signs and what they indicate about "social behaviour and value conflicts in public places".

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

„Nestlé’s aggressive sale of milk powder in markets where doing so is likely to inhibit the lactation of mothers; Facebook and Google endlessly redefining privacy in their race to monetize your personal information through new services; Monsanto’s development of sterile seeds to force farmers to make repeat purchases every year; the very prominent suicide rate at Foxconn factories in China; Ericsson profiteering from the sale of monitoring equipment in countries like Iran“

„I’ll show you how a bottle of gasoline, a brick, and a hose on a dusty backstreet in Ho Chi Minh City comprise the purest essence of a service delivered elsewhere by some of the world’s wealthiest corporations.“

Overall quite interesting read with the main idea of observing casual things happening around us.
Even the smallest things as opening doors, going to a toilet, seeing what people typically carry on them, … can be interesting insight to preferences..

[Rebecca Karasik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though I rolled my eyes many times while reading this book, there was a lot of interesting and useful guidance on how to really observe and understand people. What I felt was missing is how to actually apply or understand that knowledge to product design, but that may have been too much for one book. I enjoyed the way that the author describes how to understand the deeper meaning behind every day things such as bathroom signs and why what you do (and don't) keep in your wallet says a lot about you and your society.

A key thing missing in this book for me was the effect that being a foreigner, or foreign to the space you're in, affects the design research that you need to do. It was weird that it wasn't even mentioned.

Also, there was a Farsi typo.

[Paridhi Kothari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading this book after someone recommended that I needed to learn to deconstruct - everything. This book lays out how you could do that, suggests one method and I am inspired by it. I am eager to put it to work and see how it can even aid me in pursuing my passion for behavioural economics.

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

insightful, true to the title - provides new perspectives and questions to ask yourself when examining social interactions, reasons for human behaviour, and examining our assumptions about a given topic

[Norman Matos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Provides a useful frame of reference for defining who your customer is.

[Gonzaga Escauriaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite curious and very easy to read.

[Qwerty88 · Rating 3 out of 5]

his subsequent massive tome about conducting fieldwork in unfamiliar countries is a more interesting read

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

A more readily digestible presentation of some of the same ideas covered in The Field Study Handbook, with a bit more of a business angle. Enlightening and enjoyable to read.

[Timothy Chklovski · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book aims at an important although very challenging topic -- the subtitle is "how to create extraordinary products for tomorrow's customers".

What it delivers is a collection of pointers on how to do field research on product usage, and some observations on some aspects of asian and african everyday culture that are surprising to someone viewing it from the perspective of a western culture.

The book does provide some interesting observations on what is important to consumers with very limited means, and how they organize consumption.

One pitfall the book highlights is products for the elderly, the illiterate and the poor. The observation is that again and again, these groups do not "rationally" choose a product designed for them, be it a phone with extra large buttons and large, simplified graphics for the elderly, an off-brand phone supporting the local language, or the Tata Nano, "the cheapest car". Basically, few want to embrace or signal belonging to a group that needs a special, compromised product.
I think another factor is at play in mispredicting preferences of these target segments: typically, those doing the extrapolation do not sufficiently adapt their frame of reference. That is, a marketing executive might ask themselves, "if I lived on $5/day, would I rather eat well and have an off-brand phone, or cut corners on my meals but have a basic Nokia?" To the exec, the answer is a resounding "eat well", since the distinction between an off-brand and low-end branded phone seem minor (neither is that desirable, to him) and he would imagine money is better directed to trying to restore current economic status. So, the exec might imagine the less affluent basically as more utilitarian and driven to gaining affluence.
A more accurate model, however, is to view a person as typically in balance in terms of earning and meeting their needs. A low-end branded phone has positive signaling value, and thus is surprisingly desirable. Similarly, Symphony, an upmarket air cooler brand in India has had dramatic success selling $200 branded "fan plus wet sponge" devices to those for whom an air conditioner is impractical or unaffordable.

Another interesting observation is that societies can adapt to consume mass-market technology of the affluent countries. For example, cell phones and charging stations can be shared in a village, and time credits can be used to transfer money (by communicating the pin unlocking additional money credits).
The importance of that is that sometimes an existing product can be made successful in a radically different market by altering the distribution channel rather than the (mass-produced) product.

The author also points out examples of unusual signaling -- such as fake braces to signal the ability to afford orthodontics (as well as, perhaps, the promise of straight teeth in the future); the author also marvels as how smoothly running a subway station in Tokyo is, attributing it to greater importance placed in the culture on not inconveniencing others.
All in all, I don't recommend this book with an ambitious subtitle, although it did prompt a few interesting insights -- the most important one perhaps about some dynamics that drive success of branded goods in low end markets, and common pitfalls in thinking about what those markets would want.

[Tannia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve always been curious about how much of the past still exists in the present. Not in a “living in the past” kinda way but more of like “I have a story to share”.

The past can be useful for noticing patterns, to see what stayed with us over time. That’s what drew me to this book.

I wanted to compare.

“Hidden in Plain Sight” was published in 2010. I was surprised by how many of the author's (future) predictions have actually come to life. & how it's all unfolded overtime. Even til this day it continues to evolve in similar ways as he previously predicted. I love that.

I learned a new word reading this: Zeitgeist.
Which means being able to capture the “spirit of times” during a particular moment in history.

This makes me think about what I’d like to leave behind for future generations. What are some useful tools or information that would benefit society as a whole?

[Darren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really admire Jan for the type of work he is doing and the book gives an interesting description of the journeys he has had and his perspective of emerging markets. However, I do agree that it could do with a follow up book. I was a bit disappointed that he didn't describe the techniques he uses a little bit more indepth, even if he didn't want his readers to take them to heart.I find myself rereading it just so I can highlight and find the relevant points. A bit of a structured framework or conclusion to each chapter would have been a nice addition to the short stories he tells.
To finish, it's an interesting read but I was hoping for more of a learning outcome.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bought this book awhile ago, and also read about others' review as "decent and motivating"...but the book is a disappointment with nothing really solidly fascinating nor motivating..Although the theme is to promote micro-observation...so one can spot the "movement" of new behavior or differences in things that we do not see..but author tries too hard and it turns out nothing he said sounds "fascinating" or "make me WOW!"...don't buy this book..instead one should buy and read "Practices of Looking" by Marita Sturken

[Ninakix · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a lot of really interesting stories in here about the work Chipchase has done, but more importantly, Chipchase provides a bunch of frameworks for thinking about human behavior and why these insights are useful. It really gets at the crux of design. (:

[Jan G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the descriptions the author gave of finding emerging markets in third world countries, but it's hard to see how to apply his techniques for your own business.

[Neby Teklu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mainly for its views on product development and marketing for emerging markets and underserved populations.