We just updated the Labs blog with an entry on John Logic, one of our participants for our snowboard commerce study. We’ve captured a lot of great quotes and insights from our 60 minutes him. Jump over to watch the video and the observations we made.
We would love to hear your comments! Thanks.
Add comment December 30th, 2008
The #1 winner is: Barnes & Noble! This is great information if you were ever curious about leading brands in their respective industries. Check it out!
This might remind you of Microsoft’s Photosynth, but the concept is slightly different. Adobe blends images that are compositional, and semantically (tagged) related and stitches them into an endless canvas. The photos that are stitched together therefore don’t need to be of the same object in the way Photosynth was implemented. However, Photosynth does allow you to create 3D objects and pivot around it in space.
Infinite Images takes any collection of tagged images, not necessarily from the same location at all, and stitches them together in 3D by analyzing their composition and the semantics of their tags (“sky” is above “ground,” for example).
MINI Cooper has just released a new advertisement that uses AR technology. People can see a full 3D models of a MINI on their computer screen using a web cam and IE. (ActiveX required)
Love Slideshare? Love PowerPoint? Now you can do it automagically without having to change windows. Sharing presentations has never been easier.
SlideShare Ribbon Demo from slideshare on Vimeo.
We are no strangers to touch based interactions, or pen-based either, so it’s great to see Johnny Lee and others continue pushing the development of the perfectly useful input method.
a new application that runs on Google Android - lets you view the world through Wikipedia-tinted glasses. Simply point your mobile device’s camera at your surroundings and Wikitude will display an augmented reality version of it on the screen - a version complete with information about the buildings and other landmarks you can see, sourced directly from Wikipedia!
Add comment December 22nd, 2008
My dad would say “Picture this…” as he described his idea for remodeling a bedroom in the house. He’d get the family imagining what the room would be like after he repainted, replaced all the furniture, and displaced his children for Polish immigrants willing to pay.
How an idea is presented impacts its appeal. Right?
There have been times when I’ve verbally described an idea. Times when I’ve used visual aids. And times when I have shown a little skin.
In my work, I present new product ideas to people who may use the product. I understand what they say about the product. And then I predict which product ideas will excite a large population of people to happily use the product. I call this activity concept value testing.
I was curious to know whether I could gather any evidence that would demonstrate that how I present an idea will impact its appeal. If I had 100’s of ideas and wanted to present them to 1000’s of people, then it’s very time consuming and expensive to present an idea with visual aids. If I can get reliable judgments about an idea by presenting people with only a written description then maybe I don’t need visual aids. There are several other possible implications. Read on for the results.
I presented a product idea to my colleagues at work. I’m not able to tell you the idea. It’s not important to my point in this blog post. Most of my colleagues thought the idea was good. A solid majority (55%) were excited by the idea. They’d be highly satisfied. The idea hadn’t occurred to them. Others (18%) wanted it. If they had it then their satisfaction would increase. Some people (9%) expected to have it. It wasn’t going to boost their satisfaction because they expected it. Their response is equivalent to having a toilet seat on a toilet. It’s expected to be there. And some (18%) didn’t like the idea at all.
What you don’t know is that I presented the idea differently. I presented it 3 different ways. I presented the idea as a
1. written sentence
2. written sentence + mad libs
3. written sentence + image
The written sentence group read one sentence that described the idea. The mad-lib group was told to imagine how the product idea might be satisfying to them. They filled in the sentence blanks (mad lib) that were provided to them. The purpose was to engage people deeper in imagining themselves use it.
The image group saw a hand sketch of the idea. It illustrated how the idea might look and work in the product.
As it turns out, the Mad Libs group responded most positively to the idea. They were all excited or at least wanted the idea. The next best group only read the sentence. They were mostly excited while some expected it. The people that were shown an image of the idea were the least excited. Most in the group didn’t want the idea.
Results by Idea format (sentence, mad libs, image):
A few possible conclusions:
1. People weren’t influenced by the way the idea was presented. We’re not looking at any real differences. The sample was too small to have the power necessary to make any sensible claims.
2. A written description leaves a lot open to interpretation by those judging the idea. Maybe people imagined their own ideal experience about the idea.
3. Imagining your own examples of how the product would be satisfying, like the mad libs group, results in greater satisfaction. However, maybe I just primed them to be excited about the idea, when in fact, they’re not that excited. Would there be a priming effect if I asked people to imagine and give examples of how this feature might dissatisfy them?
4. An illustration of the idea makes the implementation of the idea more concrete. It’s more real. There is less interpretation. People judging the idea don’t use their imagination of the product. It’s not their examples of using the product. It is someone else’s idea, implementation, and examples.
