We’ve officially submitted a bunch of talk proposals to the IXDA conference taking place February 4 - 7 in Savannah, Georgia. Stay tuned to the IXDA site to learn what talks are selected.
Visit the talk abstracts below and let us know what you think.
Until recently, the parts required to build NUI devices were expensive, but higher volumes and technology advancements have enabled lower production costs and retail availability/selection of touch-based devices is no longer a barrier to consumer adoption. Does that mean it’s just a matter of time before NUIs become mainstream? According Sabrina Boler at Artefact, the answer is YES.
With Sabrina’s experience as the Design Manager for Microsoft Surface, where — as one of the original team members — she built a team that brought to life the potential of Surface’s capabilities, she can discuss Microsoft Surface as a key example of a NUI. Microsoft Surfaces uses a unique NUI which includes touch screen, multi-touch gesture and object recognition capabilities — but where is it headed next? [Link]
Demand for interaction designers is growing — even during the recession. Additionally, technology is evolving at a phenomenal pace from touch screens to cloud computing to sensors. And all types of companies and industries — from software to mobile to retail to entertainment — are looking for ways to enhance the user experience of their products and services. This demand for interaction designers, evolution of technology, and changes to the market are outpacing the educator’s ability to stay relevant to students. Design educators who are focused on teaching static graphics and pure three dimensional form are becoming less relevant to technology companies. Educators who focus on experiences over form will remain relevant. [Link]
Hollywood continues to fantasize and provoke us UX designers to imagine more dimensional user experiences. Perhaps for the first time however we are witnessing a bit of a critical mass for real working 3D UI’s. There are a number of factors influencing this trend from the change of perception of console gaming as a popular consumer activity vs. niche hardcore activity.
Rob will demonstrate that there is something viscerally compelling about 3-D movement and 3-D visual style, which he believes is commercially undeniably successful. When designers take the time to understand and master the new visual levers at their disposal (depth, lighting, animation, cameras, physics and materials) really exciting and delightful experiences can be created that give user experience designers new ways to engage and delight users as they interact with digital products of all kinds. In addition he’ll argue that various technologies are going to bring 3D UX to the mainstream in the very near future so we’d better start some kind of discourse about them. [Link]
Jennifer Darmour, would like to offer a sneak peak at what the future holds for retail user experiences, particularly as retailers attempt to bridge the gap between online and in-store purchases. Artefact believes that in-store and online shopping experiences will become much more integrated — especially for shopping experiences that involve a great deal of research.
In addition, Jennifer will speak about how many companies, particularly retailers, are looking for ways to create relevant/personalized feeds for their target customers that go beyond Facebook and Twitter. Jennifer can speak about what companies need to consider when developing personalized feeds for its target audiences, why they have become a point of interest particularly for retailers and what makes feeds one of the most relevant and effective ways to reach target audiences. [Link]
Dave will share multiple audience activities and demonstrations of perceptual abilities and limitations paired with their related rules of thumb. He will address the use of dimension, color, motion, symbols, and contrast for design, e.g.:
How detailed images of our retinas show us the best uses of color and contrast
How we direct our gaze and attention and what it means for interface layouts
Our “sliding window” of temporal processing and implications for motion design
What optical illusions teach us about 3D and eye movement
How low-level processing of certain visual attributes make them “pop”
How we process depth and which are the strongest cues
Why your volume and brightness adjustments use a non-linear scale
We need to challenge our assumptions about emerging economies. We must take a harder look at the unique cultural characteristics. We need to learn from the good design examples already being used.
From this talk, you’ll walk away with surprising examples of good design and an understanding of why these products succeeded in emerging markets. Learn about techniques for uncovering insights that will foster new design ideas and innovation. And lastly, become familiar with exciting technology innovations that demonstrate hot opportunity areas…..from mobile banking to matchmaking. [Link]
Technology is rapidly changing the way we interact with our world. It is becoming woven into the products and environments all around us — cars, devices, clothing, accessories — even in the surfaces of homes and public spaces.
