UX & Interaction design links, photos, random things & whatever comes into my head generally
Frank Chimero addressed the ever growing issue of content curation and the data we’re putting out there. In the real world our CD collections and books are tangible objects we can sort and arrange, we remember where we left them (most of the time), we must go to them in order to find them and we feel we have ownership of the object. In contrast, digitally we have invisible items which are easy to forget, items become sear
chable so they come to us rather than us go to them, we often pay for access (e.g. Spotify) and don’t feel any sense of ownership.
Digital content is vast. Our tweets, tags, downloads, bookmarks, Instagram photos, Facebook likes etc are all adding to the content out there. This content is multiplying with retweets, sharing and the ease of creating digital copies into an unknown vastness like the million of stars out there.
Frank explains that curation is not just the finding and collecting of items but the arrangement of them - getting something out of all that information to create meaning. Normally our digital products be ordered chronologically, but if we look beyond the meta-data the stars can start to align to constellations, to map a particular thought or expression within time and space.
Web: frankchimero.com Twitter: @fchimero
Dan Hon starts with some great examples of storytelling and play through unconventional use.
However, Dan points out some platforms lend themselves well to stories and play, others do not. Heello is a platform for pretending. When it first launched, many fake accounts were created for celebrities where the audience could play and tell stories. Quora is not a service for pretending, it is for facts, answers which are valuable, where the community does not react well to time wasters.
Web: danhon.com Twitter: @hondanhon
Slides:
Kars, from Hubbub, specialises in physical, social games for public space which he believes can break down boundaries in the social groups we create for ourselves. Kars explains that he believes games provide a perfect platform to test out new ideas and see ‘what sticks’.
Kars references the recent riots in the UK. Civil disorder is nothing new, but what made the the riots in the UK a bad thing, versus the riots in Egypt which were perceived as a good thing? Kars answers - rules are what differentiate the two. In the UK we perceived the riots as breaking the rules, ie ‘do not loot in your own neighbourhood’.The use of games models in design are not new, Kars refers to Gamification, where challenges and rewards are used to encourage use. Kars believes this focuses too much on rewards and should also consider conveying the rules.Kars outlines some key rules games which can change our social awareness:
Web: leapfrog.nl Twitter: @kaeru
Another favourite speaker of the day, Matthew Sheret from Last.fm covering personalisation and providing intimate, meaningful objects that humanise networks making time travel more fun.
Matthew starts with the history of the pocket watch, where time became portable and accessible to the masses which made them the first real network as they connected people together through the ability to sync time, plan and communicate with each other more efficiently.To Matthew, the items in his pocket are very valuable to him and he often finds out a great deal about a person by the items they choose to carry with them everyday. The Items in our pockets are very intimate and demonstrate connections to our networks. By designing to connect to our networks we can really personalise an experience for someone. For example connecting your Last.fm account with your Oyster card can offer a magnitude of personalisation from song choices to suit the journey, or connecting songs to places - it has great potential. A great example Matthew used was Chromaroma which uses Oyster card data as a gamescoring mechanic, plotting your daily journeys on a map to provide a new level of value for your journey - it now earns you points and turns something mundane into something new that you get value from.RFID tags are the chips in an Oyster card which identify who you are, number of tube journeys, where you got on, where you get off, how much money you have left - a wealth of information. Matthew is very excited for the possibilities of using this data with RFID tags and combining networks to create personalised experience.At the end of his talk, Matthew reflects of what is being lost from the humble pocket watch - personalisation and memory. iPhones are replaceable every 6 months, we no longer have physical devices we can pass on, personalise and share. Matthew believes the devices which will matter most to use will be the ones we can make personal to use.Web: matthewsheret.com Twitter: @mattsheret
Kevin ended the conference on a high and challenged augmented reality, which was hyped to have taken over our lives by now. Kevin talks us through the pitfalls of augmented reality today, that we face a world of lost GPS signals, batteries dying, and a multitude of devices and apps. Kevin aimed to interrogate augmented reality today, with the aim of getting us to ask ourselves where can we go instead? and why augmented reality?
