TOTAL EXPERIENCE explores designing for experience: its theory, its practice, and how designing for experiences affects us socially and in our personal lives.
CO-AUTHORS
Bob Jacobson
Paula Thornton
BOB JACOBSON is fascinated by the experience of experience. A planner and technologist, Bob has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Design from UCLA. He's been a policy researcher, technology CEO, science writer, and consultant. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied cellular telephony's impacts on transborder communities in the Nordic Arctic Circle. Bob edited Information Design (MIT Press 2000) and is now writing a book on the theory and practice of creating edifying, transformative experiences.
( Archive | Contact Bob )
PAULA THORNTON says, "Understanding human behavior (economics), optimizing interactions (design) and facilitating conversations (markets), are the means to achieve strategic differentiation. This is the focus of our discipline. It is not a 'nice to have'‚ and is not, like documentation once was, an afterthought. It is the means by which to start a strategic discussion and the means by which to drive a tactical initiative. All design should be evidence-based."
( Archive | Contact Paula )
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EXPERIENCE DESIGN:
THE METAVERSE....
CALENDAR OF EXPERIENCE DESIGN EVENTS
(Courtesy of Mark Vanderbeeken, Experientia SpA, Torino)
Experience Design Websites
Core 77 Website & Forum
Business Week|Innovate
InfoD: Understsanding by Design
The Wayfinding Place
Wayfinding Focus
Design Addict
L-ARCH (Landscape Architecture Mailing List)
DUX 2007 Conference
NetDiver.Net
DesignBoom
Digital Thread
Archinect
Enmeshed, Digital Arts & New Media
Ludology (Game Playing Theory)
Captology, Persuasive Computing
Space and Culture
Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces
timet (acoustical design)
Steve Portigal, Ethnographer
Jane McGonigal's Avant Game
Ted Wells' living : simple
PingMag (Japan)
Experience Design Blogs
Adam Greenfield's Speedbird
Experience Designer Network (Brian Alger)
SmartSpace: Annotated Environments (Scott Smith)
Don Norman
Doors of Perception (John Thackara)
Karl Long's Experience Curve
Work•Play•Experience (Adam Lawrence)
The David Report (David Carlson)
Design & Emotion (Marco van Hout)
Museum 2.0 (Nina Simon)
B J Fogg
Lorenzo Brusci (acoustics)
Cool Town Studios
FutureLab
Steve Portigal
Debbie Millman
MIT Culture Convergence Consortium
Luke Wroblewski, Functioning Form|Interface Design
Adam Richardson
Putting People First (Paul Vanderbeeken/Experientia
Laws of Simplicity (John Maeda)
Challis Hodge's UX Blog
Anne Galloways's Purse Lips Square Jaw
Bruno Giussani's Lunch over IP
Jane McGonigal's Avant-Game
The Future of Work
Experience Design Podcasts
Ted Wells' living : simple Podcast
Design Matters Podcast, Debbie Millman
Icon-o-Cast Podcast, Lunar Design
Experience Design Firms and ED-Oriented Manufacturers
Barry Howard Limited
Hilary Cottam
LRA Worldwide, Inc.
BRC Imagination Arts
Stone Mantel
Experientia s.r.l
Nokia
Herman Miller
Steelcase
IDEO
Cooper Interactive Design
Gensler
Doblin Group
Fitch
Fit Associates
Jump
Strategic Horizons LLC (Joe Pine & Jim Gilmore)
Cheskin Fresh Perspectives
Education and Advocacy
Centre for Design Research, Northumbria University (UK)
Center for Design Research, Stanford University
International Institute of Information Design (IIID)
Design Management Institute
AIGA DUX
Interaction Institute IVREA
Design Research Institute (UK)
UC Berkeley Center for Environmental Design Research
History of Consciousness, UCSC
Design News Magazine
Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD)
Design Museum London
Center for Sustainable Design
Horizon Zero, Digital Arts+Culture in Canada
Design Council UK
First Monday
Total Experience on Technorati
Technorati Profile
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Category Archives
January 15, 2007
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High Definition Changes TV Production
I've been generally fascinated with getting two HDTV units in our home over the holidays. But I'm even more fascinated with productions which are clearly capitalizing on the medium. Watching a new episode of CSI Miami, "Death Pool 100" the colors were leaping off of the screen. I watched as shot after shot was carefully composed with both light and color. You could see the thread of the color intensity being captured in the shirt colors selected for two of the characters. As I was only half-watching, my husband would call my attention as 'transitional' shots would come up -- they were breathtaking. Literally, watching TV after that episode was boring in comparison, even in HD.
If anyone uncovers any inside information or 'street talk' about the intentional effort to capitalize on the HD medium, please let us know...
This reminds me of a piece I've never written...a deep conversation I had with a guy from Disney whose job is to find ways to capitalize on new technologies. He's responsible to find ways to change the theatre experience...he shared with me how they're doing just that.
posted by Paula Thornton |
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January 10, 2007
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Three New Experiences Worth a Watch
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January 5, 2007
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Event: Virgin's Total Customer Experience
[Verbatim email received...emphasis added.]
Think IT can be hip and cool?
Virgin Entertainment’s CIO, Robert Fort, is banking on it.
This mega-retailer is all about creating a fun total customer experience. It’s all part of Virgin’s brand promise. But can its “hipness” really come from IT?
Join this webcast , Virgin's Total Customer Experience sponsored by Cisco Systems, as Geoffrey Moore, managing director with TCG Advisors, probes Fort in a lively discussion about IT’s role in Virgin’s lifestyle brand.
posted by Paula Thornton |
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Webcast: Virgin's Total Customer Experience
[Verbatim email received...emphasis added.]
Think IT can be hip and cool?
Virgin Entertainment’s CIO, Robert Fort, is banking on it.
This mega-retailer is all about creating a fun total customer experience. It’s all part of Virgin’s brand promise. But can its “hipness” really come from IT?
Join this webcast , Virgin's Total Customer Experience sponsored by Cisco Systems, as Geoffrey Moore, managing director with TCG Advisors, probes Fort in a lively discussion about IT’s role in Virgin’s lifestyle brand.
+++++++++++++++
Experience Notes: Length 22:28. This is an on-demand webcast available until December 2007.
I was unable to get the Real Network version to work.
Technology spin requires some patience. Geoffrey Moore serves as the interviewer in this exchange.
Exemplifies Experiential Advertising.
posted by Paula Thornton |
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January 4, 2007
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Customer-Centered Advertising
A January 3rd Forrester briefing, "Advertising Tactics That Win Customers" purports that trust -- lack thereof -- is a growing issue in relationships. Increasing trust is a matter of choice -- allowing the customer to control what they're exposed to.
While they don't call it out quite in this way, another way of increasing trust is through an actual experience (e.g. sampling, events, etc.). Experiential advertising -- yet another path of design opportunity.
posted by Paula Thornton |
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December 21, 2006
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Chicago in May 2007: IIT Institute of Design, Strategy Conference
The roster for this May 2007 event clearly supports bringing together different backgrounds and perspectives to design and business strategy. The conference site is filled with all sorts of information, including some great interviews with speakers.
One favorite is a classic that speaks to one of those 'fundamentals that are already so inherent in my thought that I forget they're there':
"...there is a guy named Chris Argyris, a famous Harvard Business School professor emeritus, who is the father of the field of organizational learning. One of his most central views based on his research is that all human behavior is designed, that people don't do anything without design behind it."
