Sarit Arora talks about Emerging UX Trends & Practices at 'd+b Talks'

Few days ago, Sarit Arora from Yahoo! visited our campus to give a talk on 'Emerging Interaction design trends and User Research for Innovation'. Sarit touched upon areas of evolving nature of UX complexity and providing emotional, rational and meaningful solutions. Particularly interesting was leveraging the new interaction patterns of touch devices, Natural User interfaces and thinking of bigger ecosystem to derive at a concept. You can view some of his thoughts in the presentation he showed us below -

Emerging Interaction Design Trends

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This week at d+b talks

This week at d+b talks, Sarit Arora from Yahoo talks on 'Emerging Interaction Design Practices'
and 'User Research for Innovation'.

25 May 2012 (Friday), 3:30-4:30 PM IST. Leave a comment if you want to attend.

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User Experience: Petrol Pump

Objective: How to enhance the user experience at a Petrol Pump?

The Story:

I recently came across this problem statement, that was given to the manager of a Petrol Pump. I imagined myself to be that manager, and thought, thought hard! Then I browsed the internet to have a look at the variety of petrol pumps that we usually come across.

I also thought about some of the characteristics of a petrol pump :

• Petrol is more of a commodity, with prices differing only between states. Some companies tried to create Premium products but I have seen commoditization even on those premium products. So, a person is largely indifferent on where the petrol is getting filled from! 
• There might be exceptions: Example: People believe petrol available on highways might be impure and ruin their engines. 
• Personnel at a petrol pump understand numbers, so one needs to indicate what and how much is required. And since, petrol or diesel doesn't usually have local names, language barriers are low. 
• Services usually offered at a petrol pump: Petrol filling (obviously!), Air Check and Pollution check
• Petrol pumps are businesses of scale just like hyper markets. 
• Service design - 
• How many vehicles can fit in at a time?
• Maximum capacity
• How will vehicles get in?
• How will vehicles get out?

Now, my thoughts went on to how can one enhance the user experience given such characteristics of a service. And an important point to note is that, "Enhancement of User experience is not an end goal, it is a continuous process. One can add some components in a service that may seem to achieve the goal, but it will be momentary."

Without any proof, I dare to show how a user experience curve might look like, something like this decay curve over time!

Hence, my point here is not to build the perfect service, rather build relationships over time; relationships between employees and customers, that give the necessary feedback into the system to enhance further. Here we go with my observations on how some petrol pumps do that:

• As soon as we enter some petrol pumps a person guides us to the shortest line, or stops us or the line to get shorter. He also indicates the approximate time required to wait. In India, usually it is 2 minutes!
• We also observe arrows to indicate the manner in which our vehicles should enter the filling areas and out of it.
• A friendly smile when we stop the car is always welcome!
• While, our vehicles are getting their food, someone comes over to ask "Sir ji! Shall I clean your windshield?" So, by the time the refilling id done, your windshield gets a makeover!
• If you are paying by card, there is an apprehension as the cashier takes the card along inside a queer building. To change all that some petrol pumps are now equipped with mobile card swipes for Visa to American Express! (American Express, although an express, is the least accepted card in India, according to my observations! That's why it needed special mention :) )
• I would love if someone would be able to check the tire pressure as well while I am filling. This trend is yet to catch up due to some unknown reasons. But this would be really useful!
• Extra lubricants, and oils within a hands reach is always better at the petrol filling station. Not many petrol pumps do that, hence causing that unnecessary delay in delivery the service
• Petrol pumps are also the best places for driving directions (till the days when we will each get a GPS!) So, an intelligent, direction-informed attendant is a good resource at any petrol pump.
• I think the idea of a supermart at a petrol pump has still not picked up in India. But, I have surely seen the potential for a small vendor selling ready snacks like chips, tetra pack of juices, cans of cold drinks etc.
• And finally, if the person filling up my car gives that "I know you!" smile and the greeting then it makes us feel special! We feel like sharing our car troubles with him. We also give the person tips at times! And, as we embark on our journey for user experience, this is the just beginning.... ...

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Jumping to Solutions

What do you think is the biggest challenge in an Ideation exercise?

Why do you think, most of the solutions fail?

Why does even research does not bring out all the issues?

How can you hold a brainstorming session to build a solution more fruitful and effective?

As we deal with these barriers and many more, we realize that there is a key to at least put ourselves on the right track. The key is obviously driven by the capability of the people working on the problem. But, as long as a conscious effort is made to remember the key, we would not lose our focus.