Augmented reality aims to add to the world around us adding information, context and reality to supplement what we can see. However, Kevin argues that the focus on what makes something ‘real’ or adds value is sometimes misdirecte. For example, AR baseball cards where a 3D player pops up on the front of the card, does not make the player real. It’s the information on the back of the card, the stats, story and history which provide the context the user can relate too.Kevin explains, Jim Henson understood that it wasn’t the realism that made things real, but the movement, character and behaviour which made the Muppets real. Another great example from Kevin was the Tamagotchi which took the world by storm with its incredibly lo-fi graphics, the complete opposite to the industry at the time which was racing to achieve realism. The Tamagotchi was a success, certainly not for looking real but by becoming real through behaving real.Working on a mobile game called Crossroads where a character, Papa Bones would display on a map in relation to your location and move randomly around the city. Kevin explains he found game players physically ran away from the virtual character and confessed to being surprised of his reaction himself as the character swept through the office and vibrated all the phones off the table. There is power in the invisible.Web: areacodeinc.com Twitter: @slavin_fpo
This year centred on “...how designers can bridge the gap between the physical and digital world in order to make better, more human experiences.”
Strong themes from all speakers were around:
First up to set the tone for the day, Don Norman (whilst his wife played Sudoku - clearly she’d heard the rehearsals!). He chose not to use slides but to talk to the audience about points which really got you thinking. Like Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) Don hit us with the revelation that we are not Google’s users, advertisers are Google’s users, we are their product. There has been some criticism that this is not a mind blowing insight, however it certainly got you thinking about audiences and who a big company like Google consider in their products. Don went on to explain that the future is ‘Systems’ - understanding how a product or experience fits into the big picture and the potential in all the touchpoints - something Google do well.
Don believes an experience lasts a moment, a memory lasts for years. By providing a reminder of our memory, then the experience can be held onto for a lifetime. For example, Disney souvenirs and photos let you relive the fonder memories of the park experience whilst pushing the long queues and prices to the back of your mind.He moved onto great happiness and success coming after a negative. Don explained, if we think about the way things unfold through time such as games - you want challenges and failures so successes seem triumphant and you are engaged in an emotional response. We related Don’s point to thinking about a product life span. Over time we can predict on the first release that there will be negatives (i.e. features people expect which are missing, interfaces which can be improved, the compromises we know we have had to make). From these negatives, a positive and uplifting experience can unfold as features and improvements develop. For example, Twitter just provide the platform, the users develop the content and have formed how it is used i.e. hashtags and retweets.Don finished by demonstrating that we’ve come full circle with our interface designs and the gestures of tomorrow are set to change, to ensure consistency across devices, as there is now no distinction to a user from the Internet in their pocket to their Internet at home.Web: www.jnd.org Twitter: @jnd1er
By far our favourite talk of the day. Kelly demonstrated the importance of research and insight which allows her company to create ‘addictive experiences’ through empathy and looking at the spaces between the experiences they are creating. Kelly explains that you cannot create addiction, but you can understand peoples rituals and craft an experience to fit into their lives through research.
Kelly challenged the audience to “help people to stay upright”. Instead of encouraging users to be super-glued to their screens, its time for a shake it up and re-engage with the world around us.Covering her research methods Kelly explains, contextual research, observations, and in-depth interviews can tell us how people live their lives, traditional marketresearch such as surveys and focus groups tell us how people think they live their lives. For example, a focus group asking ‘Do you wash your hands when you go to the bathroom?’ will demonstrate peoples behaviour influenced by the group, how do they want to be perceived? What are other people saying? What is the ‘right’ answer? Observation in practice is where we really find out what people actually do.