Most significant is that I believe that all the related fields of organizational design, organizational learning, and organizational change mangement hold additional keys to the evolution of our discipline.
posted by Paula Thornton |
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November 16, 2006
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[Event] Forrester's Big Idea: Experience-Based Differentiation
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September 25, 2006
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“Marketing Your Design Firm,” by Adam Lerner, on Core 77
Adam Lerner's “Marketing Your Design Firm,” on Core 77, offers a thorough discussion of the why's, wherefore's, and how-to's of marketing and selling design services. It's an insightful piece worth printing out and keeping handy in your ideas notebook.
Whether marketing a service or a product, the same basic methodologies apply: Your firm's value proposition must articulate the underlying needs of the market, and highlight the benefits of choosing your firm over its competitors. There is a methodology to this. The cumulative marketing efforts should transition a customer through the following steps: grab attention, sway perceptions, create positive affect (emotion) and generate cognition. You then keep the firm top-of-mind with the target market through frequent touch points.
Live by this code: attention + frequency = memory.
You must resist the temptation to position your firm's brand as a collection of capabilities. Capabilities in industrial design, engineering, and research can be easily added and subtracted by competitors within a short period of time. This makes a capabilities-based brand strategy unsustainable, and potentially ineffective in differentiating any firm from its competition. Your firm's capabilities should support your brand, but not become it.
Designers should be astute about communicating with their publics. A designer's inability to link up with clients is indicative that either the design value proposition is wrong or the means of communicating it are not working. As Lerner shows, a designer has considerable leeway defining a value proposition when design trends and fancies are in flux (as they are today), but almost none in communicating that proposition to clients. As a case in point, he illustrates IDEO's very intentional branding of the word “innovative” through a series of articles and interviews the firm cultivated in the late 90s. Today there are others, many associated with the online world. Lerner warns, creatively working in the online world to a client's advantage, a value proposition, is not the same as communicating that value proposition via the Web.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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September 2, 2006
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Pine & Gilmore's thinkAbout, Baltimore, Sept. 13-14
Summer comes to an end and with it arrives Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore's thinkAbout, their annual revisiting of the Experience Economy paradigm elaborated in their book of the same name published ... seven years ago? Wow, time flies when you're having a good time. The thinkAbout is a condensed, more intensive version of the Big Ideas event like the TED, only more or less focused on customer experience design. The event takes place in Baltimore, September 13-14 -- which is next week -- so if you want to attend, you have to reserve a place now. Regular seats go for $4,000-plus, seats for volunteer workers, about half that. I haven't grokked what it is that Jim and Joe do in Ohio, between thinkAbouts, but their ideas and their events are really great, if you have the means.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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August 9, 2006
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AIGA Denver Seminar: “Tangible Futures: Creating Designs of the Future to Influence the Present”, August 16
AIGA Colorado Experience Design presents:
Tangible Futures | Creating Designs of the Future to Influence the Present
with Victor Lombardi
Wed, Aug 16, 2006
Denver, CO
 Edward de Bono has said, “You can analyse the past, but the future has to be designed.” As designers, we have influence not only over the products and services people will use in the future but also in how companies plan for the future. We can improve the quality of our influence by using our design skills to more actively anticipate and shape the future. Examples of this vary from auto designers' concept cars to Bruce Mau's Massive Change (www.massivechange.com). These “tangible futures” act as a clear, compelling vision that helps organizations make progress.
We'll look at examples of some tangible futures and discuss how they can be used to help organizations create a vision and then work toward that vision in a strategic way. Designers and managers can both benefit from this event.
About the Speaker:
Victor Lombardi (Noise Between Stations weblog) is passionate about creating better ways of working that result in better ways of living. He co-founded the Management Innovation Group (recently recommended by Forrester Research) to collaborate with clients in the design of new approaches to strategic product development and management. Victor has worked in IT and design, contributing to over 40 software and Internet projects for companies such as The Ford Motor Company, General Electric, J.P. Morgan, Verizon, and Office Depot. His work with the Southern Poverty Law Center has won several awards.
Victor co-founded and served as past president of the Information Architecture Institute and has taught at the Parsons School of Design. These days he teaches business at the Pratt Institute and frequently writes and speaks on business issues. He lives in New York City.
When:
Wed, Aug 16, 2006
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
6:00 - 7:00 Check in/mingling
7:00 - 8:30 Presentation/Q&A
8:30 - 9:00 Mingle a bit more
Where:
The Sage Room
The Oxford Hotel
1600 17th Street
Denver, CO
Cost:
Member: Free
Student Member: Free
Non-Member: $20
Student Non-Member: $10
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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BLM recruiting a new Chief Landscape Architect
This note was posted today to the Landscape Architecture Electronic Forum, LARCH-L:
 This is a vacancy announcement for the Chief Landscape Architect Position for the U.S. Dept of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, based in Washington, D.C. The position duties would include policy and program leadership in the arenas of visual resources, byways, accessibility, facility design, land use planning, as well as recreation planning.
Having served in this position myself, up until just a few months ago, I can personally attest that this is a fantastic opportunity for a challenging, professionally rewarding job working with an outstanding group of people on really exciting issues.
I would highly encourage anyone interested to inquire. NOTE: This position is also advertised open to ALL U.S. Citizens, so it's a golden opportunity for anyone seeking federal employment for the first time.
Brad Cownover
Director, Scenic Conservation
Scenic America
202.638.0550 ext. 12
cownover@scenic.org
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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July 21, 2006
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MindCanvas: Digging deeply into your mind, via your screen and keyboard
 Well, this looks interesting: MindCanvas | A research service from Uzanto.
From the website:
“MindCanvas is a rapid research service to gather insights about your customers' thoughts and feelings. Online surveys require users to complete boring html forms. We use Game-like Elicitation Methods (GEMs) to let online users participate in answering the complex questions that you face in designing a product or service. Our Visual Analysis Engine lets us rapidly mine the reams of data and create rich visualizations for you to explore.”
Am I a Luddite or curmudgeon because It creeps me out to (a) probe people's craniums remotely, digitally, in with gamelike "elicitations"; and to (b) possibly use information collected online to validate claims about non-online uses and users? But let's be honest: this type of stuff now goes on all the time, only less efficiently. If MindCanvas reduces errors in understanding customers' wants and needs, even a little, it's got a future.
If you use MindSpace, please let me know about your experience and that of your subjects.
PHICHI, Philly's SIGCHI chapter, is featuring the developers of MindSpace and another online research application, Ethnio, at its August meeting:
PHICHI August Meeting: Remote UX Tools - Ethnio & MindCanvas
Friday, August 18th
Drexel or UPenn campus, TBD
Refreshments & Networking: 6-6:30pm (food and beverages will be provided)
Presentation: 6:30pm-8ish
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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Brian Alger's blog, “EDN: Experience Designer Network”
 While I'm on a roll, having just digested Matt Sinclair's delicious interview with Nokia's Liisa Puolakka (below), permit me to point you to Brian Alger's blog, Experience Designer Network. Alger, author of the well-received, The Experience Designer: Learning, Networks, and the Cybersphere, is an Ontario-based designer who offers many observations on many topics, sometimes with a metaphysical tinge, always from a designer's perspective. For what he has to say about experience design per se, do a search on his blog for “experience design.” The results are impressive. I've added EDN to our blogroll and also to my NetNews Reader's subscriptions.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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July 17, 2006
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Missing! Experiences of war and power
 “I'd love to talk with you more, but we have a war.” So wrote an email friend who works for a highly respected strategic forecasting firm. (Photo: Courtesy of Salon.com)
I was taken aback. For a brief moment, I'd forgotten how much of the world is actively at war, at any time. Now, once again, our attention is on the Middle East.