And, no we are not going to suggest that building a clear objective is the key. Although, we do not deny the importance of building a clear objective, but we are going to delve one level deeper. And we are going to explain it with the help of some examples.

So, what is this key? The key is to understand the underlying systems, components, players and influencers before jumping on to solutions. In other words, it is necessary to first understand what the problem is. 

Right Approach

Wrong Approach

Now, let’s go through some examples:

Example 1:

One of the big problems in South Africa that people were trying to tackle was human-elephant conflict. Elephants used to encroach on farmland and destroy livelihoods. In response, some farmers resorted to poisoning or shooting elephants.

Environment conservationists jumped to solutions for solving this problem. All kinds of modern technology solutions were proposed, and many trialled: Electric fences, RFID tagging, sensors and live-GSM-tracking among them. Most of the solutions failed since they were not replicable, scalable, and/or affordable.

Solution: Elephants run away when they encounter bees. According to this BBC article, early research in Kenya indicates hives can be a very effective barrier, so much so that 97% of attempted elephant raids were aborted. Where satellites, RFID tags and mobile phones failed, humble honey bees proved to be the answer. 

Also note how honey bees also proved to be an alternate source of income! 

Example 2:

Wimbledon had an interesting battle on and off the courts: against the pigeons. Each summer, as tennis players battle it out on the lawn courts, the authorities used to battle and stop pigeons from interfering with the play. Authorities armored themselves with all sorts of modern technology that was available: lasers and radio controlled aircraft to gas guns and ultrasound emitters. Now, we can understand what the courts would have looked like with all equipments, like a battleground?

Solution: Now, if we look from a pigeon’s perspective, all these high tech equipment might be dangerous, but nothing is a match to a bird of prey! Hence, Wimbledon’s answer doesn’t involve anything more high-tech than a bird of prey! A few laps by Rufus, the hawk, around the tennis courts are enough to scare the hardiest of pigeons away! (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13939805)

In India, we solve a similar problem of monkeys using langurs to scare them off!  

Example 3:

One very big cosmetics company in Japan received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty. Management of the company immediately traced the problem to the assembly line that conveyed all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty. 

Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. The engineers worked hard on the first solution that came to mind, using X-ray technology. They devised an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors. Two workers were deployed full-time to monitor all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. They managed to solve the problem but it was an expensive solution.

Solution: The solution was taken to the assembly line and the installation was started. Out of curiosity, one of the workers asked about the installation. On hearing the whole story, he told his engineering manager that the solution was much easier – install a fan- it will blow away all the empty boxes and the assembly line will deliver only full, heavier packages!

Conclusion: As our world is becoming more complex, our problems are becoming even worse! We have numerous methodologies to solve these complex problems, but we observe, increasingly that these solutions are not s effective or efficient as we would have liked them to be! The reason, which we also call the “key”, to get our final solution right to a greater extent is not to jump onto solutions. Some of the examples here might help us in realizing our shortcomings, hence, improving our methodologies and thinking!

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Dissecting Discipline of Designing Experiences

Often I come across different viewpoints on Experience Design discipline about what it is and what exactly experience designers do. The executioner’s (in software business) school of thought is that experience design is the practice of designing technology products and services (each of which is a human experience) based on the consideration of an individual's or a group's needs, tasks, desires, beliefs, knowledge, skills, experiences, and perceptions. Thus, it results into achieving certain user goals and leads to a successful system acceptance by users.

The other school of thought is more at an abstract level that defines experience design as a discipline of designing mental journeys that leaves the customer with memories of having performed something special, meaningful, engaging, with sense of achievement or just fun and entertainment.

Like any other discipline, I think experience design can also be understood as an organized production system that is about creating output in the form of desired experiences using available inputs such as knowledge and ideas, and finally using resources in the form of design processes and skills.

Let’s take an example of thematic restaurants. Today, food is more of an experience rather than a necessity, as only a minor part of the average income (approximately 10 per cent) is spent on food.

Dining is a combined body and mind (sensory) experience and has aspects of culture and society. The body tastes, smells, sees, hears, feels and digests the food. The mind reads the food consciously and unconsciously in the form of activated emotions and memories.

Theme restaurants are cautiously designed to deliver customer experiences by influencing customer’s state of mind with the right ambiance, environment, lighting, music/live performance, and personal service on top of the food served to stimulate emotions like happiness and so on. A great deal of skills and processes are required to accomplish delivery of such desired experiences in the restaurant business.

Another example could be watching theater, which is another form of immersive experience thoughtfully crafted for audience. The stage performances are scripted around a theme to entertain and educate audience (selective sometimes) by stimulating emotions such as anger, happiness, surprise, confusion, and more.

