As additional primary research, I employed multiple methods that relate on different levels to subscriptions.
As I was looking for secondary research about subscription services, I stumbled upon a trend of articles that had thought negatively of them but had a paywall I had to subscribe to to know why. Within a day of research, I began screenshotting these contradicting remarks as I came across them. As a form of auto-ethnographic research, I documented my experience with each and how it shifted my perspective of subscriptions. I had already researched how questionable tactics are used in subscriptions, and soon, I began encountering them. There is an irony that exists when I go to read about how subscriptions are a trap and I end up signing up for an account to be tricked into then having to pay to read it. I begin to feel firsthand this misalignment between consumers and businesses regarding subscriptions.
Early on, I also did a site visit at a Huntington Bank where I observed customers come in and out and employees do minute-to-minute tasks. I had written down everything from the temperature of the thermostat and the interactions I witnessed to the number of times I could read “welcome” from the entrance. What I found most valuable from this trip was experiencing their brand identity firsthand, the shades of greens, hexagons throughout, and little details like accents of orange in lighting and cushions. This trip also gave me access to pamphlets and business cards that have become essential when developing the look of my design conjectures.
I also attempted to interview two people from each major who responded to my survey; I had come up with a list of questions I’d roughly follow before allowing them to lead the conversation. I was able to conduct two recorded interviews under these premises, which averaged a time of 15 minutes, but scheduling conflicts prevented meeting with others and one informal interview took place that I hadn’t recorded. Most of my questions were about loyalty, but from the conversations I did have, they usually ended with talking about the fragmentation of content across services. This raised a common issue felt among participants that I investigated further in my secondary research.