For most of us, the hostilities in the Middle East -- Hamas and Hezbollah vs. Israel, the war of the nationalist/terrorist non-states (of which Israel was one, prior to 1948) -- is merely CNN Headline News fare, with a few screen-size pictures of exploding bombs in Beirut and Haifa. For the people there, especially the civilian non-combattants, it's a horror. Can the experience of war -- the most dramatic expression of human violence and, many would say, evil -- be conveyed to those of us who tacitly tolerate and fund war? Can it be done without the presentation descending to the level of a videogame or a brief interlude between advertisements on TV?
Although conscientious filmmakers have dealt with war from every perspective, so far I have yet to see an interactive experience or environment crafted with the intent of creating the true experience of war. Is it so difficult, so objectionable, or taboo to share with the rest of us what war's victims experience firsthand?
 I might add, neither has anyone well interpreted the experience of being within the councils of power where war is a topic of polite conversation and private agendas. Plaudits to the Russian Government for publishing at least the public emanations of the G8 Summit, this year held in St. Petersberg, Russia. But all of the press releases are no more than a curtain, behind which the international Wizards of Oz secretly huddle.
Power as an experience remains purposely elusive and difficult to share.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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July 14, 2006
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Strategic Horizons' thinkAbout and “Experience Economy Expert Certification” program
 Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, authors of the seminal The Experience Economy, have announced registration for the next Strategic Horizons' thinkAbout, set for September 13-14, 2006, in Baltimore, MD. Only 120 seats are available, so sign up now. And if you can't afford the price, there are four “paying labor” positions left!
Joe and Jim are also offering an “Experience Economy Expert Certification” program, October 23-27, 2006. There are 12 seats for this five-day intensive, I guess to be held at their Aurora, OH, mountain aerie. Only a dozen “Certified Experts” to serve the entire world? They're going to be a busy bunch. Maybe the rest of us can be their apprentices.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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Stone Mantel is auditioning for experience designers.
 I received the following email from Stone Mantel principal, Dr. Dave Norton. Dave's recruiting new associates to expand Stone Mantel's successful practice. Stone Mantel is a brand-management and experience-design firm headquartered in Colorado Springs, CO.
Dear Friends,
We are happy to announce that Stone Mantel is auditioning new talent to participate in our network of top-notch innovators, brand strategists, experience strategists, and field researchers. As we continue to grow, the depth and breadth of the work we do produce more and more meaningful solutions for clients. We work with our network to tie your skills to the right client engagement. For example, this year we've helped national museums reinvent themselves, cities rebrand themselves, consumer goods companies find the experiences that matter, hotels disrupt their markets, and banks transform their industry.
We'd love to involve you in these experiences. If you are interested, please send an e-mail to Judy Close (judyclose@gostonemantel.com) with a Word document that includes your experiences helping organizations create meaningful brand experiences through:
- Brand Strategy
- Experience Strategy
- Market Research
- Innovation and Ideation
For more on what we are doing, go to www.GOstonemantel.com.
Hope this summer has been fantastic!
Sincerely,
Dave Norton
Principal, Stone Mantel
www.GOstonemantel.com
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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July 9, 2006
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NextD Mindscapes: “Design 3.0: Making sense of design now!”
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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Language as Political Experience: Geoff Nunberg on current American political discourse
 NPR : 'Talking Right': Why the Left Is Losing, Linguistically: Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg discusses the evolution of “liberalism” as a term once describing openness and reform to an attack phrase that disparages challenging the political status quo -- and how it's insinuated itself into Americans' political discourse.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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July 2, 2006
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Loneliness in America: a new report renews alarm, offers some hope
“The Lonely American Just Got a Bit Lonelier,” in today's New York Times, signals yet another alarm about increasing anomie in American society, despite a plethora of “communication media”:
A recent study by sociologists at Duke and the University of Arizona found that, on average, most adults only have two people they can talk to about the most important subjects in their lives — serious health problems, for example, or issues like who will care for their children should they die. And about one-quarter have no close confidants at all“....
Like ”Bowling Alone,“ the essay and, later, book by Robert D. Putnam, a public policy professor a Harvard, the Duke study suggested that a weakening of community connections is in part responsible for increasing social isolation. More people are working and commuting longer hours and have little time for the kinds of external social activities that could lead to deeper relationships....
The Internet is also cause for some optimism, because it has made it easier to maintain ties among family members who have become scattered. Those ties inevitably developed over long-term, face-to-face contact, but email can help keep them strong....
Still, [study coauthor] Dr. [Lynn] Smith-Lovin said, any optimism must be tempered. For one thing, having only one confidant, even if that confidant is a spouse, leaves a person extremely vulnerable if the spouse dies or the marriage disintegrates.
And in the end, she and others pointed out, e-mail or instant messaging is no substitute for face-to-face contact. ”Emailing somebody far way is not the same as them going to pick up your child at daycare or bringing you chicken soup,“ she said....
NPR interviewed study coauthor Dr. Smith-Lovin on June 24 (stream available online).
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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June 25, 2006
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Did anyone attend this year's Bolinas Sun Festival?
 HEY, DID ANYONE ATTEND THIS YEAR'S BOLINAS SUN FESTIVAL? Can you provide a report? My annual participation in the Sun Festival -- except this year -- has consistently been a high point of the year (rivaling Halloween). It begins with a ritual dance performance on the beach, becomes a parade accompanied by balladeers through town, features pavilions high on a hill with groaning tables for hundreds and good homemade food, and honors with four totems, each with its maiden, the Four Seasons and the Four Directions. A total immersion of the senses, without any digital assists. Oh, you don't know where Bolinas is? Don't ask me!
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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“National Portrait Gallery Ready for Its Closeup,” NPR, June 25, 2006
 “Washington, D.C., a city of museums, is shaking the dust from one of its signature collections. The National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum will reopen to the public after years of renovation. The museums are part of the vast Smithsonian Institution. They're housed in the Patent Office Building, a mid-19th century Greek revival structure occupying a double-sized city block.”
The news story explains the thinking behind many of the unique modes of exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. It was interesting to learn that the old US Patent Office Building, which now houses the Gallery, was located at the pinnacle of an isosceles triangle, with the other two vertices being the White House and the Congress. In the early America, commerce replaced religion as a foundation of governance.
Mark Pachter, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, offers a sneak peek.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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June 20, 2006
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But They Can't Walk the Walk
While BusinessWeek is busy making money off of reporting on design, you'd think they'd take some of that revenue and apply the same principles to their own channels. For example, I just bought the 'current' issue of BusinessWeek today (well, yesterday). But when you go online, 'next week's' issue is posted.
That means that with a copy of the magazine in my hand (for which I paid a hefty premium) I am not allowed to have access to the online versions of these articles, by which to comment on any of them.
Can you say, "Clueless"?
posted by Paula Thornton |
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June 19, 2006
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Experience In A Box
Inspired by Bob's post on the new BusinessWeek Innovation and Design Quarterly issue, I stopped by the local (Idaho Falls) Barnes and Noble to buy a copy (well actually, I bought the 5 remaining copies on the shelf). As I was checking out I was struck by what seemed to me to be a display rounder of 'experiences in a box'. They call them "Amazing Mini Kits". It looks like they've been around for a couple of years...I don't 'do' Barnes & Noble all that much (in fact, I think the last time I stepped inside a store was to buy all the remaining copies of a former BusinessWeek issue on design...I think there's a buying pattern here).
I was struck by the titles/offerings and the juxtaposition of the space they represented -- the randomness of the 'collection'. It's as if they were there to entice you into 'being' or 'trying' something you've never tried, but might want to -- for very little investment (both time and money).