The two examples mentioned above can help us dissect different aspects of organized experience delivery system.



Core Activity
The core activity is what a customer wants to accomplish as a task or an activity. For example, watching a play in a theater or eating in a restaurant.

The Concept (or the ‘Feel’)
The core concept is the theme that the customer admires and what the product stands for. For example, a concept “Happiness is in small moments of life and must be shared” is the theme of Unilever ice cream brand and is well translated into the design of ice cream packaging and ice cream vending machine designs where in a customer is delivered ice cream when he/she smiles into the face recognition system. See demo

Peripheral Experience
Peripherals are supporting experiences (part of the overall customer experience) to which a customer initially pays extra emphasis. For example, the way seating is arranged, welcoming gesture at the entry, cleanliness, and so on.

Core Experience
Core experiences are activities in which a customer gets involved physically and mentally. For example, taste of the food, dialog delivery of an actor, sound and music and so on. Developing core experience is a skilled job and the output is actively consumed by customers. However, core experience cannot be appreciated without a good theme.

Support Services
Support services are materials such as cutlery, menu, and order delivery that are used to accomplish the core activity.

Such a dissection would help in understanding design and delivery of experiences. In my next blog I will make an attempt to explore how a similar approach can be applied in design for software applications.

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Content is King

"People don’t read, especially when it comes to web and mobile" - I said that!

 

 

Content is important:

• Content adds value
• Content is part of user experience

And it is becoming increasingly important with the 'Mobile First' design philosophy coming into power. But, much of the mobile first design philosophy fails due to one big reason: CONTENT

And CONTENT failure is not a new phenomenon; it is to be seen even in web specific designs. If, we go to the root of the problem, then it is the different user behavior on web and mobile.

Keeping this in mind here are some guidelines to create content. These are applicable not just for Mobile but for web as well: 

1. If first 160 characters do not sound meaningful, rest of content cannot be useful!

With reducing attention spans, one needs to impress the audience with the first 160 characters. If an idea can’t be put in short, there will be no one listening to it. And if there is no one listening then an idea is useless. So, it makes more sense to put in all the skills to make that 160 character impressive!

2. If everything is useful, then everything is useless

Yes! There has been no mistake in the above statement. If one thinks that everything is useful for a site’s target audience, then surely there has been a mistake. Usually, we tend to fill in so much content, that everything seems to be useless and a person tends to drift away.

3. Use scan-able keywords

Every user opens a site with something in mind. If that is not scanable or searchable then it is highly unlikely that the user will stay for more.

4. Start with conclusions and recommendations

Inverted pyramid style of writing is the key for every content on web and mobile. People want to know quickly about everything; no one has time to read on and on….

5. Attention grabbing headings, meaningful subheadings

Headings are to get attention and subheadings are to make use of that attention span. Keeping a subheading simple, without jargons and to the point helps to gain trust as well. Jargons, complex terms, clever lines are meant to be for the Main heading, keep them out of the rest!

6. A picture is worth 1000 words, but we don’t want 1000 words!! Do we??

The intention is to keep it simple, neat and easy to download. A picture may seem to be the best option to give a visual appeal and represent an idea, but it increases the size. And with download speeds varying unpredictably, sometimes, pictures are a blot to user experience.

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Information Design for Product Display on e-Commerce Websites

Designers often get biased to widely used interaction design patterns on Web. It makes it difficult for them to find a completely different way of looking at how people would like to deal with information dissection, manipulation, and retrieval on Web.

Many times there is too much of information, too much data, or too many options and choices to make sense of. Users can easily become frustrated or disengage if they can’t find a connection with what is presented to them. One such example is e-commerce websites serving millions of products across thousands of categories.

Most e-commerce websites serve product information in a list or in a grid view. Facet search panel on left comprising either check boxes or links, with bracketed number of products inside each category, is another universal pattern used for product retrieval and filtering. For example, a website selling digital cameras, printers, or flat panel television sets will allow users to filter assortments by technical information such as megapixels, aspect ratio, screen size, FPS, make, model, and more. Most of these facets are not useful for people to make buying decisions anymore.

Few websites show number of reviews to prove product popularity in the market without caring for how long the product has been there on the shelf. Comparing product features is not desirable either because it just rearranges the technical information in a big table where each product is a column and users are forced to scan the information row-by-row to understand which product is better over others. And as mentioned before, technical information does not anyway affect people's choice of product.