I’m not making any generalizations about the merit of the idea based on my small sample. I won’t make any bold claims about the presentation of the idea but there could be an effect.
I’m not sure what the implications are just yet. I don’t have enough data to say much. In the near future, I’m going to continue to present ideas consistently to people. It controls at least one possible variable that could impact the results. Or, I’ll deliberately present ideas differently to groups of people. I’m interested in understanding the effects of presenting an idea that allows for lots of imagination versus a format that requires very little imagination. If an idea is loved in the imagination group but then hated in the no imagination group then something has gone awry in the execution of the core idea. It could be a useful diagnostic that can be used to keep the idea but shape it better to fit what people will enjoy.
I’ll chew on it some more. In the mean time, I still believe that how an idea is presented impacts its appeal.
Let me know your thoughts.
6 comments December 18th, 2008
Posted an update on our progress with the Frontier project we’re working on dubbed “Snowbird.” It’s an outline of the research we are conducting and we will be posting some of the data/findings in the next couple of days. Stay tuned!
Outlining The Plan To Understand Snowboarding [Frontier]
Add comment December 16th, 2008
We’re rolling up our sleeves at the moment getting ready to dive into some Frontier work. You might be familiar with our previous experiment in touch based interfaces, so we’re happy to invite you to be a part of this new project focusing on the snowboard shopping scene. This is going to be an ongoing thing for the next couple of months where we will be updating the Labs site with information as soon as we get it.
Add comment December 4th, 2008
We were recently visited by a student at University of Washington’s School of Art’s Design Studies program, Timothy Damon, who is currrently engaged in a design dialogue around user experience design methodologies and how they are put into practice. He’s particularly interested in how we (Artefact) integrate experimentation into the design process when designing complex software solutions with fast-paced and high-demand clients.
With tape recorder in hand, he spent an afternoon with us discussing our process, our platform for cultivating ideas, and our plans for the future. Some of the questions he asked included:
He then wrote an article about his visit that he used to share with his class and to generate dialogue around our approach and processes. Here’s Damon’s article resulting from his visit:
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Article written by Timothy Damon
Walking into the workspace at Artefact, one of Seattle’s newest top-clout design firms, communicates a sense of focused excitement that usually comes in much smaller doses. Perhaps it’s the setting sun over Puget Sound combined with the attractive soft reflections of cinema sized Apple displays at each desk. Or maybe watching people bouncing from desk to desk crouching, pointing out items of interest and talking excitedly over projects on-screen that make the atmosphere incredibly inviting to someone interested in knowing what it’s like to innovate and create things that in turn make the people that use them excited on the exact same level. But the most interesting part of the work that is done here doesn’t even take place directly under a client’s watchful eye.
In helping develop and build new experiences in interaction design from Microsoft’s World Telescope application to websites that let a user navigate as though walking through a forest of product choices, the designers at Artefact simultaneously engage themselves in another world: this one. In other words, rather than place themselves in an inward-focused creative environment where outside exploration ends after researching competitor’s features and techniques and conducting some focus groups on a product, designers at Artefact choose to form active dialogue with the creative community. This is especially evident in the realm of DIY culture, where one can find some of the most incredible innovations waiting to be taken further and developed to (perhaps) useful ends. In choosing to keep a very active blog and working on and openly sharing and discussing experimental projects with the public, Artefact is hoping to put themselves in a favorable position when it comes to developing and applying new ideas and applications for everyone to experience in their work. This incredible gesture seems to be doing nothing but good for the small firm, allowing them to build an arsenal of useful tools and techniques that can in turn be worked directly into later client projects. This takes the time to focus on exploring new ideas away from the current paid project and allows more time for that project to develop fully while simultaneously allotting time for digressive ideas to have their place and be explored, rather than be lost to their rejection under paid design work. Effectively, Artefact has redesigned the Design process for themselves, and under the new system, ideas to be kept are never lost.
The woman spurring on the majority of Artefact’s experiments is Jennifer Darmour, one of the User Experience Designers at Artefact. Jennifer and her colleagues, along with Josh Hinds, who was also present to talk about the firm’s experiments in NUI’s (natural user interfaces) all have impressive and diverse training and goals in what they wish to accomplish. Bringing these distinct ideas together has made for beautiful, well thought out solutions in client projects and a series of incredibly forward-thinking experiments examining what the future of human interaction with computers may be. It is clear by the enthusiasm with which Jennifer and Josh present the methods of research and building prototypes here that Artefact is an exciting environment for creative minds to see their plans to fruition.