 You might want to expand your horizons with:
Palm Reading
Belly Dancing
or the must-have
Office Voodo Kit
 If you're needing a more calming experience you might try the:
Zen Water Garden
which might need oversight by the
Wee Little Garden Gnome
which could be embellished by the
Hummingbird Feeder
 More eclectic tastes might only be satisfied by one of the following choices:
Executive Office Gong
Yoga to Go
Therapist In a Box
Bozo Desktop Bop Bag (I think if I were going to extend myself, this would be my choice)
While you can order these online, it's not quite the same as looking at the tiny boxes all juxtaposed together on a merry-go-round of choices.
 [Postscript: But this one wasn't even in the store and it's a must-have:
Mini Fondue Kit]
posted by Paula Thornton |
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June 18, 2006
Blink ›
Business Week Online's new “Innovation & Strategy” section: bookmark it now!
 Business Week Online's new “Innovation & Strategy” webpage is terrific. BW has always been a strong proponent of design in business, although in the past, too often by “design” it meant styling. That's over. BWO's focus is on the actual doing of design and its implications for business, which provides a sound foundation for its editors' and writers' investigations. These span the spectrum of design modalities and issues. The diversity of topics covered, and the BWO team's ability to distill complex ideas into coherent short essays, is wonderful. Down with wordiness, up with insight. Check it out!
There's an accompanying BWO Innovation Podcast Archive: I downloaded every podcast. They're that good. I'm now a subscriber.
Lastly, there's “IN,” a new blog that personalizes and further enriches the Innovation & Strategy section. (I can't figure out the BW hierarchy from the web pages, which is which: I just explore.) Here's IN's “Manifesto”:
 With this inaugural issue of IN: Inside Innovation -- we dedicate ourselves to the proposition that making innovation work is the single most important business challenge of our era. Our goal is to make a meaningful difference in the difficult journey toward building innovative business cultures. IN hopes to inspire, to provoke, to teach, and to be a trusted advisor and guide. Every quarter, we'll provide you with a how-to tool kit of lessons and case studies that address specific problems managers face in changing their organizations. In this premier issue, we show exactly how five key “C-Suite” drivers of innovation inside big corporations do it. In future issues, we will offer the best innovation metrics, show how to build open-source idea machines, manage global networks of engineers and trend-spotters, find truly creative talent, and instill design thinking to satisfy unmet consumer needs. IN is also a community. It links you to our online Innovation & Design site, with its blogs, columnists, metrics, and stories. Join us.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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June 15, 2006
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International Service Design Conference podcasts of presentations now available online for download.
On March 31, 2006, Northumbria University (UK) hosted a half-day colloquium, the International Service Design Conference (ISDN), at The Sage Gateshead, on issues related to designing services. Podcasts and documents for each of the day's presentations and workshops can be downloaded from the ISDN website. It's a great selection, just the thing to whet the appetite for real practical examples, useful for practicing and aspiring experience designers alike. Here's what's waiting for you at the website. (In the posting preceding this one, Paula Thornton reviews the presentation by Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO.)
Delegate Pack - Reduced version (Download PDF, 2.4Mb)
Opening Remarks (MP3, Request by email)
Professor Tony Dickson, Deputy Vice Chancellor,
Northumbria University
Service Innovation through Design Thinking (MP3, 16.9Mb)
Professor Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO US
Inaugural Lecture as visiting professor to Northumbria University, discussing the work of IDEO internationally in creating innovation in businesses and services
[HIGHLY recommended by TE co-author Paula Thornton[
Signposts for the Next Decade (MP3, 12.4Mb)
Dr. Andrea Cooper, Head of Design Knowledge, Design Council
Design's role in addressing global issues in the next ten years
Presentation slides (PDF, 1.2Mb)
Live|Work - Pioneering Service Design (MP3, 4.7Mb)
Chris Downs, Partner, Live|Work
We are what we use - not what we own
Objects of Service - From Subjects to Objects and Back Again (MP3, 14.4Mb)
Prof. Steven Kyffin, Global Head of Design Research, Philips Design
How can design help to creatively understand people, create value across the full business development process and create poignancy to our technological trajectories?
Presentation synopsis (Word document, 32Kb)
Designing Design in a Complex World (MP3, 12.3Mb)
Dr. Bob Young, Associate Dean for Research & Consultancy,
School of Design, Northumbria University
The evolution of service and systems design thinking in academia
Presentation slides (Powerpoint, 11.8Mb)
Better Services, Happier Customers (MP3, 12.6Mb)
Oliver King
Case Studies from the work of The Engine Group
Presentation slides (PDF, 1.1Mb)
Redesigning Public Services (MP3, 22.5Mb)
Jennie Winhall
Case Studies from the work of RED at the Design Council
Designers! Who Do You Think You Are? (MP3, 14.9Mb)
Kamil Michlewski
Inside the design cultures of Ideo, Wolff Olins, Philips & Nissan
Presentation slides (Powerpoint, 280Kb)
Work in Progress - Transport Students (MP3, Request by Email)
Introduced by Rob Leeman
Work in Progress - Design for Industry (MP3, Request by Email)
Introduced by Nick Spencer
Work in Progress - Fashion Marketing (MP3, Request by Email)
Introduced by Janine Munslow
Synthesis - Plenary chaired by Prof. James More (MP3, Request by email)
Review of the event and key questions explored and answered by the floor and the panel
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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June 14, 2006
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.......... Experience design is experiencing an upbeat!
ED
TE co-author Paula Thornton's Experience Design newsgroup currently features a really interesting thread on the increasing acceptance of experience design within the corporate community. The list's users, who include many self-identified practitioners of the emerging discipline, report more projects and job offers than at any time in the past. Of course, “more” can mean anything from 10 to a thousand projects and job -- and the exact definition of “experience design,” in this context, remains indistinct. But the general upbeat tenor of the online experience-design community, as expressed in the thread, is a welcome relief from he feeling of being the resource-of-last-resort formerly emblematic of the field.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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June 12, 2006
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“Traditionalist Planning Education Challenges Modern Design In Europe,” on Planetizen
“Traditionalist Planning Education Challenges Modern Design In Europe,” an article on Planetizen.org (the “Planning & Development Network” hosted by Los Angeles-based Urban Insight) describes an innovative urban design program at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland. The authors of the article, Drs. Ombretta Romice and Wolfgang Sonne, direct the new program, which they say is inspired by the 2001 launch of Scotland's “Designing Places” initiative. Strathclyde's “new-old” design planning education is an exciting pedagogical effort to counter the juggernaut of urban development on a financial and poltiical mega-scale with design planning on a human scale. It's essential theme is irresistible though perhaps too moral for a jaded development community: “Making places for people.”
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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May 26, 2006
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Wayne E. Heath, the Man Who Reinvented Urban Signage, Dies
 Wayne Heath, the man who brought new life to urban signage in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and other metropolitan Western cities, died at the age of 87. Today's LA Times offers a thoughtful tribute obituary, including this by Times staff writer Claire Noland:
By 1952, Heath, who bought out Gorsich and renamed the business Heath and Co., was building a client list that would endure for decades. Verne Winchell, founder of the original Winchell's doughnut shop in Temple City, and Harold Butler, a restaurant entrepreneur who opened the first Denny's, enjoyed the brand recognition Heath's distinctive signs brought them.
 Then there was Nick Shammas and Felix the Cat. In 1958, Shammas moved his dealership and its cat logo from downtown to Figueroa and Jefferson Boulevard. Heath and Co. incorporated neon and plastic for what would become a kitschy Los Angeles landmark.
“Nobody had ever put that big a sign on top of a roof,” Lloyd said. “It was so big and unique you couldn't help but see it.”
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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May 14, 2006
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Da Vinci Code Composer Hans Zimmer interviewed on NPR
 NPR's Liane Hansen interviews the brilliant cinema composer, Hans Zimmer, this morning. Zimmer's current achievement is the score for The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard, debuting this week. (Caution: The Da Vinci Code's website's overdone Flash programming will capture your computer, so use it only when you have the time.) The Da Vinci Code features the most tightly integrated son-et-lux milieu since the Oscar-winning Master & Commander soundtrack (Richard King, supervising sound editor) which relied on exceptional presence and period-music authenticity. Zimmer takes a different approach -- avoiding sounding “churchy” -- by getting “inside” the characters of the story and transforming into music their personal development in the face of crises. Zimmer reminds us that, with the addition of serious scoring, intelligent cinema offers more than pictures and action: “Experiencing the deep intellectual activity of a person can be very exciting,” (Zimmer's own website is exciting to hear as well as see, too.)
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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May 10, 2006
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A Coming Boom in Business Services Design?
 “Designing Companies,” an article in today's Forbes.com, by Tom Van Riper, reminds us that there's more to “industrial” design than creating cool products. Van Riper searches customer-experience design for that all-important ROI needed to get executives' attention -- and their business. Unfortunately, as he discovers, there are few metrics because services are such fluid “objects” in the first place.
American companies have shown they can build better mousetraps, but can they create shorter waiting lines and fairer insurance premiums?
For all the kudos and profits garnered by consumer product companies like Apple Computer and Procter & Gamble for innovative gadgets like the iPod and the Swiffer, it's the service industry that now drives nearly 80% of the U.S. economy. And most players in that space--from banks to retailers to insurers--are just beginning to recognize their need to offer their customers the type of innovation that industrial designers have long brought to consumer products.
That specialized breed calling themselves business design consultants think service companies represent the next wave of their work, adapting to service industries the principles that product makers have used to differentiate themselves in the fight for retail shelf space.
I don't think Van Riper makes a great case for customer-experience design, which is too bad given the relative paucity of articles on the topic in leading journals like FORBES. Read it for the brief case studies that constitute the second half of the article.
Despite its alluring title, “Designing Companies” identifies none of the companies actually designing companies, only their giant corporate clients. My guess is that you, the readers of this blog, are them. Care to identify yourselves?
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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Theme Parks Buoy Disney's Second-Quarter Earnings
 The New York Times today reports that “Disney, based in Burbank, Calif., is benefiting from increased attendance at the parks and resorts unit, where sales jumped 7 percent, to $2.25 billion. ... At the parks and resorts unit, which includes Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California, profit rose 17 percent, to $214 million from $183 million. Sales hit $2.25 billion, from $2.1 billion a year ago.” TV earnings (ABC and ESPN) also were up. Movie earnings were dramatically down and consumer products slightly off.
It'll be interesting to see how the rising price of transportation, exacerbated by skyrocketing prices for gasoline and jet fuel, affects the earnings picture for destination entertainment (theme parks) vis-a-vis locally based entertainment (TV and movies).
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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April 13, 2006
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Dave Norton seminars, “Strategies for Designing Meaningful Experiences”
THE DESIGN MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE is hosting a series of seminars on experience design by Dave Norton, Ph.D., Principal and Lead Strategist with the brand management consultancy, Stone Mantel, an “insights agency” focused on experience design. The two-day seminars, to be held in Chicago, Amsterdam, NYC, and Los Angeles, deal with issues of concern to readers of this blog, with a commercial slant. Norton will unveil his thinking about “disruptive experiences,” a variation on Harvard professor Clay Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation. Reasonably priced, good ROI (business lingo).
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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April 1, 2006
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Enhancing "Bedside Manner"
Channel surfing this week landed me on a welcomed find: The New Medicine. Of considerable note is the addition of terms to the language exchanged: integrative, compassion, whole person, evidence-based, alternative, dynamic, listening. Featured in the program was the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine, and the work being done there. Several relevant thoughts expressed:
It's important for the doctor to listen to the story of the illness. In the absense of that story, you're practicing veterinary medicine.
One of the things we've lost is the partnership between physician and patient.
More important than knowing what disease the patient has, is knowing what patient has the disease.
You need a doctor who makes you feel empowered and smart.
Medicine...that addresses the mind, body and spirit. Health is not simply the absence of disease, but is the state of well-being.
For an industry whose fundamental business focus is the human element, it has always been appalling to me that human considerations, or factors of humaneering, took back seat to the technology of medicine.
posted by Paula Thornton |
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March 15, 2006
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Organized by Design
Nokia has 'regrouped' (supposedly 'all of') their design resources into one body.
The new global team will be responsible for the entire design process, from strategy and conceptualization to product development, for Nokia's complete portfolio of devices. This change will ensure Nokia is well-positioned to meet the future needs of its customers by offering industry-leading design and a superior user experience. The global unit combines teams in industrial design, user interface and interaction design, ergonomics, communications design, packaging design, colors & materials, sensorial technologies, consumer insight and design management.
Coming from a company that is often cited/researched as being successful due to their organizational design , this is clearly something to track over time and assess the corresponding success.
posted by Paula Thornton |
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March 13, 2006
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A Salute to Commander D. Michael Abrashoff
If there were more people like Navy Commander Abrashoff, we could either increase the demand for our work, or be put out of business altogether. The following quotes come from an April 1999 Fast Company article:
When you shift your organizing principle from obedience to performance, says Abrashoff, the highest boss is no longer the guy with the most stripes -- it's the sailor who does the work. 'I realized that my job was to listen aggressively -- to pick up all of the ideas that they had for improving how we operate. The most important thing that a captain can do is to see the ship from the eyes of the crew.'
The result of listening and taking corresponding action:
In fiscal year 1998, the Benfold returned $600,000 of its $2.4 million maintenance budget and $800,000 of its $3 million repair budget. The navy's bean counters slashed the ship's maintenance budget this year by exactly $600,000 -- yet Abrashoff expects the ship to return 10% of its reduced allotment.
The negative incentives for executing meaningful change reminds me of a comment frequently made by a friend: "No good deed goes unpunished."
posted by Paula Thornton |
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March 11, 2006
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FIRST MONDAY: Good reading on "Urban Screens," "Virtual Architecture"
First Monday, the excellent, international online journal about media and society, is featuring collections of articles on topics of interest to readers of TOTAL EXPERIENCE:
These issues contain evocative, scholarly, and passionate articles describing and critiquing the crossovers taking place today between the material and virtual, and objective and symbolic, worlds.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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March 9, 2006
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Design and Architecture
Interviews discussing the impact of design and architecture on our lives are provided for the taking in a continuing series of "oncasts". A few teasers from the line-up:
"Housing prices have skyrocketed, and it's even more costly if you want to build a home that's modern and technically innovative. Several young architects have decided that factory-built homes are the answer."
"interior designer Madeline Stuart on what's really involved in making over someone's living space, and architectural historian Sylvia Lavin and psychologists Susan Painter and Connie Forrest on the therapeutic aspects of designing a home."
P.S. In listening to the latter piece it became clear to me that designing experiences in which one of the primary goals is 'being' (esp. a home), 'feelings' is an important element of consideration. While reference to 'feelings' is often included in experience design attributes, I believe that there are distinct considerations (e.g. relative importance, ranges of, intensity of) related to feelings in experience designs where 'doing' is the more predominant goal.
P.S. to P.S. Discovered this related piece in BusinessWeek: Prefab Homes Get Fabulous
posted by Paula Thornton |
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March 8, 2006
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Just Like an Ethnographer
Respected colleague Marc Rettig has a blog devoted to the evolution of the restoration of a grand Victorian, which has been endowed with the essence of a persona through the assignment of the name Ostara. Sprinkled with tiny hints of learning opportunities for our field, I was struck by this quote: "Advice: work with a contractor who loves old houses, and thinks the right way to work is to solve the problems on site rather than just build whatever the architect drew."
I could spin into at least a half-dozen paths as to the applicability of this to our work. I'll start with just this: the design is inherent to the work -- it lies waiting to be discovered, not all at once, but incrementally. One of our roles is that of 'investigator' -- to delicately uncover and unravel the various (and sometimes conflicting) 'truths' about the situation. Optimal design is born of constant discoveries and adaptations (not the same as a 'work-around').
posted by Paula Thornton |
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March 6, 2006
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Bad Design Dismissed and Ignored
"Product complaints and returns are often caused by poor design, but companies frequently dismiss them as 'nuisance calls,'...". A thesis study out of the Technical University of Enhoven also discovered, "The average consumer in the United States will struggle for 20 minutes to get a device working, before giving up, the study found." From Reuters report, "Complexity Causes 50% of Product Returns"
Let me take this moment to reiterate an important premise to those who insist on referring to the human element as a "user" — clearly a role-based title. Based on your premise, when an individual disengages and refuses to partake in a product, what role do you assign to them then?
March 8, 2006: Not to my surprise, someone contacted me directly, asking again why I have such an issue with the term "user". A few excerpts from my reply: "Our goal should not be one of use. Our goal is to get people down the path they want to go with the least effort possible. I'm not suggesting that there will be no 'interface'. I am suggesting that until we start thinking of the possibilities of working without one, we'll never begin to uncover new dimensions....as professionals we tend to overfocus on the digital world -- when the greatest potential of our craft goes underused in service design. Moreso in this space than in others the term 'user' is irrelevant....to TRULY represent the focus of the individual we have to make them the FOCUS -- the starting point of reference. Linguistically then, they 'use' a product, but they do so on a path in which the use of the 'thing' is subjected to their goal. The title associated to the individual should be one that reflects their goal, not their relationship to the 'thing' (which makes the 'thing' the center of focus)."
Today I also found a quote that illustrates this from another perspective: "We don't just use technology, they point out; we live with it." [source: Amazon review of book "Technology as Experience"]
posted by Paula Thornton |
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March 5, 2006
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Conflux 2006 Announcement
CONFLUX 2006 - September 14 - 17. 2006
Conflux is the annual New York City festival where visual and sound artists, writers, urban adventurers, researchers, and the public gather for four days to explore the physical and psychological landscape of the city.
Say hello to Brooklyn! In 2006, Conflux will be held in Brooklyn for the first time. McCaig-Welles Gallery in Williamsburg will serve as our headquarters, with events taking place in and around the gallery.
Conflux 2006 is produced by Glowlab, a collective that deals with the hidden (e.g., emotional) qualities of “community” (more to follow in a subsequent posting). It's curated by Glowlab and iKatun, a nonprofit organization focusing on art and community.
PROJECT SUBMISSION DEADLINE
10 April, 2006, 11:59pm EST
Visit the Conflux website for more details.
Thanks to Regine Debatty's We-Make-Money-Not-Art for the tip.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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February 26, 2006
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The Wayfinding Place
With a byline of, "creating comforting interactions", this blog focuses on the following intent: Wayfinding is a problem-solving process by which people understand and make decisions about navigating architectural and urban spaces. The Wayfinding Place is a weblog collaboration of seven contemporary voices on the discipline of wayfinding within architecture, urban-planning and environmental design.
Check it out: The Wayfinding Place
posted by Paula Thornton |
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February 18, 2006
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Experience Design Calendar on Eventful.com
Mark Vanderbeeken has moved the ever-useful Experience Design Calendar to Eventful. We've created a link to the Calendar on TE (just above the blogroll). Share your knowledge of forthcoming events with our expanding community by posting them to the calendar. Thanks, Mark!
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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February 11, 2006
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Marc Rettig Opens Fit Associates, an Experience Design Consultancy
Marc Rettig, long an advocate for holistic experience design -- experience design in the broader sense (as we use the term here) -- has opened Fit Associates in Pittsburgh, with an impressive roster of talent. We've added Fit to our links.
In the future, we'll feature an interview with Mark, one of our field's thoughtful, high-profile practitioners.
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February 6, 2006
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Call for Papers: The Journal of Urban Design, "Walking and Urban Design"
From LARCH-L, the Landscape Architecture Mailing List:
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2006 10:55:37 -0600
From: Ann Forsyth forsyth@UMN.EDU
Journal of Urban Design Call for Papers:
"Walking and Urban Design"
Urban designers have a long tradition of examining the pedestrian
environment. With recent attention to active transportation, health
issues in urban planning and design, new urbanism, transit-oriented
development, and traffic calming, there has been a growing body of
empirical studies and policy interventions focused on this topic.
An upcoming issue of the Journal of Urban Design is looking for
submissions of original work on the issue of pedestrians, walking,
and urban design. Both empirical investigations and significant
contributions to theory are welcomed. This issue will also welcome
Practice Notes of up to 3000 words. The issue will publish up to five
papers and two practice notes on this topic.
As stated in the instructions to authors, three complete copies of
each manuscript should be submitted to the journal's main office at:
Journal of Urban Design, Institute of Urban Planning, University of
Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK . Please also
send the manuscript as an email attachment to the theme editors (see below).
Papers should be typed on one side of the paper, double spaced, with
ample margins and bear the title of the contribution and name(s) of
the author(s). The full postal address of the author who will check
proofs and receive correspondence and offprints should also be
included. All pages should be numbered. Contributions should not
normally be more than 9000 words in length and should be written in
the English language. They should also include an abstract of 100
words. Footnotes to the text should be avoided wherever this is
reasonably possible. For more information, visit the Journal's website.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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February 5, 2006
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Lift '06 Conference multimedia archives are now online
Thanks to Mark Vanderbeeken of Experientia (Turin) for calling attention to the Lift Conference '06 archive site. Lift (Life, Ideas, Future, Technology), held in Geneva last week, discussed the evolution of eletronic media and global virtual environments. This European conference may be less well-known to experience designers elsewhere in the world. On the website, there are archived downloadable videos, presentations, and displays, so you can virtually attend post facto. Very appropriate.
I especially enjoyed keynoter Bruno Giussani's presentation on the collective experience of MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games). Excellent description of the virtual overlay on the physical world, and how it affects worldviews around the globe and across cultures.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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February 4, 2006
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Ted Wells' "living : simple" website and podcast
TED WELLS' "living : simple," a website and podcast, takes architecture as its starting point and then ventures widely into related areas of design including interior space, objects that define the experience of space (like chairs), and the built environment.
One of Wells' consistent themes is the overreliance by many architects and designers -- perhaps most, these days -- on computer-generated imagery (CGI) to spice up otherwise dim and dreary structure and products. When experienced in person, the actual buildings and objects do not live up to the clients' or users' expectations that are formed when computer effects obscure the essence of the structures they depict. This is often intentional, as it's apparently easier to become a master of CGI than a master of space, as a truly gifted architect must be.
Wells' 10-15 minute podcasts are informative, thought-provoking, well-narrated, and framed by comfortable music that sets the stage but never intrudes on it. He's now in our links.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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February 2, 2006
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Open Space Seattle 2100: "Green Futures Charrette," Feb. 3-4
From LARCH-L, the Landscape Architecture mailing list:
The University of Washington, Department of Landscape Architecture, is convening over 300 academics, professionals, students and community representatives in a Green Futures Charrette to envision Seattle's open space system for the next century. The charrette on Feb. 3 + 4 is the centerpiece of Open Space Seattle 2100, an initiative to create a 100-year open space vision that builds on the 1903 Olmsted Plan and looks to innovative, integrated multi-functional spaces to provide amenities required for a successful urbanist planning strategy. Over the last months, Open Space Seattle 2100 has sponsored nationally renowned speakers on social, ecological, and equitable open space, by Mark Childs, Mike Houck, and Robert Garcia as well as local technical experts. Patrick Condon of UBC will give the charrette's keynote lecture on Feb. 2, titled "Green Urban Infrastructure for the 21st Century." The project website features useful resources developed by UW graduate students on open space planning and design, lecture recaps, open space planning principles developed by the project's guidance committee, and links to a blog and project presentations.
For more information about the initiative, visit the website and contact me at nrottle@u.washington.edu.
Nancy D. Rottle, RLA, ASLA
Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture
Box 355734
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-5734
voice 206.543.7897
fax 206.685.4486
nrottle@u.washington.edu
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January 22, 2006
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Space and Culture and Purse Lips Square Jaw, Blogs About the Geospatial, Socio-Spatial World
Thanks to reader "haku" for turning me on to Canadian Anne Galloway's Purse Lip Square Jaw, her research blog. It in turn led me to Space and Culture, to which Anne contributes. S & C deals with space in a more personal, less academic tone than the British geographers, who academically dominate this domain. (I'll write more on the experience of geography and those who study it in a future posting.) Instead, S & C (and PLSP) display a McLuhanesque concern with the perception of space and its cultural impacts, effects, and manifestations, which is why haku turned me on to Anne in the first place. These blogs are provocative, ruminating, filled with Northern light. Now in our links.
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Design Podcasts: Design Matters and Icon-o-Cast
Two design podcasts I find constantly informative are Design Matters, by Debbie Millman; and Icon-o-Cast, by Lunar Design. Both have more than a little to say about experience design, though their ambits are quite a bit broader.
The podcasts display distinctly different temperaments, probably geographic in origin: Millman's attitude is alternately reflective and in your face, as befits a New Yorker; the Lunar Design team is San Francisco Bay laidback, "Wazzup?" all the way.
Millman takes a critical approach to design: in a quiet place, she interviews designers, brand managers, etc., inquisitively. She also voices her own opinions. She's a writer/critic/design aficionado whose first-person style conforms easily to the podcast's conversational format. The Lunar approach is more sitting-around-the-bar style, or in the field. It's more often breathless, although the Lunar designer/reporters are not afraid to call it as they see it.
Lunar Design's John Downing, Dan Senatore, Max Yoshimoto and others are more technology/product oriented: they favor first-person reports from within Lunar and interviewing with other companies' representatives.
The knowing crone and the young hunters: the latter are hip to changes on the design landscape, the former divines deeper meanings. Try 'em both. Design Matters is available as a stream via Sterling Brands or you can do a search for it on Apple's iTunes. You can subscribe to Icon-o-Cast from the Icon-o-Cast Podcast website and also via iTunes. They're now among our links.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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Three Major Designed Experiences Open on LA's Westside
Residents of the Westside, where I live (LA from West Hollywood to Santa Monica, including West LA), have a wonderful opportunity to easily taken in three intentional design experiences, all opening this month: the Nomadic Museum designed by Shigeru Ban and constructed of containers and tents in the Santa Monica Pier parking lot, showing "Ashes and Snow" by Gregory Colbert; "Dark Places," an exhibition produced by servo at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (a Westside urban treasure); and the Getty Villa, housing the classical portion of the Getty art collection in a grand faux Roman mansion in Malibu.
Though different in content and treatment, each is groundbreaking, controversial (especially the Getty, the object of various overseas and domestic investigations into the theft of Classical art objects), and designed to provide unique, pure experiences (not brand-related) to visitors and participants. Sadly, you'll be visiting the Getty in March or April unless you have pull and can sidestep the online ticket dispenser. Admission is inexpensive or free for each experience.
I hope to get interviews with each experience's designers for future entries to TE. Meanwhile, if you're local or visiting -- get experienced, three ways.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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Mark Vanderbeeken's new blog, Putting people first
Mark Vanderbeeken, a communications strategist and co-founder of the new experience-design consulting group, Experientia s.r.l., is now publishing an excellent new blog, Putting people first, about experience design in our social milieu. Mark, who is Belgian and an alumnus of Interaction Design Institute IVREA, is located in Turin, Italy (host of next month's 2006 Winter Olympics, if you haven't heard by now). He and his colleagues put a uniquely Continental twist on the meaning and practice of experience design. I've added Vanderbeeken's blog and company to our links.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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Adam Richardson's new blog and his recent article on ED gone wrong.
Kudos to frog product strategist Adam Richardson's new personal blog. It offers a delightful combination of insight, humor, strategy expertise, and a commendably broad definition of experience design. Adam describes himself as "a product strategist, working at the intersection of physical, digital, and service products with brand, user experiences, user insights, and cultural trends." Anyone so eclectic deserves an equally eclectic audience. (I'm adding him to our links.)
Adam has some pithy and pertinent observations on experience designs that are wrong or go wrong, with unforeseen consequences. ("We have met the enemy and he is us," said Pogo.) He offers welcome proscriptive advice in "Managing User Experience Performance."
Adam's article is a good read. I can't wait for Parts 2 and beyond. Meanwhile, there's more good stuff to read on his blog.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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January 11, 2006
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'Beyond Immersive' Disney Experience
Well-written, intelligent, and even successful at the age of 19, the journalling of this bright individual who has dedicated a year (because he can) to a total Disney experience is insightful. There's much to be gained from the simple determination of this 'virgin' entrepreneur.
posted by Paula Thornton |
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January 9, 2006
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Did You Want Service With That?
Calling attention to a great BrandChannel piece that outlines recent experiences with the US Postal Service (or the US Postal "non-"Service). Spurred on by the piece, additional thought lead me to reflect on what hasn't been done. A good percentage of the US Postal Service customers can and would self-serve with more automated equipment in the halls, but the majority of postal stations do not offer scales in the halls and other equipment to support self-serve scenarios. Does the US Postal Service even 'know' what the breakdown of typical customer services are — to further determine which of the highest-valued activities should be the focus of a self-serve initiative? Anyone at USPS care to chime in?
posted by Paula Thornton |
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December 4, 2005
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LOG launches in LA.
Log Magazine is a new journal from the publishers of Any, examining all aspects of the built environment, particularly its political and cultural dimensions.
Tonight, LA Forum is featuring the publishers at a Chinatown event. -- Bob Jacobson
Sunday, December 4, 2005, 5pm on
The Mountain Bar, Chinatown
Please join the Forum together with co-editors Cynthia Davidson and
Denise Bratton in celebrating the holiday season and the Los Angeles
launch of Log 6 at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown, Sunday evening,
December 4, 2005, from 5 on.
Festivities will include free Dim Sum + (not free, but inexpensive
and great) no host bar. Cynthia Davidson will talk briefly about the
birth of Log in the aftermath of Any magazine and the Any
conferences. We will be joined by a number of Log collaborators from
Los Angeles and San Diego, including Forum President Kazys Varnelis,
Teddy Cruz, Tom Gilmore, Craig Hodgetts, Wes Jones, Bruna Mori,
Florencia Pita, and newly appointed director of the Canadian Centre
for Architecture Mirko Zardini.
Come celebrate the holidays, another great year of the LA Forum, and
the launch of Log 6.
posted by Bob Jacobson |
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November 3, 2005
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How Hot Is It?
While it might not necessarily be a commercially viable winner, the ‘approach’ to stepping outside the box to consider representing water with changing color to imply temperature is fascinating subject matter:
http://mocoloco.com/archives/001233.php
** Paula **
posted by Paula Thornton |
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September 7, 2005
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Minimize Choice/Change
"Basically, I find that successful innovations tend to minimize the behavior change they demand of consumers."
While the preponderance of the article focuses on research related to too much choice, I found the most telling statement was the one above from the end of the article "When Product Variety Backfires" (Harvard Business School newsletter, may require registration).
The quote supports observations I've made that as we're designing 'new' stituations to replace 'existing' ones, we have to seriously assess those things that are valued in the current environment and find ways to carry those across to the new situation to minimize the "unfamiliarity" impact and decrease resistance.
"Miminimizing the change gap" is a critical axiom for our work, particularly where the design is for something other than entertainment.
** Paula **
posted by Paula Thornton |
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June 17, 2005
Blink ›
From Bricks to Clicks
"The Internet industry was leading to its own demise. You have to embrace, not oppose, the industry to lead to change. People aren't going to listen to you unless you're part of their world and you appreciate it."
Check out the rest of this great article on the evolution of the Internet as a serious marketing medium and the people who influenced it: Commercial Success (Fast Company)
**Paula**
posted by Paula Thornton |
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April 25, 2005
Blink ›
Resurrecting the Past
There are some conditions for which I know I wished that I could look at a Web site at a particular time in the past. Go figure. Someone has captured a good portion of that history. They call it the Wayback Machine.
While load times can be considerably long (the volumes of the history of so many sites and so many changes over time must be horrendous), it's worth the wait. What struck me the most was seeing evolutionary changes that were worse rather than better.
Keep this reference. You may find the perfect use for it when you least expect it: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
**Paula**
posted by Paula Thornton |
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April 19, 2005
Blink ›
On Being Different
In the days of early Web design, it was fairly easy to focus on differentiation — finding ways in which to make yet another broadband provider stand out from another, and the like. But differentiation is still a major source of financial growth for companies, one that is often overlooked or ignored through unintentional apathy (lack of attention).
The potential for our discipline is that effecting such differentiation will be inherently aligned to changing experiences for the customer and the way employees do their job. A great comprehensive example of this was the remaking of Progressive Insurance, as captured in a late '90's article in Fast Company. This article highlights many of the fundamental process changes instituted and how Progressive radically changed the channels they operated in. [Anyone else notice that the best articles still today came out of Fast Company in the late '90s?] Progressive takes this one step further by featuring their own story of innovation on their site (one of those many simple things that businesses consistently fail to follow through on). They also celebrate the small detail that they've been using the Web as part of their channel strategy for 10 years (not to diminish the radical process changes that differentiates them from the competition and continues to contribute to their success today).
**Paula**
posted by Paula Thornton |
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April 15, 2005
Blink ›
Seeking Balance
"Balance is a design problem -- a matter of coming to terms with your values and priorities, of reckoning with the trade-offs that they require."
Interesting. Assessing values and priorities has always been at the top of my list of activities for conducting a design evaluation. It's our job to help those who face this decision point, to make it something other than a 'self-help' experience. Read more at Fast Company. **Paula**
posted by Paula Thornton |
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April 13, 2005
Blink ›
Effective Feedback Loops
Science teaches us that the strongest mechanism for keeping something the 'fittest' (read: best performing, competitive-edge) is through effective feedback loops.
The most effective use of feedback loops is seen throughout the pages of the Administaff site (a corporate outsourced HR service provider). One particularly brilliant feedback mechanism can be found buried in their "Talent Sphere Academy" (a mechanism for self-development, apparently the result of another outsourcing connection).
While their site designs are liberally threaded with comments for "How are we doing?", tucked at the bottom of the pages in this section are two logos:
 
Clicking on either of these launches a feedback form that announces that by submitting the feedback, an audio sound will be broadcast to their employees -- and a sample of the sound can be played.
That's a Total Experience. **Paula**
posted by Paula Thornton |
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February 1, 2005
Blink ›
Going for the Simple
The current version of Business 2.0 includes a short collection of products featured in a piece called Clever by Design. Two that I think capitalize on very 'simple' value-add dimensions through the innovative use of technology are:
* The new portable self-heating, self-contained beverage (by OnTech, check out the video that describes how the design works)
* The new germproof refrigerator (by Samsung, who doesn't rate getting a link to their site, because they were too shortsighted to realize that people might actually go to their site looking for the new refrigerator -- no where to be found -- or that they might search for the term nanoscale, as in "nanoscale silver", the term used in the article to identify the germ-fighting approach)
Now if they could just understand that the experience doesn't begin or end with the product itself. **Paula**
posted by Paula Thornton |
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January 13, 2005
Blink ›
Baby I Love Your Way
 Selling kids products to the parents as well as the kid goes way back, certainly that was the point of the sophisticated humor found in Sesame Street, for example. Here's one that may surprise you: music you know and love, recorded in a lullaby style, suitable for a baby. It has elements of Muzak to it, but the presentation is something else. Also check out the whole collection (Punk Rock Baby, Hip Hop Baby, and more).
(posted by Steve Portigal)
posted by Steve Portigal |
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Blink ›
The Experience of Airlines
Check out this story from NPR's Fresh Air, where they talk with Scott McCartney who writes the "The Middle Seat" for the WSJ. He considers so many aspects of the user experience of air travel, from purchase to the myriad of in-airport experiences, to comfort and ergonomics, to food, and beyond. Good stuff.
(posted by Steve Portigal)
posted by Steve Portigal |
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Blink ›
Martijn van Welie
Remember the name ("ij" and all). This guy is quietly making a fabulous contribution to the interactive design industry. His site, www.welie.com, comes with the byline, "...patterns in Interaction Design". While that in itself might not be significant, on his home page he invites you to notify him if anything appears to be missing.
At the time, I had stumbled onto his site looking for calendaring/events samples. He didn't have any, so I did my own research. I prepared a 'report' to serve as a guide for my visual design colleague and forwarded that report to Marijn. I know what my report looked like, it was nothing like the results he came up with in just a short period of time (see Event Calendar pattern).
The bottom line here is, anyone and everyone who finds themselves doing some research on a 'best practice' idea, send what you find to Martijn -- he'll do something valuable with it. **Paula**
posted by Paula Thornton |
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January 1, 2005
Blink ›
Contact Broker
Take control of your contact experiences this year -- use a contact broker. The differentiator here is that email sender addresses are validated for you and you don't have to go to the hosting site to manage your messages. It does exactly what a broker should do, handle the tough stuff and deliver the goods.
During the introductory period, register your unique i-name for 50 years ($25). Check out the interaction interface...=iknovate **Paula**
posted by Paula Thornton |
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December 31, 2004
Blink ›
Postcards From the Beach
The stark contrast of the 'before' and 'after' of the beaches in Singapore are brilliantly captured in a personal "Christmas Tsunami Movie".
I was particularly struck by the sound of the birds. Eventually, their chirpings returned as if a marked signal to move forward again. Simple, it brilliantly brings us closer to the experience we were so far removed from. It also causes us to reflect on what we consider significant, as we prepare for the new year. **Paula**
posted by Paula Thornton |
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December 8, 2004
December 3, 2004
Blink ›
What Makes People Happy?
The NYT reports on a new study that challenges conventional wisdom about what daily activities make people the happiest.
(posted by Steve Portigal)
posted by Steve Portigal |
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