BE HUMANE

When people buy items of such kind as mentioned above, beyond the technical information they are interested in the purpose and use of such products. Let's take an example of an office purchase manager searching for a large flat panel television to be used in a conference room with a seating capacity of 10 people for presentations and Internet video calls. Internally, it can be mapped to technical information such as resolution 1024x768, low priced, and Internet ready, and more. Similarly, let's look at a man who wants to buy a digital camera to capture his son’s Tennis game. Suitable camera can be internally mapped to technical information such as high FPS, bigger aperture, and in-built filter, and more. In both examples, the important point is that people want to buy stuff that is aligned to their needs. They find it very difficult to map their needs to the technical search/filter/compare criteria provided by websites.

A designer should experiment with visual/information graphic facets that will allow people to filter and compare products on their practical and emotional needs instead of technical information alone. A very simple visual representation of information can help people make better decisions, and understand something that's really complex, and connect them emotionally.

POPULARITY

A product’s social popularity on the Web has become very important. Buying decisions have started to get influenced by people's online reviews of a product. It is time that e-commerce websites graduate from traditional popularity display patterns. Merely showing information such as "number of people recommendations," "number of people liked or disliked" or "number of reviews" is not good enough anymore.

Interface designers need to start experimenting with ideas that can generate popularity based on people’s reaction in a particular context, time, and specific need. For example, one could use data visualization, like pie charts, scatter plots, and relationship circles to compare two point-and-shoot cameras and display one being more popular than the other among amateur photographers for taking home pictures and not so popular among professional or wildlife photographers along with comparative results achieved. Such generic visualization patterns will add depth to the user interface and eventually make it more useful for buyers to make right decisions.

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GIDS conference: My Experience

Great Indian Developer Summit (GIDS) was held on April 19 -22, 2011 at the green campus of IISc Bangalore. I attended the second day of conference, that was focused on Web trends and technologies. The sessions by Venkat and Harish were really good. The details of these and other sessions follow.

The conference began with “Building the next generation of experiences” by Arijit Chatterjee. Arijit is Engineering Manager for Platform Evangelism at Adobe Systems India. The trend of preferences for people is changing. Everyone wants to have better experiences, be it food, clothes or digital experiences. The experience has moved on from desktops, to laptops, to tablets and currently to smart phones. People want to have a meaningful, easy and engaging experience. There are essentially three areas of innovation in this:
1. Content authoring for the creators,
2. Customer experience management for businesses and
3. Online analytics and optimization to ensure the best value being delivered.

This session was followed by "Designing User Experiences for multi screen applications with Flash, HTML5 &CSS3" by Harish Sivaramakrishnan. Harish is a Platform Evangelist at Adobe Systems. He is also a UX design and usability expert. His talk highlighted the various devices available for communication, work etc today. The talk explored the possibility of designing the same user experience across all the different form factors i.e tablet, ipad, smart phones, desktop etc. Some practical ideas to be used by the developers to efficiently complete the coding , and the code that can be reused across all the different form factors, different screen resolutions using Adobe Flex, Flash, HTML 5 and CSS3. The programming tips and tricks were shared in these 3 platforms.

"HTML5 more than HTML5" was an interesting and thought provoking talk by Harish Vaidyanathan, who leads the evangelism efforts for Microsoft India. This session explored HTML5 and the session gave summary of HTML5 features. The session started with quick note of the logo design of HTML, and moved on to the features. Features include button curves, shadows, gradient can be done directly by coding. The button can have 4 different curve radii for 4 corners, button/ object can have shadow by placing lights .The best part is that while coding the screens can be checked by viewing in all the resolutions of different form factors. HTML5 combines the designer and developer skills and hence bridges the gap. Harish also gave aother session on "Unleashing a more beautiful web", some of the content was repetition of HTML and few features of IE 9.

"Towards a humane interface, aesthetic and usability" by Venkat Subramaniam. Venkat is the founder of Agile Developer,Inc. He has significant experience in design, architecture and development of software applications. The session gave an insight about usability in everyday interactions. Usability is more than just a “WOW” factor, it is more about making an application easier and intuitive to use. A successful application has to focus on three dimensions: business, design and usability. He gave few hilarious examples of User experience gone wrong in various products that he has come across. A spicejet check-in kiosk, Honda car to a programming language. The examples drawing to a very crucial point about Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS) rule. This was a fantastic simple session and will be sharing the presentation to MT UX community once i get my hands on it.

The conference gave insights on the changing technology and its usage. A better world of tomorrow for designers and developers .

Thanks Ankush for reviewing the draft.