Luckily for the designers, Artefact’s clients demand unique and useful experiences that bring complex information (including the known universe itself in the case of World Telescope) and movement to order, and in a stimulating and meaningful way. Interaction design is a region of the discipline that requires an ongoing knowledge of both the latest software and hardware possibilities, even as they develop. Artefact has all this, and something a little extra, the realization that there are people developing these ideas all over the world, fashioning possible solutions and tools by way of open source software and public postings encouraging others to continue developing work that one person has taken as far as time or creative capacity permits.
For example, in setting out to create a DIY multitouch table similar to Microsoft’s Surface project, designers poured over thousands of pages of web forums on the subject, enlisting the help of all the previously posted material to guide the build process of both a one dollar table consisting of nothing more than a sheet of glass, a cardboard box, a seven year old netcam, and a sheet of paper, and a one thousand dollar version housed in a wood frame utilizing more materials and allowing users to experiment with many more gestures at a small fraction of the price of a Microsoft Surface table. Sites such a Make Magazine and innovators such as Johnny Chung Lee (made famous for his work hacking Wii remotes to create new types of interactive interfaces) offer and are seen as a real source for ways to rework technology and use it to help navigate a problem.
This embrace of the DIY world represents an incredibly intelligent move on the part of Artefact. It is in this way that Artefact conducts its experimental work, cultivating previous ideas that designers wish to pursue, building dialogue around these ideas, and finally setting up projects to explore these ideas on a full-scale prototype level with surprisingly cheap and readily available technologies and materials.
Another example of exploration in natural user interfaces is Artefact’s “Body as a Mouse” project, featuring an image projected on a screen that be “navigated” by walking either closer or farther away from the screen, or walking left or right to pan the image. This was accomplished once again with the help of open source software and proximity sensors, which were calibrated to react within a range of movement determined by boundaries set within the software. Further experiments in this series feature the ability to draw in space with a light recognized by a computer, allowing users to create images on screen by motioning in thin air with the light. In the next step of this experiment, designers then explored the ability to manipulate drawn objects with another light using gestures similar to those already used in multitouch interfaces on Iphones and Macbooks.
Not only does Artefact look to the future in terms of barely-discovered technologies and tools of discovery, but in order to see these experiments come alive, they conduct all of them independently of client work. Jennifer spoke of how Artefact designers budget time to work on ideas that otherwise wouldn’t get the attention they deserve while working within the time constraints of a paid project: “To carve out this experimental lab, it’s all (conducted) on our off hours which we don’t really get that much of, so it’s weekends and evenings and between client projects (that these experiments take place).” She went on to talk about how energizing and exciting it has been for everyone to actively participate in these projects, creating what they all refer to as a playground and an experimental platform where everyone can dive into innovative solutions around natural user interfaces. The level of commitment and passion oozes into the room as Josh and Jennifer speak over how long each project took, what problems they ran into along the way, and how rewarding it has been for each of those involved to exercise their creativity without feeling the burden of a timeline or the opinions of the person paying you to create a project for them. In implementing these experiments, Artefact is effectively giving themselves an arsenal or reservoir for possible solutions to future problems, and in doing this they’re simultaneously saving themselves time under paid work that can now be even more focused on the project at hand while giving themselves a selection of already-developed solutions that take far less time to adapt to a project than if they were being dreamt up and implemented then and there. This is innovation at it’s best, not only is the firm producing successful work, they are rethinking the entire process, designing it, organizing it in an even more efficient matter, making the economy of ideas in the firm substantially more efficient.
On another level, keeping up the practice of experimenting and prototyping is an excellent way to maintain a designer’s creative and productive stamina, along with helping everyone improve their skills on presenting prototypes to a client, which is another skill the company actively strives for. Bill Buxton, a well-known pioneer in the realm of natural interfaces and interaction design as a whole is also famous for his ability to communicate ideas more quickly, cheaply, and thoroughly than most would imagine possible in this business.
Artefact saw fit to have him come in and teach them all a thing or two about rapid prototyping, which may include miming how an interface would operate, quickly “hacking” items together to represent a completely new instrument and/or usage, or faking a movement or gesture within software by tilting a laptop while simultaneously moving the mouse on the side of the screen to get a desired effect of moving a map or manipulating an object onscreen. These skills are constantly maintained by the experimental process and once again directly effect the paid work by enabling effective ways to show a client how something will function without having to actually build it.
