One of the most innovative sessions that Bind 4.0 startups could attend was Erika Merz’s classs on Customer Experience for Industry 4.0. She offered many examples of how interfaces are becoming fundamental for industrial design and technologies such as Augmented Reality and robots.

She explained that User Experience is more than Usability as it includes the anticipation of product usage and a follow up of how it is being used once in the market. “70% of IT products that are eventually delivered are unsuccessful because users don’t adopt them”, explained Merz.

These are her main recommendations for Industry 4.0 players:
– Think in ecosystems rather than interfaces
– Think of innovation in customer experience
– Work in interdisciplinary teams of marketing experts, designers and engineers
– Focus on value creation for the customer, by asking why and who before what and how
– Use rapid prototyping early and iterate often
– Be the customers advocate in every step

See her presentation