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What Game Designers Do That Interface Designer Don’t

At many occasions stakeholders ask designers to design experiences that are simple yet immersive and engaging for commercial Web applications. They leave it completely to the designers to think of ideas to achieve such designs. But, commercial Web application designers are always busy designing applications that are a function of


(Over simplification of Web application design)

They make sure all the business rules are incorporated, the right system response is in place, the right set and amount of information is presented so the right decisions are taken and so on and so forth. I would also go ahead saying that there is nothing grossly wrong with that approach. And while the results are not always great designs, they are not bad either.

But there are traits of game designs that an enterprise application designer can experiment with and design experiences that are memorable and desirable for people who use them. Theoretically, game design is not all that different and designers from other fields are perfectly capable of doing much of what game designers do.



[A gross oversimplification of game design (Stephen Anderson’s way)]

Instant Gratification vs. Slow Response Time
In most commercial software interfaces response time management is completely overlooked. The rule is “faster is always better,” and Google has almost mastered it. Search results displayed are shown with how many milliseconds it took for Google to process the results. However, game designers don’t think likewise and they defy the concept of instant gratification by making a good use of response time. It is like one driving to a hill station on a vacation with friends and family where en-route experiences are equally important as reaching the destination is. Slow response time also allows users to think of their next move.

Closure to Completion Effect
Gamers become more aggressive, thrilled, and impatient when they come very close to completion of a level, task, or an activity in a game. But game designers design these activities to be highly unpredictable and vulnerable, to take the gamers' excitement to the peak (for example, a game of Jigsaw Puzzle or Sudoku at the verge of completion). Similarly, Web application designers can start thinking of ideas to make the last piece of a task or an activity more engaging and exciting.

Learn To Become More Efficient In Future
Gamers become more efficient as they play and eventually become experts at it. Game designers leave cues that gamers use as tricks and keys to reach the expert level. The vast majority of software user interfaces have no consideration for how users can be taught by experience with the system to improve their performance. It is about finding those hidden patterns in the way people interact and manipulate the system. It is an applied learning that a user gains and reuses in different conditions to get faster results.

Short-term Memory Management
People love gaming because it challenges their reflexes, thinking, intuition, and dedication as they make progress on higher levels with increased amount of complexity. Short-term memory management is a great tool for game designers to increase or reduced the complexity of the game. Interface designers are trained not to rely on user’s short-term memory (for example, showing a piece of information and expecting the user to remember it to reenter the same somewhere else in the system).

However, game designers use it quite often in forms of locations, maps, symbols, and passwords which the gamers need to remember to clear a level or to reach a place. For example, arcade games use word codes that are displayed when the level is completed. These codes are supposed to be remembered by the player to reenter to reach that level directly from beginning else he or she will have to pass through all the previous levels to get there. Similarly, the famous AngryBird game shows the cage structure once to the player and leaves it to the player’s imagination to strike in the right area.

Building Mystery
Game designers carefully design interactions that in a way expand the player's mind and force him or her to think what’s happening. It is the mild confusion created with just enough context to consume the player’s cognition in subtle and compelling ways.

Enterprise Web application designers think of making interaction highly intuitive and transparent at all times. They think of giving surprises by making the application learn users patterns and start intelligently predicting their next move and automate it.

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MindTree UX Unveils the Mask @Osmosis ‘11

At MindTree, it was again the season of Osmosis, the company’s annual event which is a platform to showcase and share knowledge of different verticals and groups with the rest of the MindTree Minds. For the MindTree UX team it was again a time to decide how to participate. We decided we’ll do something engaging and from then on there was no looking back. Two weeks in advance, our event planning began by creating a task force. We went crowdsourcing, looking for ideas, subjects, and disciplines which can be showcased as part of the overall theme of the UX stall. Our hunt for ideas generated umpteen ideas such as:

• Beyond the ‘Social’ Network: how social network is being used for non-social purposes (both good and bad)


• Immersive experiences: How the video games and 3-D technology will merge to create more immersive online experiences


• Green design


• The four dimensions of Information Design: beyond the organisation, that is, space and time


• Information is a continuum (and not discreet interactions on individual devices)


• Simplexity: how future systems will be designed ‘simple to interact’ feel with complex backend logic and processing behind the scene


• Information overload


• Connecting ideas and not pages (making sense of unstructured data)

Every idea sounded interesting. Unanimously the team decided to pursue a theme that impacts thinking of people in the system, that is, knowledge of user experience and its impact on people and business. In other words, an attempt was made to educate people that user experience design is not about making pretty screens. Design of a pleasing, usable interaction requires effort from various disciplines such as graphic design, information design, interaction design, human factors, psychology, usability, ergonomics, and knowledge of business and technology trends. We wanted to convey the message: “UX is not just about pretty face.”