Web: gotomedia.com Twitter: @go2girl
The Riegers’ (I’m going to use the collective name as they both contributed) took us on a historical journey of how ideas have developed, from sharing knowledge through books, to patent systems to protect our knowledge and ideas, through to modern day where those ideas evolve and grow when let loose online.
The Riegers’ demonstrated that we are in a time of rapid technology shifts. Traditionally, an audience of 50 million would equal market penetration. It took 40 years for radio to reach this, it took TV 10 years, You Tube less than 6 months and Google+ is at 25million after just 3 months. Rapid technology growth means the traditional ‘generation gaps’ are no longer generation gaps and that people 2 - 4 years apart are having to adapt to different technology.Bryan Rieger explains that we can’t expect customers to interact with our creations in a linear, exclusive manner anymore. Users no longer have to wait for the experiences we create for them, they can get to the end and they will evolve it into new experiences themselves. Bryan gives Instapaper# as an example, which takes the websites we lovingly create and takes the design, content and layout down to a stripped version which provides the content into a better experience for reading. The best example we could relate this to was Little Big Planet 2, where Sony have thought about the experience over time and what happens when their audience reach the end of the game (the experience Sony created). Sony have provided the means for users to create their own levels/experiences and share these with others to provide longevity.The Riegers’ ended on the point that we should be enabling pathways for users to find meaning and enrich their lives, through experiences they create themselves.
Web: bryanrieger.com stephanierieger.com Twitter: @bryanrieger @stephanierieger
Slides:
The award for strangest presentation lies here. We can’t say we now know the shape of the future book, but Craig did tell a well structured story around a very large, book-like artifact which is uncovered and explored through generations.
Web: craigmod.com Twitter: @craigmod
I had lots to write about!
The Linkedin profile completion % has been used as an example of persuasive design for years - on how to encourage members through playing on our human need to complete items and break down tasks into manageable goals. However Linkedin have a new method to entice visitors into providing more information on their profile - questions.
The profile completion % is a great incentive at the start of profile creation, however it is likely to become less effective as they become long serving members of the community. As the tasks to reach 100% are a lot more perceived effort such as "Ask for a recommendation". No-one wants to email and ask for a recommendation - its very daunting and against our nature to ask another individual to publicly write what they think of us, and we don't want to impose on those we are friends with. Also, prompting members to complete areas of their profile through the normal "edit" functionality again has its hurdles to cross. Members are likely to perceive their Linkedin profile as an extension or replacement for their C.V. - editing it in the traditional way is very formal and requires a lot of thought and planning, which can lead to the member procrastinating and leaving the task for "another day".
Short and snappy questions change the attitude the member has towards their profile. It's no longer a formal document. It can be short, informal and to the point.
Pros of questions
Cons of questions
Up to date profiles are important to Linkedin as their content is their business. Linkedin understand the value of up to date, accurate and detailed profiles and as such need to encourage members to provide as much information as possible. Rich content will lead to more accurate search results, more members linking back to their full Linkedin profile, and the Linkedin targeted marketing can become more accurate and demonstrate better results to potential customers. Questions are an ideal way to prompt members to provide as much content as possible and to keep it up to date.
Posted origially on the Orange Bus Blog
Sent from my iPad
Wireframes Magazine have published my Persona template which we use in client workshops at Orange Bus - available for free!
Personas are a crucial step in our process to keep decisions grounded and centred around the audience. They help to provoke questions which will challenge decisions, helping the whole
team understand the audience being designed for and shaping the design of the site. Templates like these have invaluable to clients such as Family lives, Nexus and Barclays ClearlyBusiness in communicating their audience needs.
As Wireframes Magazine points out, its a great hands on tool which invites doodling while the less-polished feel of the template relaxes clients and lets them share their insights. We've used it recently in a few different ways:
Developing a final product which engages with your audience, from customers, to new prospects, to product evangelists requires a deep understanding of their goals and needs. Personas provide this insight to craft a seamless journey for them.
Updated: An alternative version of the Persona template V2 with more focus on goals
Notes from form podcast:
