One of the things I’ve been quietly working on over the past months has been a book that details some significant new features available in Microsoft’s Expression Blend tool called SketchFlow.
Let us know what you think. You can learn more about the new features and the book at www.dynamic-prototyping.com
It’s been some time since I’ve used Design Thinking Digest as much of a forum, for commentary or curation. Some of this is because I’ve found tools such as Linked In, Facebook and Twitter have replaced much of what I used Design Thinking Digest for—but some of it is probably also due to what I’d characterize as ‘social media fatigue’. After SxSW and MIX I wasn’t certain I was contributing much that was unique or that warranted a blog post.
Over the past three months a big part of my daily activities I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about how the economic slowdown is impacting the digital marketing and digital agency ecosystem that I frequently work with.
Like any other segment of our economy it’s been hit hard by current events. But, perhaps not surprisingly to many readers, parts of these eco-system are also thriving as they never have before.
As I put a toe back in the blogosphere I see three trends that will impact designers greatly over the next 12 to 24 months.
Our new economic environment is not a downturn as much a reset. The realities that we deal with today are marketing dynamics that we’re gong to have to deal with going forward. In fact this is a theme that Steve Ballmer has been touching on for some time in many public speeches. In Chicago recently he framed it this way at a luncheon at the Chicago Executive Club.
I want to talk a little bit about the economy, but really only to set up the thing that to me is probably more important to talk about, which is productivity and innovation. We are going through an unprecedented kind of economic (crisis) – I like to call it reset. I don't think we're in a recession; I think we are resetting. I think this is the new normal, and yesterday was the exception. And I think we got ourselves there in a lot of ways, but economic growth in general is fueled, GDP growth is fueled by productivity and innovation and debt, and over the last 10, 15, 20 years we've seen debt for businesses and consumers rise to almost 300 percent of GDP. It was 150 percent, by the way, before the Great Depression. And we were kind of borrowing our way to prosperity, and I'm afraid post-reset we're going to have to innovate and improve productivity to drive GDP growth.
It's clear debt will not be the economic growth driver of the next 10 years. After every major deleveraging of the world's economy in the last 200 years, people were slow to bring back debt.
Although I may have ‘fatigue’ from social media it’s perhaps more important now than it ever was. Social media is the glue of just about every advertising, marketing, communications or public relations scenario that you can think of. But most CTOs or CMOs misunderstand or are flat out terrified of the implications. There has never been a better opportunity for professionals and services that can enable the architecture of social media scenarios. But it’s still a nascent space requiring a hybrid of skills that is not the exclusive domain of social media pioneers that build great individual brands nor digital marketers focused more on digital, but traditional, push or destination marketing in the digital realm.
We we talk about an economic reset one pillar that companies use to fuel growth, debt, is effectively off the table for many folks. For fueling growth we need to turn to the other two pillars of innovation and productivity.
If you compare the capital costs of starting a business in 1999 to 2009 it’s a different world. The infrastructure to get phone service, office space, internet and office productivity tools is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago. A committed entrepreneur can have a digital shingle on a door in a matter of a few hours today because of the advent of services that we just not available and competitive in the world of Web 1.0.
But if you look at the way we build and implement business-both physically and digitally you might find that little has changed in many economic segments.
If you look at how companies measure or ‘sense’ what their actual business performance is many companies are lousy at it.
The successful companies of tomorrow will use technology and new business processes and workflows to increase productivity in areas they’ve yet been able to, or had incentive to address.
Productivity alone is now enough however, it’s a tide that raises all boats if we continue with metaphors. What does provide a competitive advantage is innovation. Innovation isn’t borne completely of technology, but is also a result of the application business strategy and the innovation planning process that a company can bring to bear. This where concepts like a thorough understanding of customer experience and platforms can allow a company to shine. It’s why the iPhone and the Application Store are such a success, it’s why Windows, with a global platform of one billion users and vast developer ecosystem is still incredibly powerful and valuable despite recent predictions about it’s demise.
Over the summer I’ll be focusing a bit on the things we can control as designers in our own profession practice and with our customers—namely how can we be more productive and how can we, as designers, be a key driver of innovation.
So this is the ‘official’ press release from the event. But be sure to check out what Zeus Jones and Sierra Bravo had to say about the event as well...
Almost 300 attendees packed Solera in downtown Minneapolis to see the latest in interactive innovations
MICROSOFT (Minneapolis) – January 19, 2009 – On the coldest day of the year, Zeus Jones and Sierra Bravo teamed up to heat things up by stealing the show at the PhizzPop Design Challenge event in Minneapolis, the third stop on the nationwide tour to find the best digital talent in the country.
Teams from Colle+McVoy, Hanson, MOOV Worldwide, space150 and Zeus Jones/Sierra Bravo competed against each other to win the grand prize, roundtrip airfare to Austin, Texas, hotel accommodations and interactive passes to attend SXSW for a chance to compete against other regional winners on March 16, 2009.
The Minneapolis PhizzPop Design Challenge focused on developing strategies for a fictional retailer that would help product managers extend their brands and experiences and develop more meaningful and impactful relationships with consumers through the application of great ideas, social media and technology.
“The challenges for online and physical retailers have never been more vexing than they are today” said Chris Bernard, Microsoft User Experience Evangelist. “Zeus Jones and Sierra Bravo’s solution turned our design challenge on its ear by suggesting that our fictional and nascent brand serve as a scalable platform for the existing brands their customers already use, and strengthened that relationship by combining the strong affinity that consumers have for brands with the authentic connections and dialog allowed by social media.”
How did Zeus Jones and Sierra Bravo accomplish a vision for this in five days? By using the building blocks of Microsoft’s UX and services platform, which allowed the team to focus a majority of their effort on the experience versus building from scratch all of the necessary infrastructure required for today’s leading edge consumer experiences.
Mark Hines, Vice President, Strategic Services, Ratchet and one of the Minneapolis judges had this to say about the winning team, “Zeus Jones and Sierra Bravo won because they distilled a complicated problem down to its essence, developed an effective, results driven strategy to solve it and then executed it extremely well with the right functionality and amazing design.”
Additional members of the judging panel were comprised of industry experts including David Reynolds-Gooch, Group Manager, Marketing Development Services, 3M; Craig Yolitz, Vice President, Customer Operations, Findlaw, a Thomson Reuters business; Jen Klise, Innovation and Strategy, Target; Andrew Banas, Director of User Experience, Allianz Life; Mike Gibbs, Group Creative Director, Fallon Minneapolis and Kathy Swanson, VP Marketing, Piper Jaffray.
The remaining tour stops include Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami, and the finalist competition in Austin, Texas. In addition to Minneapolis, stops have already occurred in New York and Chicago.
About PhizzPop Design Challenge
Each year, the PhizzPop Design Challenge tours the country to discover the best design talent from top agencies. PhizzPop was created by Microsoft to bring together designers and developers in a collaborative environment focused on creating solutions to today’s marketing challenges.
During each PhizzPop Design Challenge event, creative teams from local agencies go head-to-head in a competition of design, development, and creativity to solve a unique design challenge during a three-day event held in a major city. Visit www.PhizzPop.com for more details and to request tickets.
Here’s the challenge that the PhizzPop Minneapolis teams got on Friday, January 9 at 4pm CST.
If you haven’t registered to see PhizzPop in Minneapolis there may still be seats available. Go to www.phizzpop.com and register right away we’ll do our best to accommodate but are literally with in a dozen seats or so of being full.
Touching consumers:
Overview
2009 represents one of the most challenging environments that retailers in the US have experienced since the Great Depression, these challenges extend to the entities that also distribute their products through retail channels—including content creators, consumer electronics, clothing, consumer and packaged goods, etc.
Online revenue for traditional online retailers has dropped 2% this year after 5 years of 20% growth. Revenues during the November to December season for traditional physical retailers (which represents 30% of the retailer’s business is down 7%) making for one of the worst performing years for traditional retailers since records were kept.
However, austere environments often create optimal opportunities for new business models and consumer experiences. You’ve recently been retained by a private Dutch-based company that currently owns and operates a variety of pharmacies and supermarkets in the Southeast United States and a number of big box retail chains in Western Europe, they’ve hired you to help them with a new physical and online shopping venture they’ve launched in 5 physical locations in each of two test markets, the Minneapolis metro area and Denver/Boulder metro area and across the US via an online channel that is tightly coupled to their physical operations.
Your client’s enthusiasm has been bolstered by the recent and continued retail success and resurgence of stores like Wal-Mart and Target that cater to different spectrums of the big-box retail market and on the high-end with retail stores like the Apple Store in the brick and mortal world.
They’ve also watched with enthusiasm as Amazon has quickly become ascendant in the online retail space and become even more interested in how nimble and adaptive competitors such as Netflix have rapidly evolved their business models.
There are a few pieces of information that they’ve asked you to ponder closely as you work with them.
One is a recent report by a trusted market research firm that found that brands are critically important to socially connected consumers, to the degree that socially connected consumers valued content created by their favorite brands more than peer generated content. Your client is very interested in how technology and social media can leverage their own brand and the brands they sell. They want to take that have social currency to increase relevance, affinity and loyalty consumers.
The second item is that your client is struggling with the success Amazon is having with programs like Amazon Prime and they are eager to explore experience strategies that can engage an audience that doesn’t always require instant gratification or can leverage any unique characteristics from a technology or services perspective that can enable new, disruptive experiences that increase relevance, affinity and loyalty with your client’s venture.
The new CEO of this consortium spent the previous three years in Europe in managing the firm’s retail expansion in big box stores. After much thought and how to best leverage the consortiums resources he chose to play on the firm’s strengths. In an effort to enter the US market they’ve focused on the concept for a new type of retail store that merges the mass market success of big box retail like Costco, Wal-Mart and Target with some of the brand affinity of stores that aspire towards the mastige like success of alternative groceries and coops such as Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and REI.
As a consultant and trusted advisor to this CEO you’ve been asked to develop a proof of concept that can be given at the firm’s board of directors meeting that can demonstrate how technology can be used both in a store environment, in physical branding and promotions both in the store and out of the store and via experiences on the store’s Web site and third-party online Web properties.
Although the primary objective of this exercise is to demonstrate that this retailer has a ‘plan’ to its increasingly fidgety board of directors, there are also critical secondary audiences whose objectives must ultimately be met, and include:
1. Price conscious consumers that must be inspired or incented to begin a relationship with the retailer with repeat purchases of consumer packaged goods, house wares, clothing, toys, consumer electronics and media.
2. Consumer packaged goods and consumer electronics manufacturers that are eager to determine new ways to position their products and (increasingly) services to consumers in physical and virtual channels that provide differentiation and value
3. Media companies that distribute books, magazines, audio and video content in both physical and (increasingly) digital formats
4. Other emerging next generation service models that can generate revenue and brand affinity around these repeat purchase behaviors with consumer packaged goods, consumer electronics and content.
Assignment
Your assignment is to demonstrate next generation scenarios that can enhance physical shopping scenarios, brand awareness and improve online promotion and traditional online browsing, selection and cross-sell scenarios.
How can social media, services, digital distribution and enhanced experience design differentiate customer purchasing scenarios? The CEO has asked you to focus on the following areas:
1. Encouraging repeat purchases of consumer packaged goods, or the key drivers of the retailers revenue “beer and diapers” and more mundane goods like laundry detergent and clothing.
2. Offer compelling alternatives to secondary competitors that are eroding physical media sales, such as the Apple iTunes store, Netflix and Blockbuster.
3. Determine how an over arching strategy of web-based services and advertising models could or should be a part of this firms strategy for the above category or a more traditional category such as consumer electronics, pharmacy services, registry, etc.
Your client is adamant that you focus your thinking on both the attract and engage modes of the consumer experience and is less concerned with the specific purchase and sustainment phases of a consumer lifecycle. This means your solution should focus on.
A. In-store or out of store promotion scenario using technology (mobile, digital signage, kiosks, other) that utilize unique Windows mobile, touch or services-based solutions.
B. An online interaction via the client site or a third-party site that leverages Microsoft technologies such as WPF, Silverlight or Live Services technology that demonstrates a promo, configuration, acquisition, usage or services scenario.
Assumptions
The name of this venture is Indigo. When asked to define the style and tone of Indigo one industry pundit said that Indigo is… “What would happen if big box retailers married the customer experience of Nike’s marketing with Nike.com and the user enthusiasm of friend feed to sell you zit cream, movies, iPods and IKEA furniture.” In bus stops and transportation hubs in Minneapolis and Denver they experimented with the following campaign.
Considerations
The following are considerations, not guidelines that should be evaluated when designing a solution:
Personas
Sandra Ladd, Mom
Sandra is a 51 year old homemaker in Littleton, CO. She’s just getting settled into a new townhome that she purchased with her husband after sending their youngest child off to college at the University of Texas. Her husband recently took a voluntary ‘retirement’ package from his employer and is now consulting part time—for a fraction of his previous income. Because the Ladd’s were planning on a retirement in a few years they are taking advantage of this opportunity to move into a new phase of their lives.
The have less money to spend, but they also have less expenses. Their son’s college is paid for with previous funds and their retirement savings is relatively intact. Sandra’s most recent splurge? Trading in the mammoth family Suburban for a Toyota Prius. Sandra is determined to put her family on a path towards simplicity, she’s exhausted from raising three children in a mammoth house, driving massive cars and just doing everything…well big. The Ladd’s would be considered middle-upper class by most standards and as Sandra sees what’s going on around her with the economy and even a few friends that are experiencing financial difficulties she feels a bit guilty about some of her families more conspicuous past consumption. But…she’s still got a new town house to decorate and now is the time for her and her husband to enjoy some of the simple pleasures and fruits of both of their labors. She’s using some of new found time with her husband to volunteer at a few local non-profits that they are both respective board members of and get more active in their local school district—which served their own children so well.
Sandra goals are to continue doing the simple things she enjoys, but she’d like to simplify what she does and minimize her impact on the world. She’ll still continue to by the cosmetics and brands that she loves and she’s also got a home to decorate, but she’d like to be a bit more intelligent about how she goes about decorating this time. She’s mostly looking for simply accessories to accent what she already has and isn’t in a particular hurry to get things done. She’s begun shipping care packages to her son at the University of Texas but has become a bit a frustrated when her youngest son complained about the Guns and Roses Chinese Democracy CD she sent him.
“Mom, nobody listens to CDs!” he told her on a recent phone call.
“You’ve been waiting for that one to come out for years.” She replied.
“That’s true he said, but not in this format, I’ve moved on.”
Sandra promised no more CDs but privately thought “I raised that kid for 18 years and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to continue to mother him.” But…the next time she sent him a gift card to download music on Amazon.com.
Philip Mendoza, Business owner
Philip mad a frantic call to his wife as he drives to work on Monday morning and takes an exit ramp on the expressway and prepares to return home. His wife answers the phone.
“I’ve got it.” She said. “I’ll be waiting for you. Can you still make your meeting?”
“Yea, it will be close but I’ll make it. You’re the best; I’ll see you in five minutes.”
With his video projector now safely in his trunk and ready for his meeting as he drives into downtown Minneapolis Philip starts running through a list of what he needs for his office. Post it notes, coffee, tea and small TV for the reception area. He’s certain he’ll forget most of this. What was he thinking when he left his cushy job to start his new business? He missed being able to dump a pile of receipts on his assistant’s desk and have her reconcile his expenses as he focused on what was ‘important’. Right now, everything seemed important as a business owner. Already locked into a lease because he didn’t negotiate favorable terms he’s determined to be smart about every decision he needs to make. But…”I’ve got to focus on what’s important too, growing this business and landing deals that pay us.”
Philip is the type of guy that starts a project at home and spends about as much time running to a Home Depot or a Lowes as he does doing the actually project. About 25% of the time he winds up hiring a professional to redo much of what he simply didn’t do well.
As a small business that consists of only himself and a part time receptionist he needs a simple way to keep on top of the little things he needs for his modest office. He looks at his calendar on his smart phone and notices that he’s got 6 meetings scheduled over the next 8 days at his office. “I use Skype for my offshore team, Trip It for travel, Mint for my finances. Why can’t I find an easy way to keep note pads in the office, staples in my stapler and Red Bull in the fridge?”
Philip’s not going to enter into any long term agreement or relationship with the multitude of companies and partners that can help him with his business. He’s too cheap and too unorganized to want a long term commitment. He goes to Office Max when he needs to and the grocery store when he needs to, he loves serendipity but realizes he needs more discipline and structure too. He needs someone that can help him keep the office coffers stocked with supplies and food and handle the last minute fire drill. What he really needs is someone that can tell him what he needs before he needs it.
Manuel Rob, College student
Manuel glances down at his cell phone and sees that it’s his local video store calling. He looks over at the dresser in his bedroom and knows immediately that they are inquiring about the DVDs that he checked out—4 weeks ago. “I need to get another NetFlix subscription”. He thinks, but then he remembers he had one, one that got cancelled after his credit card expired. He never bothered to update it and still has a movie on his shelf, “The Wages of Fear” that he checked out for a cinema writing class he had last semester. He sighs as his roommate comes in his room and asks if he’d like to go grab lunch.
“Not with you! I take care of myself and I know you’re just going to the Italian Beef place, it will screw up my work out this afternoon if I go there with you and all that salt will mess up my skin.” He states.
“Suit yourself you metrosexual prima donna.” Says his roommate as he grabs his cellphone and heads out the door, but before he leaves, he stops, “Hey, I forgot, you’re Mom called. She wants to know what you want for your birthday. I suggested a new attitude and she agreed but you should let her know if there is anything else. Oh, and I ate all your beef jerky and those dried cranberries you had laying around for breakfast, you should get some more.” The shoe Manuel threw at his roommate landed with thud against the door as his roommate sprinted out of the apartment.
Manuel flopped down on the couch and grabbed his laptop. “I should write that summary on Revolutionary Road for my lit. class now.” He thinks. Instead he watches Futurama and South Park on You Tube for a half hour and engages is a lively debate on Friend Feed about the pluses and minuses of various herbal supplements and facial moisturizers.
Finally he writes his short summary paper and hits print. As he surfs afternoon television for a few moments before departing for class he hears his printer beeping in his room. He walks into the room and discovers his printer is out of ink. He grabs his jacket, book, laptop, phone and MP3 player and heads out the door towards the library to print out his paper before his class thinking that perhaps he’ll pick up that new Robert Downey Jr. movie after class. “I just need to see if I can chase someone down to watch it with me.” He thinks but then remembers that he’ll actually have to buy it if he wants to watch it too as he’s persona non grata at all of his usual rental outlets. He ponders this as he walks to class thinking if he was a bit more together he could be having his family getting him some of this stuff for his birthday. He also remembers that his sister’s birthday is coming up quickly too. He knows he needs to get her something nice (but inexpensive as he is a college student after all) after she had been very generous and purchased an Xbox for him over the holidays. “I better show I care.” He thinks.
Ruth Cho, Global Product Manager, Consumer Packaged Goods Company
Ruth looked at her computer screen and cringes as she reads how Wal-Mart has missed its earning guidance. What is most troubling is that in a dismal year Wal-Mart is the highlight, outperforming all of the other retailers and grocers that carried the brand of frozen and refrigerated baking products and meals that she was the global product manager for. As she stepped out of her office and into her ‘war-room’ it was hard to fanthom how it would be possible to successfully launch the four new products from their portfolio in the coming year.
“What are we going to do?” She thinks. Recently negotiations and agreements with retailers and distributors had become even more painful coming out of a holiday season where every retailer had tried to out Wal-Mart Wal-Mart and, in effect, hurting everyone. But the year was not without highlights. Brand satisfaction and awareness was at an all time high for almost her entire portfolio. This was largely credited to Mrs. Cho’s efforts in conjunction with the CMO and CTO to overhaul the infrastructure for all of their Web properties and consolidate the agency vendor list that produced the myriad of branded sites for her portfolio.
The results were impressive on two fronts. The master brand site had been live for only 18 months but already had 1o million members. A recent affinity campaign done with a third-party portal and social networking site had brought over 600k new members to the site. “But how can I capitalize on this?” She wonders. She looks at her calendar and notices that she’s got a board meeting with the retailer Indigo, a position she was asked to take because of the industry recognition of Mrs. Cho’s success with using communities to increase affinity and loyalty with her brands. “I sure wish some of our partners could demonstrate how we could extend and leverage this.” She thinks.
A more detailed post is coming but check out The video hightlights for last Thursday's Chicago PhizzPop tour.
Any designer worth their salt knows that borrowing shamelessly or outright stealing are often touted as key skills. In the spirit of that concept (without outright endorsement) I'm going to apply that type of thinking to a post one of peers created recently. Which relates some of which we know about baseball and assessing skills to concepts around software architecture.
You can read this great post here and I'll pull Larry's concepts on baseball which are great guidance for anyone. (Well done Larry and thanks for the photo!).
Updates. You'll notice I only have FOUR for a designer. Are there more?
From Larry's blog:
This series was inspired by the book Management by Baseball.
In baseball scouting one of the biggest compliments that a player can receive is to be called a "5 tool player". This is a reference to the skills that make up a good, all around baseball player:
- Hitting for power: When at the plate the player can hit the ball with a lot of power, home runs and doubles are very common. Runs Batted In (RBI) and Total Bases (TB) are common stats to measure the power that a player shows.
- Hitting for average: Hitting for power is only one dimension of the performance at the plate (sometimes a player that hits for power will strike out a lot). When a player hits for average, that means that they reach base more often when they have a plate appearance. Batting Average (BA) and On Base Percentage (OBP) are common stats to measure how well the player does in this skill.
- Base running skills: How well does the player handle himself when they reach base. The obvious thought is how fast the player is in running between bases, but many of the best base runners are not the fastest, they are smart about the leads they take and are effective at breaking up a double play. Stolen Bases (SB) is the most common stat for this skill.
- Fielding: Good fielding is essential for a team to succeed. Sometimes players can be great at the plate, but will be called a "defensive liability" meaning their fielding is sub-par. Fielding Percentage and errors are 2 stats to measure this tool.
- Throwing: how well does the player execute throws once they have fielded the ball. Double plays turned (for infielders) and Assists (for outfielders) are stats for this skill.
So...how can we apply this to the 'design' process of software or experiences? Here are the skills I think are important. Everyone can practice these skills but professional designers have had some kind of formal grounding or education and experience in these areas. I've got four. What do you think?
Understanding of Visual Fundamentals. Much of software design is about how things look, how they feel, how they flow and how they are organized. A grounding in the fundamentals of visual design serves software designers well. Common areas of focus here include understanding how color, composition and typography influence the understanding and flow of an interface.
Being Contextually Aware. Do people use an application using one hand? Do they use it in a noisy environment. Do they have vision problems? What's their level of focus or attention when using an application? There are many ways to learn these things or make educated guesses about what they are but sadly they are seldom applied to the work we do with software design. Common areas of focus here include an understanding how to create a research plan, execute contextual research that plan and know which frameworks and principals are appropriate to analyze and synthesize concepts into models and requirements that are contextual relevant for the task at hand. But I digress, the simple way to say this is that you need to be curious. Some of the best designers I've met--the naturals--are those that have an innate sense of curiosity. Those designers that don't have that engrained get better by collaborating with those that do or developing those muscles so they can use them more naturally.
Knowledge of Craft. In the world of software architecture and development we tend to specialize in specific technology and platforms (.NET, Flash, Web Standards). This is often done to a point where our knowledge is so detailed in a specialized area that we're largely ignorant of the capabilities of other technologies or platforms. Some of the most effective designers I've seen today in terms of long-term vitality are those that remain agnostic and try to become T-shaped at any specific point in their careers--or fuzzy in the words of David Armano. This means having broad knowledge of what is possible in ALL solution spaces but also having a focus area--which can change as you go through your career. It's pretty hard for example, to focus effectively on the Web today without having a base understanding of how form (HTML), style (CSS) and Javascript (behavior) work together. But those that lack an understanding of the power that MVC or managed code frameworks can bring to, or can extend, Web experiences do so at their peril--or at are peril because they create experiences where the potential of the technology is left on the table. Designers are in a tough spot today in this space Many of us, including myself, start much of our design production process in tools like Adobe Photoshop that are so far removed from the process of modern development and production that it's akin to (showing my Chicago roots) "Bringing a knife to a gunfight." What happens to those designers when others move on to tools like Blend, Flash, Flex Builder or tools designeed for the standards-based Web?
Ability to communicate. Larry calls this out for the architect role and it's probably a universal truth for all roles in software or Web design but in the context of designer communication skills mean specific things that many professional designers are not good at. Namely, communicating the value of their efforts and communicating a narrative that can provide validity for the choices they have made. This is critical for designers because we work in a cognitive space that is different from our development peers and that space is called relativism. We defend and prove things by looking at what the potential of something is versus looking into the pass for predictive evidence that something will work (which is how the rest of the world works).
Going to MIX? Want to see my panels? Here they are. They will also be taped and posted at the www.visitmix.com site.
Real World Design: Working with Silverlight and WPF in the Design Studio
Thursday, March 6 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM, Delfino 4001A
Speaker(s): Beau Ambur (Metalliq), Chip Aubry (Tribal), Chris Bernard (MODERATOR), Nathan Dunlap (Identity Mine), Rich Weston (Neudesic)
Audience(s): Creative, Technical
Session Type: Panel
Silverlight and WPF represent a new way for designers and developers work together. But what happens in a professional practice that's focused more on employing designers than developers and using Macs versus PCs for much of their daily design work? Join us as we find out how practitioners from companies like Tribal, Projekt202, Metaliq and Identity Mine discuss the learning curves and the workflow that they adapted with their visual designers and rich interactive developers to get up to speed with Expression Studio, XAML and Silverlight. You'll hear the unvarnished truth about the challenges and rewards of how Silverlight is enabling the digital design practice.
What Is the face of the next Web?
Wednesday, March 5 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM, Delfino 4001A
Speaker(s): Chris Bernard (MODERATOR), Paul Dain (Tribal), Anthony Franco (EffectiveUI), Tjeerd Hoek (Frog), Mark Kurtz (Gage), Garrick Schmitt (Avenue A | Razorfish)
Audience(s): Business, Creative, Technical
Session Type: Panel
Web 2.0 appeared almost overnight from innovative uses of technology to break through the traditional HTML/JS browser ceilings. But what comes next? What is the face of the next web? What are the expectaitons for user interaction and experience? What about a mobile web?
Touch Me: Where Are Interfaces Going?
Thursday, March 6 2:30 PM - 3:45 PM, Delfino 4101A
Speaker(s): Chris Bernard (MODERATOR), Doug Cook (Thirteen23), Dale Herigstad (Schematic), Daniel Makoski (Microsoft), Yoshihiro Saito (2nd Factory), Dave Wolf
Audience(s): Business, Creative, Technical
Session Type: Panel
The keyboard and mouse are aging input devices. For the future of computing and UX, where are interfaces going? Are these enough? Is touch-screen Surface/iPhone/iPod Touch just a gimmick? Where should Man Machine Interface (MMI) go?
There's a great deal of talk about how Vista (when compared to Windows XP) doesn't provide value to most users. I think much of this stems for the fact that we have yet to see many applications that truly take advantage of the platform and have created applications that make us feel good when we use them.
Of all the numerous designers and firms I work with I'm not sure anyone understands that better (or is able to execute their vision better with WPF and Vista) that a firm by the name of Thirteen23.
Some of the folks from this firm will be sitting on one of my panels with me at MIX on next generation interfaces and I'm hoping I can convince them to show more of their work at SxSW this year too.
They've built two beautiful applications that show the power of Vista and the graceful and beautiful applications that can be built for it when one applies great design to our platform. As the Vista adoption curve matures I'm sure we'll continue to see firms like Thirteen23 prosper.
So what are the two applications they've created that I love so much? The first one is an update to their MixMe 07 application they created last year. This year they've focused on creating an elegant tool that let's me keep track of all of the sessions that I want to see this year. It's a great complement to our own Flotzam tool to keep track of the buzz at MIX. You can download it here.
The second application is a simple, yet elegant chat tool. I find myself using this over my other chat tools because I simply find it more pleasurable and easy to use. Called Continuum. You can download it here.
I've been dusting off some of my previous work on these three subjects in preparation for some workshops that I'm going to be doing in a few weeks. I've created a presentation for each topic and posted to www.slideshare.net/chrisbernard.
The topics are:
Innovation and interaction design. This gives a high-level overview of the processes and techniques that commonly used to design digital experiences today. However, I'll caveat thought and say I don't think the processes described can account for the impact we're seeing social media and it's inherent network effects reflected in the planning process. Something that we probably need to solidify a bit. Plus, I think this way of working (and the inherent artifact porn that is generated) is fundamentally too slow and far removed from the digital software and interfaces we build. We need to define new standards and demand more of our tools to become more effective and productive in this area.
Brainstorming. A simple overview of the concepts and techniques where I discuss the default method we used at the Institute of Design. It's doubtful you'll have tremendous success doing this the first time without a little help and alot of planning but once you can put a core team through this exercise a dozen or so times on different problems you'll find your design team becoming like an improv theatre group.
User Research. An overview of methods and a case study from work I did at the Institute of Design. Not a how to for collecting the information as much as instruction on what designers do WITH the collected information and why it's valuable. Slight tangent here. Agile methods and IxD are a hot topic these days and I think this presentation covers some of the value-adding components of design. Enjoy.
At the upcoming IxDA Interaction 08 conference in Savannah I'll be giving an abbreviated version of my classic design talk. I'll play spoiler here and say that much of what we think is pioneering today had it's roots and was even mastered far before most of us were here. In light of that of that I'll simply provide a link to this video that shows how much of our past is related to our present and our future in ways that are far more compatible than we think.
Special thanks to former colleague John Tolva, whose earlier post on his blog served as inspiration.
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