UX Osmosis stall was inaugurated by our youngest UX designer Ramshi Hamza. We designed the stall to attract and encourage all to participate in Osmosis. We all joined together to have fun.

The concept of ‘Time Travel: Design, Business & Technology’ was the lead communication (10ft by 5ft flex poster) designed by Vallabh, Baizil, and Ankush. The poster showed design, business and technology advancements over the last 15 years, with the intention to describe how the ‘push and pull’ between technology, business and design has forced each other to reinvent. It also showed how many other disciplines such as human factors, psychology, usability, ergonomics, and anthropology became part of the mainstream design practices. We asked participants to come and share their views on what they think the future of business, technology and design would be. We got some interesting responses that we will be publishing in the later issues.

Some of these videos showed the futuristic designs especially about ubiquitous computing and some user interviews that we carried out to understand the behavior with respect to social media spaces. We discussed immersive experiences through examples of work done by other design practitioners. But the actual learning of immersive experiences came only by experiencing Microsoft Kinet (Thanks to Danny for making the arrangements!). Many MindTree Minds joined us playing and enjoying the game irrespective of their position, age, etc. Watch the videos to watch them play!

We wanted to engage people in a design lead activity where they could feel a sense of participation and achievement. We made 20 paper boats with cartridge sheets and provided paints and brushes to people and asked them to unleash their creativity and talent. We allowed them to be creative in their own ways. Very quickly we realized that we have 20 people painting at a time and almost the same number waiting for their turn. We had to arrange for more paints, brushes, and boats. At last we ended up with 140 boats painted by MindTree Minds that are now available as a collage fixture at fourth floor in the Phase 1 building of MindTree West Campus. On an average each participant spent 10-15 minutes painting a boat; such an immersive participation would be difficult to achieve in an art competition. Thanks to Diba, Shobha, Ramshi, and Vinay A. for making it happen.

Vot'ah design: Participants were asked to vote for the purpose of design. They were asked whether "Design is problem-solving" or "Design is fun". Two examples used for illustration were:

1. Design is fun: A glider that is designed to capture unusual video shots from different angles in the air. Users will launch the glider in an open space; a small camera mounted on the nose of glider will record video of people on the ground.


2. Design is problem solving: An electric socket that is designed to accept any pin size and voltage and has an extension cord, if required, with capabilities to carry mobile phone on top.

Participants were asked to choose a theme and also leave a comment in support of their choice. In three hours, there were 80 people who had voted and of which 65% chose design more problem-solving than fun. The other activity was to hunt for web parts (treasure) or broken web page components to build as one. People were given two choices of designs before they started playing the game. Thanks to Natraj and Shobha for designing and executing such learnable experiences. The Osmosis UX stall was a wonderful example of superb coordination, self-motivated team-work, and a sense of expression and play. I sincerely thank Ankush, Baizil, Chinmoy, Danny, Diba, Hetna, Mukesh, Natraj, Ramshi, Vallabh, Veena, Vinay A, Vineet, Satya, Shobha, and all the participants for their contribution and support.

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adiVERSE virtual footwear wall

The future of retail lies in bringing together the worlds of digital and retail to offer extraordinary in-store customer experiences. Unveiled at the 2011 National Retail Federation Expo in New York, this interactive, real-time rendered product installation for adidas demonstrates UK brand agency Start JudgeGill’s belief in “connected retail.” The experience brings shoppers the products they want, even if they’re not currently available in a store, and gives adidas the opportunity to offer its largest range of products in even its smallest stores. Behind the scenes, the system is currently gender and age-aware and presents relevant products faster; adidas will eventually enhance the shopping experience by placing products in the context of the sport for which they’re designed. Once the success of the adiVERSE system for footwear is tested and demonstrated, there are plans to expand to apparel and accessories, in stores worldwide.



While this is a cool in store experience design concept. I am still wondering that this concept is very similar to web experience of http://www.nikeid.nike.com/.

In store experiences are all about touch and feel and in store social interactions. Customers walk in to Adidas store with bunch of friends and they spend time comparing assortment based on style, color, pattern, texture, price etc. Customers often see stuff online and make purchases in a nearby store. It is good that customers will be able to see all products even when they aren’t available. But can be a bad experience if they like something and not able buy instantly (specially for impulsive buyers)

I believe such digital displays can be a good idea for mobile stores where stores have dummy phones on display.

This installation works well when customer service reps are busy and there’s no one to explain the details. However, most customers typically wear the shoes, walk around a bit to check if it the right one. Maybe, they can use a combination of haptics and Kinect’s technology to give a real feel of the shoe.