Predictions for Artefact’s future are optimistic at the very least, the company has already taken cues from some of it’s experimental work in a web interface for Nau Clothing Company that is in many ways similar to the moving environment depicted in the Body as a Mouse experiment, but the future will undoubtedly produce a host of client work with influences and solutions directly spawned from the experiments. It may be hard to chart exactly how these make their way into final projects, but imagining scenarios in which there would have to be research done that even remotely relates to the work done in the experimental labs would reveal an idea of just how much time the company can possibly save in the future, and how far ahead they are in developing what may turn out to be the perfect solution for an incoming client. From both a design and business standpoint, Artefact is innovating and thinking ahead both in the physical development of projects and the very process by which these are created and cultivated. Coupling this with their direct connection to public via an extensive blog and even an internet TV cast, it is clear that those that work here are putting forth their best effort and actively thinking about what it means and what can be done to be on the cutting edge of the design world in terms of output and development of what will be next in their field, and then sharing the good news with anyone and asking for even more input! It is a truly impressive undertaking, and should see the young, yet already well-established firm on it’s way to becoming iconic in the design world and perhaps even in the mainstream. In a town where sustainability is of huge public interest, it’s no wonder that companies are taking the idea to the level of developing systems of sustainable idea cultivation. Imagine if you will, a world where no good idea is lost in the brainstorm, where instead they are stored and fed and grown for later use and eventually “planted” wherever they may be needed. This is Artefact, greenhouse for sprouting design possibilities.
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Timothy Damon is a student at University of Washington’s School of Art in the Design Studies program. His class, Design Case Studies, is led by Professor Dominic Muren and is currently investigating design firms around the country that are innovators and cultivators of new design processes.
Add comment December 1st, 2008
Actually we were going out to play pool and bowl anyway. It just happened to be World Usability Day on November 13 but we watched very carefully and didn’t see anything get magically easier. In fact, setting up our teams to start bowling was predictably frustrating… more on that in a minute.
‘Usability’ is starting to make its way into vernacular but it may be losing its usefulness. Often it’s used too specifically to mean just things like fixing button names in the usability lab at the end of a project. It can also be used too broadly to be useful, including any kind of customer feedback or best practices.
Let’s take the bowling console as an example. It isn’t just the names of buttons that get in the way. There are buttons that only work if you’re in league mode or before you begin a game. The controls are separate from the hanging monitors, limiting your ability to make connections between your actions and their effects. And the feedback on your current state (editing names or frames, normal play, re-racking) is minimal. If you were designing one of these and found such problems at the end, the budget you set aside to fix button names won’t do the trick. So how should the design process have worked?
The goal is an experience the user may enjoy but doesn’t have to think about. Setting up a game shouldn’t be the memorable part of your night. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get there. Careful choices about what information is required when, how to get it, and how to interpret it must guide design. User involvement (even on a budget), is one way to set the project on the right path. Heading off the large issues before they are too far advanced to correct makes thisan investment rather than a cost.
It’s glib to suggest a “cell phone should be as easy to use as a doorknob,” but it shouldn’t take 3 people to set up a bowling game, either. Is the popularity of ‘usability’ helping us advocate for better process and better experiences?
Well done Kevin with the high score, and Ken for Miss Congeniality!
1 comment November 14th, 2008
At the Forrester Consumer Forum 2008, there has been a lot of discussion around the importance of maintaining momentum on innovating, even during times of economic woe. Understandably, the B-School will tell anyone that when times are rough, wallets get tight and businesses go into survival mode that diminish opportunities for new ideas. These changes in consumer behavior might be true, but that’s a short-term, short-sighted perspective. We took some notes from Paul Jackson’s talk on Innovating in a Time of Recession, as well as incorporated pieces from James McQuivey’s presentation on “Satisfying Consumers for the Next Decade:”
As strategists, we need to be aware of what is going on in time that will ultimately alter the way people are motivated to act. The focus here is on presenting a value proposition that clearly identifies with the person’s current need. Enough so that they are willing spend their limited source of funds to acquire it. There are four things to look at to help innovate on your business’s offerings:
One company demonstrating this innovative push is HTC. This is a brand we are quite familiar with and have recently partnered with to help innovate on their next generation mobile handset experience. We worked together with their design team to conceive and prototype their now developed, TouchFLO™ 3D operating system. The innovation was their recognition in making a social phone for the socially aware consumer.
The TouchFLO™ 3D experience is something that has evolved from an evolution where HTC was just a commodity manufacturer. Over time, they have broken out of that and onto the stage with the rest of the handset competitiors like Nokia and Apple. They’ve created a strong offering that is appealing both in usefulness, and desirability across many products including the Touch Diamond™, the Touch Dual™, the Touch Pro™ and the Touch HD™. HTC transformed itself into a branded offering that let them gain more control over pricing and functionality.
