Traditionally, user experience research employs methods like interviews, surveys, and observations. Although these can offer valuable insights into user needs and behaviors, they may not capture the full complexity of the system being studied. To address this gap, participatory techniques have become more popular, with Business Origami emerging as an engaging, collaborative way to explore, analyze, and visualize complex processes.
This blog explores Business Origami within the broader landscape of UX research methods. It explains how it is done, how it differs from other approaches, and provides case study examples of its use.
What is Business Origami?
Developed in 2006 by Yukinobu Maruyama at Hitachi Design Center, Business Origami is a collaborative design tool and method for creating walkthrough models of services or systems. It emphasizes the perspectives of users and system operators, bringing together individuals from diverse backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge to discuss and refine solutions through trial and error.
This method can illustrate existing services to identify potential stakeholder benefits and value. It is especially effective for visualizing complex services and solutions that involve many interconnected relationships. Involving diverse participants in exploring options promotes mutual understanding and speeds up solution development.
How is Business Origami implemented?
There are four big steps to conducting a Business Origami model:
1. Outline goals, recruit participants, and review the scope:
First, it is important to define the goals and identify the right participants. Reviewing the scope is also essential. Ask yourself: What do I want to learn? Should I test the entire system or just part of it? How much detail is necessary or desired?
2. Prepare the Business Origami activity:
Business Origami needs a flat surface to arrange icons. Whiteboards and large sheets like butcher paper or cardboard work best because they let participants write comments directly on the surface while organizing the icons.
The facilitator should ensure there is enough space with suitable surfaces available. Additionally, the designer should prepare and cut out multiple copies of Business Origami icons. Participants will then arrange these paper icons to depict different people, places, and communication channels.
3. Introduce the Business Origami model:
Provide an overview of the activity and the goals, and include the instructions that should be followed, some of these are:
- Use different icons to represent important people, places, or things in your work environment.
- Draw arrows between these icons to represent how they interact and communicate with each other.
- Write comments on the board/paper to help explain any important details.
- Make sure to consider anything that improves those interactions and communications, and use icons above arrows as necessary.
- There is no “right” way to map since each of you has had different experiences. You can also move or remove icons and comments if you realize that is needed.
4. Conduct and discuss the activity:
Allocate 20 to 45 minutes for the map activity to ensure enough time for discussion, creating an initial artifact, and making revisions. The designer should observe the process and respond to any questions from the teams, emphasizing that there is no single “right” approach to mapping out the people, places, and elements involved in their work.
Then, spend about 15 minutes sharing the artifacts with other participants. If multiple teams are involved, this discussion can also highlight similarities and differences among the artifacts.
What distinguishes this method from other approaches?
Although it shares collaborative and iterative qualities with design thinking, Business Origami offers a more comprehensive, practical modeling method that standard tools alone cannot replicate.
- Holistic System Mapping vs. Linear Mapping
Journey maps outline user steps, while origami constructs a 3D “movie set” of the entire ecosystem, highlighting dynamic interdependencies beyond individual pathways.
- Physical Co-creation vs. Static Diagrams
Empathy maps and service blueprints visualize ideas either on paper or screens. Origami uses physical, movable paper cutouts that stakeholders can manipulate, revealing hidden assumptions and encouraging shared ownership.
- Institutional and Value-Flow Focus
Traditional tools focus on feelings or touchpoint efficiency. Origami explicitly represents institutional boundaries, resource flows, and power dynamics, shifting the focus from “How does the user feel?” to “How do systems enable or block change?”
- Operational Prototyping vs. Interface Sketches
Design Thinking prototypes typically end at wireframes or sketches of experiences. In contrast, origami prototypes simulate entire operational scenarios in real time. This allows teams to transition from understanding how the system works to testing different configurations by simply rearranging cutouts and immediately observing the possible effects.
- From Understanding to Intervention
While empathy maps identify pain points, Origami methods facilitate co-creating practical solutions. Participants can test structural adjustments—such as reallocating roles, introducing new channels, or redesigning workflows—before committing resources.
- Minimize biases
Business Origami shifts the process by enabling end users to lead artifact creation, minimizing biases through empowerment, and decreasing the designer’s control.
These unique features enable teams to work together to create thorough, system-wide solutions instead of just mapping experiences.
Research case study examples
Business origami is used as a collaborative design method in service design, UX research, and organizational workshops. The following examples demonstrate its significance and value:
1. IBM Watson Solutions
IBM used Business Origami in UX research with their Watson Solutions teams to better understand complex workflows between developers and clients during service delivery. Specifically, it helps map stakeholders, interactions, and relationships within the system, aiming to improve mutual understanding and empathy across roles.
The result was a shared understanding of the system, better communication across teams, and clearer insights for improving processes and product design. After using the method, the IBM developers admitted they enjoyed the activity because it helped them see the “big picture.”
2. UK’s Food Packaging Supply Chain
Business Origami has also been used outside of UX research to analyze complex problems. For example, the food packaging industry has utilized this model to address an ongoing challenge they face regarding their use of single-use plastic packaging. They have come under scrutiny due to increased economic waste and environmental concerns. While transforming to recyclable packaging seems reasonable, there is limited research on how consumers will respond to this change.
Stakeholders from this industry conducted a workshop with Business Origami to collaboratively discuss, evaluate, and plan how consumer behavior techniques could be applied to their supply chain packaging development process. The findings enabled them to create the process for distributing the new recyclable packaging. The study was published by Clark et al in 2020 in the Sustainability journal.
3. Mobile phone product service
Hobson et al. from Cardiff University, UK, have examined the redesign of mobile phones for similar reasons – reducing waste and extending product life. Through a participatory Business Origami method, they examine how people perceive phone life cycles and respond to a proposed system where internal components are leased, upgraded, and recycled. The study finds broad support for this idea but highlights barriers such as data security, convenience, and brand trust, concluding that sustainable change depends on system-level solutions rather than solely on individual actions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Business Origami provides a transformative approach to UX research, combining creativity with practical problem-solving. It turns abstract systems into tangible models, fostering understanding and collaboration. By surpassing traditional methods, it enables researchers and designers to uncover insights, create solutions, and drive change.
Refereces
Clark, Nikki, et al. “Incorporating Consumer Insights into the UK Food Packaging Supply Chain in the Transition to a Circular Economy.” Sustainability, vol. 12, no. 15, July 2020, p. 6106, https://doi.org/10.3390/su12156106. Accessed 10 Oct. 2020.
Hobson, K., et al. “Systems of Practice and the Circular Economy: Transforming Mobile Phone Product Service Systems.” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, vol. 26, Mar. 2018, pp. 147–57, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2017.04.002
Muñoz, David. “Business Origami: Learning, Empathizing, and Building with Users User Experience Magazine.” Uxpamagazine.org, 14 July 2016, uxpamagazine.org/business-origami/.