Why a person need another interface such as iPad to check out the shoe?

Well, there can be various reasons to do so. One of them can be: In major metros the rental spaces are going sky high, the display is limited and in western countries even the labour is expensive. In such cases, you cannot have all the shoe models out on display in a mall commercial store. So, it is better to give alternative mediums to customers for checking out the collection. One such medium is Ipad, Iphone, or big touch screens as shown in the video.

But then why don’t we integrate later part (iPad) with the initial one (wall)? Suddenly, there is change of experience and person has to wait on the shop keepers to receive the iPad.

Possibly becuase when the person on the video said “now you can checkout” I was thinking OMG checkout on that screen …where world can see all the personal information !!!.

So having the checkout done on a smaller personal display is a clever way to maintain individual’s privacy. I am curious however to understand how they can transition the session from wall to a device like iPad, that is probably beginning of new era in transitioning from one device to another without breaking the flow.

Imagine you are working in office and you are half way through filling your appraisal online…., then you walk to train station and complete the remaining form filling on the phone (same session)…. Later submit it from home computer in the (same session). It is a good a way, to keep the our transactions secured.

Then the other question would be, why the checkout is not happening at the checkout counter?

Well, if we have same session then will it not affect the security, I would imagine that someone could get to the sensitive information. Well, that’s a valid point, But, for us to understand it, let’s go through a small exercise.

Suppose you walk into a shoe store. There is a security guard at the entrance. You go to the display counter and look through the range of shoes on display. When you like a couple of them, you ask the salesman to get the sizes for those particular shoes. You will even like to try out those shoes. Then you zero down on one of the choices, and move towards the payment counter. There the cashier bills you accordingly and you walk out of the store. The security may again check your bills and match it with the purchased items.

Now, we see that there are at least 3 people involved in the whole transaction for one customer. Many stores go away with the security guard. The store that we saw in the video has gone a step ahead and removed the cashier and salesman as well. In effect we have highly reduced the manual intervention, which is highly desirable in high labour cost economies or businesses where ratio of labour cost to purchase cost is high.

I agree upon the point that it would reduce the manual interventions. Here store keeper approaches the customer with an iPad. It do not seem to be a practical to me, to keep a person ready to take iPad to customer.

As discussed before, the experience at the store is to have social interaction through touch and feel.

Being to show rooms of cell phones, I look up those cell phones and I hardly read any information that is printed next to the phone. Instead, I ask the sales representative about the product. And make him compare on the different products that I am interested in. And, I know I might be able to get the relevant information from any other web source. At store, I am getting the experience of interacting with other person, who can somewhat able to relate to me.

I think a retail store is about the personal connection, real experience (look, touch and feel) and also to help buyer make their right decision. For instance – Some time back one of my friends wanted to buy a sports watch (Having features of Altimeter, Barometer, Thermometer, Tide Graph, Heart Beat etc.). He was getting a discount price online but not in the store. So he short-listed some models browsing the online product list, specifications and prices. He also read the reviews of those watches but was not able to finalize the model that he should go for. He was skeptical as the watch was pretty costly and the virtual image differed from the real one (look, touch and feel). Finally he visited the store (Bangalore Central Mall), had a real experience (by trying out, comfort, product aesthetics when he is wearing it, etc.), and talked to the sales representative and zeroed down the final one. After that he confidently placed an order online.

Focus here (Adidas) is to guide and motivate people to purchase by leveraging information of 8,000 pair of shoes (without having to be a flagship store), technical specifications, related videos and user feedback. But the real product display and sales man shouldn’t be replaced with the touch screen. (The salesman helps buyer to try out different shoes, Buyer decides the final one based on the comfort and similar other parameters) Therefore I think creating a virtual experience in a physical store will only help in getting information about the products in a smart way but cannot succeed in the real experience of buying the product by physically going to the store. If that was possible then the consumer need not go to the store and can buy the stuff online itself from home.

Success of a business depends on the end user’s satisfaction after using the product. One of the criterias to satisfy user is to ensure user to use the appropriate and right product for him. Physical store helps and guides user to do this in an effective and simpler way.

- Post is sumamry of email discussion on virtual footwear wall concept. Thanks to all discussion participants - Vallabh, Baizil, Ankush, Jana, Chinmoy and Veena.

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Donation box design at TATE Modern

TATE Modern in London operates completely on the support of its visitors (over 8 million per year), trusts, foundations, and corporations. Therefore, it is important for the TATE to generate enough interest in people to make donations and keep the functions of the museum going.