Out of the box, it helps connect consumers with their networks on the web. HTC wasn’t building an entirely new network here, instead they piggy-backed on existing networks so that the customer would feel comfortable with adopting this phone and having it integrate with their existing lifestyle.
HTC is an example of how the company is committed to introduce new and better investments in experiences in order to stay competitive. As John Wang, their Chief Marketing Officer puts it, ”It takes close to 1,000 ideas to turn up a few projects that are worth running.” It’s not about quick wins, but about long term investments that will showcase what it means to provide a premium mobile user experiences long after a recession lifts.
The result of these careful decisions HTC made regarding their approach to hardware and software design made them rise above the crowded market space. That attracted Google to partner with HTC to release an Android phone; the T-Mobile G1 handset.
The four items listed above mention how you can market a product and begin to lay the processes to maintain innovation in a company with a temporary, smaller budget. In conjunction with that list, we can look a little closer at James McQuivey’s Consumer Needs Profile definition to help determine which need should be satisfied at their convenience through design.
Consumer Needs Profile (We will go in greater detail on what this means later on and give our two cents.)
In brief, Maslow had something going with the pyramid, but it didn’t account for the way consumer needs fluctuated over time due to their environment, and it implied that the needs were entirely hierarchical (e.g. that a hungry person could not have any need for self-actualization). We all have the same four needs:
These four are constantly being traded off depending on where we are in life, during the day, or during a time period. As a result, we can look to these to understand how behaviors will change and adjust the way we design experiences to satisfy what’s most important to them at that time.
In a time of an economic recession, connectedness and comfort are going to outweigh the other two because both consumers and businesses (they’re people too) are looking to reduce risk on how they spend their money. In turn, they look for ways to satisfy their need for comfort and safety in their activities such as shopping. They are also looking for greater convenience in connectivity because they might be looking to reach out to others who are going through the same situation as they are (related to comfort).
Jackson points out that on a typical product life cycle, innovation happens within three stages:
Right now, companies are steering away from innovating within the Creation stage. That might be okay, but we push you consider otherwise. It can be small and it can fail. As long as the thinking is there, these small investments can result in a big idea that stands on its own. Companies can remain competitive and position themselves for exciting long term product growth as long as they can navigate through these ambiguous times early on. Fortunately, there are tools and guides here that can help make those decisions easier.
Innovation shouldn’t stop, or even slow down. Instead, we need to take a closer look at how the trade offs in consumer needs impact our decision making process. By designing functionality that makes it more convenient to achieve the need for connectedness and comfort during hard times, it will be easier for users to identify with a product’s value and ultimately select that brand above the rest.
1 comment October 28th, 2008
Ivan Tihienko had a vision where the world was exactly like Second Life. Actually, his vision was really about designing a new interface that went beyond on screen displays. His final project at the Bezalel academy of Arts and Design is a life size projection of commands and contextual information, which can be initiated by hand or foot gestures. It’s quite nice to see it’s potential for way finding and gaming purposes. However, the keyboard part is still up in the air for me. I’m not sure I’d want the rest of the world see my emails to my mum about her trip to Barcelona, or if they even want to bother with that either. His work is still very inspiring and maybe we’ll see something like this someday!
Anyways, check out the video here:
Holographic Interface - round interface - Ringo from Ivan Tihienko on Vimeo.
Round Interface [via PSFK]
Add comment October 22nd, 2008
Folks, we will be attending the Forrester Consumer Forum 2008 next week, Tuesday October 28th until the 29th. As we finalize our prepartions here in the studio, we wanted to give you a heads up that we will be live blogging during each presentation. It’s going to be an exciting event with lots of great insights and demonstrations of what’s going to happen in the future.
If you want to learn more about the event, you can visit the Forrester site. The basic premise is on social computing and mobile technology. These are two hot topics that we’ve had the pleasure to research and design solutions for our clients. This will be a great opportunity to build on our learnings and discuss with other brilliant minds the kinds of things we went through to innovate in a crowded market.
So check back in with us! I will be following the consumer research track, while Agnieszka focuses on product strategy and processes.
We’ll be uploading photos along the way on our Flickr account, dropping tweets on our favorite blue bird application, and serving up fresh entries here on the blog with commentary on what we’re hearing.
For those of you who are attending, add us, follow up, friends us, or all of the above! See you there!
Add comment October 20th, 2008