Speaking to Artefact’s experience and collaborations, Olen will present examples of these future interactions as well as opportunities for UX design methods — active research, experiential prototyping and multi-sensory design — to define these experiences. [Link]
Martijn will delve into what these conversation trends mean for the mobile phone industry and the interaction design community, as well as how the phone can become the integrated center and unifying element for communication and collaboration, creating a much more positive user experience.
Martijn will also share future concepts and demos illustrating how interaction designers can help combine all types of conversations on the mobile phone in a user friendly manner. Lastly, Martijn will show how the phone, specifically the “address book” can become the integrated center and unifying element for communication. [Link]
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.
Why was it done?
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.
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.
How was it done?
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.
More results
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):
What was learned?
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.
What are the implications?
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.
This post has been long overdue, but we have good reason for it, which I’ll cover in a second. First and foremost, I’d like to share a couple thoughts with you on the things that Bill demonstrated to us that day that really resonated with the group: you can sell the design by mimicking the experience on the spot, and that the best way to know how something works is by making it yourself (even if someone else has done it). Together, these examples make a great case on the power of prototyping and experimentation as a way to understand things.
For the uninitiated, Bill Buxton has been in the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) arena for some time exploring the various ways people may interact with software experiences through input methods like touch, pen, etc. In other words, he has helped advance the understanding of all things cooler than the mouse, and more.
Selling Design by Example
Here’s a scenario: You’re in a review meeting, and your client isn’t quite bought off on the idea yet. They didn’t quite understand what a “synchronous multi directional touch based media reconfigurator” was, but the idea sounds cool enough! So how do you get them to really get it the same way you do? Mimic the experience, or really, live prototype. A live prototype enables you as a communicator of ideas and insight to demonstrate the vision by having someone participate in an activity that resembles the concept. The example Buxton makes is by pretending you’re Charles Xavier and you can move the mouse by waving your hand . While they waved their arms in the air, you would move your mouse according to their gestures. Yes, it sounds a bit crude, but the aha! moment is completely worth it.
Another example would be demonstrating different ways of doing collaborative white boarding. Bill asked yours truly to stand on the other side of our opaque doors. We would both write with dry erase markers at the same time. Surprisingly, we did not conflict with each other while writing and ended up with a nice image of a man and his dog smoking a cigar. The idea here is that as other people join the session to collaborate, their shadows provide enough feedback to indicate their position. This reduces the uncertainty in where and how people will work together in a shared spac;e especially thinking about this in terms of remote collaboration.
Now, this isn’t something that you do as a planned activity, but a skill that you become familiar with incase you need that extra bit of push to get things in the right direction. The beauty of this is how low tech it can be and how easy it becomes to learn about an experience without having to do so much work up front. This concept leads into the next idea of learning by doing.
MAKE Experiences
This isn’t exactly a new lesson learned, but a great one to remember. In the business of designing new experiences, our role is to be experts in that space. Sometimes the best way to really understand how that might actually work out is by simulating it right in front of you. Think of this as a live prototype, except you are afforded a little more time to play things out and use resources that have qualities that make for a better analogy. Those tools are coming out in a grassroots fashion where the Wiimote and all inclusive touch enabling projectors are becoming affordable components to hack and build on. We no longer need to wait for some company to commercialize the technology. We can go to the store and pick up the pieces and learn about emerging technology by being a part of the invention.
Closing Thoughts
For the most part, he discussed touch input and technologies, which is quite relevant to our times today. As the greater population familiarize themselves with touch enabled software beyond just the ATM, it is important that we continue to experiment and learn best practices regarding the various applications they will be engaged in. Luckily, we are becoming more fluent in methods that enable us to get to answers much quicker, without the need to break the bank.
The visit really helped reinvigorate the inventor in all of us. Everyone needs to continue to play and make things that don’t really result in anything but an understanding about the intricacies of different experiences. There are inexplicable things that we gain by practicing with our other senses. So we want to thank you, Bill, again for talking to us and sharing your spirit of getting down and dirty. We’ve taken that drive to continue our work with Frontier projects and the nifty little things that are coming out of it (link to DIY table). Now you see why we’ve been so busy getting this post out!
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