Donation is an act of willingness and care. Most donation boxes remain empty as people don’t feel motivated enough to participate in the donation process. Designers of TATE donation box have made efforts to understand the motivational aspect of such donation activity. They have designed the box to enhance the whole experience of donating a few pence with a sense of play and achievement.

The donation box has been designed in such a way that when donors drop coin into the box, it doesn't reach the bottom immediately. Rather it stumbles down from one obstacle to another placed on its way down the bottom. People (especially kids) make multiple attempts to make sure that it takes long for the coin to finally settle at the bottom of the box. This experience is quite opposite to the one that we get while playing Tilt Maze Game where the objective is to bring the metal ball in the center of the maze as quickly as possible.

TATE offers a range of attractions for all kinds of people (tourists, art enthusiasts, artists, and designers), including kids accompanied by their parents, who come to explore and witness the various art lead happenings in the museum. While kids are not real donors, they happen to be the biggest participants in the donation process at TATE. Children accompanied by adults (mostly parents) get fascinated with whole process of donation as a playful activity without really understanding the reason of it. TATE exemplifies in best of ways how experiences that are designed keeping people's context, activities, and motivations in mind are far more effective than other initiatives.

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Is Crowdsourcing firing Designers?

Recently when customers rejected the new redesigned GAP logo, GAP decided to crowdsource the redesign exercise to help define their brand.
The entire GAP redesign exercise emphasized that if designers do not do their job well and management do not make wise decisions, the customers reject it (after all the customer is the king). And they will also suggest a redesign of the brand for you!

There may be many reasons why the design exercise could have gone wrong - like management making all the design decisions or underestimating design or their customers (thinking they would blindly accept their chosen logo). The management have realized that their decisions are not final, even when it comes to logo redesign. And the outpouring on the social media on this topic suggests customers do care for products they have been buying over the years.

As the blame is now on the design firm who came up with this logo and GAP having decided to crowdsource instead, how do the rest of us (designers) ensure we do not fall into such situations? And how do we ensure crowdsourcing does not fire us and instead we work hand in hand. Moreover, what will our role be henceforth?

If you look back, from the time digital media entered the lives of designers (in 90's), designers needed to had these basic skills:

• Idea generator, Creative, at times think out of the box
• Understands problems, users and provides appropriate solutions
• Produce aesthetically pleasing designs – have good knowledge in color theory, typography, layout, etc.
• Apply usability/ ergonomic principles
• Be proficient in all design softwares (esp. Adobe products)
• Work with team

With the explosion of the internet since late 90s, where anyone can access basic tutorials on Graphic design and opensource tools like GIMP, consumers are now taking a shot in designing, just like photography. And companies are trying to capitalize on this through ‘crowdsourcing’, just like what GAP is doing now, as it turns out much cheaper than hiring a design firm! Added to this, the design is created directly by the end user and their needs are being stated through design.

An amateur designer can have all the points mentioned earlier to a certain extent. S/he may be creative, have ideas, execute solutions in an amateur manner using the design tools. There will be more tools in future which will auto-suggest color combination, layout (just like what templates have already begin to do now)

However, crowdsourcing will also generate enormous individualistic data and management will still need to pick the right design which will reflect everyone's perception of the brand or idea. This is where we designers can capitalize.

Our roles in future will mainly be to –

Engage users
We will need to draw ideas from everyone, while allowing everyone to express themselves, which in turn makes customers feel they are being engaged in the entire exercise. We collect their inputs (data) for our design process and to further validate our design to the client with the populist data. We can also revalidate our design again through crowdsourcing and when the design is finally out in the market, the users will be proud of the outcome!

Analyze and draw insights
We will need to use crowdsourcing for design research to get insights to our design. The data collected from users through crowdsourcing (eg: pictures of their daily routine, etc.) will ultimately help create better products.

Induce design thinking
A designer will need to induce design thinking in the organization or team, and drive the design exercise, with team members, stakeholders and customers, getting their hands dirty in design implementation. A designer’s role will be to facilitate and bring out the best ideas from everyone and manage the entire design exercise! And use ‘Crowdsourcing’ as one of the methods from user research to design implementation.

And how do we designers achieve this - We will however need to focus more on design strategy and behavioral aspects. The technical aspects like layout, typography, usability heuristics will be automated in future. We will need to think cross-disciplinary rather than specialize in individual fields like graphic, fashion or industrial design in future.

The client/ management will also need to understand the importance of design, branding and be more involved in the design exercise while giving powers to the designer to make strategic decisions.

Thanks to Vinay and Anshuman for their inputs on the role of a designer in future.

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