Mobile as the new old

For me, this was the first MEX where ‘mobile’ – understood as a device alone – started to feel traditional and old. From the outset in 2005, the heart of the MEX community has always been in the mobile technology industry, but it feels like we’re evolving to a new understanding of digital experiences, where to constrain them within a single class of device – mobile phones – would exclude a much wider set of possibilities.

Expanding the interaction canvas

Ghislaine Boddington of body>data>space challenged why our interface with the digital world should be limited to the tiny fraction of skin on our fingertips and asked us to instead consider the whole body as an interaction canvas. It left me wondering what new types of experience might become possible when they are controlled, and able to respond, through the entire body?

For all the unease it created, it was impossible to ignore Google Glass. It was referenced by almost every MEX speaker. It was telling, however, that even at an event as close to the cutting edge of technology as MEX, participants were skeptical of Glass’ ability to succeed outside niche bubbles where looking like a cyborg is acceptable. Perhaps Oli Shaw of Fluxx and Lennart Andersson of Veryday came closest to accurately predicting Google Glass’ near future by identifying scenarios where the social context already permits headwear, such as industrial work environments and sporting activities?

Who has forgotten the user in user experience?

Surrounded by the wonders of technology, it is easy to forget that interpreting human behavioural nuances is the starting point of successful user experience. The stories shared by Lee Duddell of WhatUsersDo, Melody Quintana of Facebook, Dr Leo Poll of Akendi and Priya Prakash of Design for Social Change were a powerful reminder of two things. Firstly, the rapidly expanding UX industry has a ‘dirty secret’: most UX projects are actually conducted without the benefit of anything but the most basic user research. Secondly, there is a rich seam of insight waiting to be tapped by those who widen user research beyond a single team, employ more than one methodology and never stop thinking of new ways to get closer to really understanding behaviour.

I’m glad we were able to initiate a new Pathway – #17 Insight – to improve user research. The Pathway team, facilitated by Lee Duddell, made tangible progress. Their suggestion of combining quantitative and qualitative testing results into a single timeline, accessible to and meaningful for everyone from designers to senior management, felt like a realistic and achievable new approach. Combined with new channels for user feedback, their proposal addressed both parts of the challenge: creating new ways of understanding users and presenting results in a way which resulted in better design decisions.

Better user research and using it to make better decisions is fundamental to improving digital experiences. It is only going to get more complex as services expand across multiple touchpoints, and – as Simon Judge identified – require the combined skills of more designers and developers than ever. Today’s user research methods are inadequate and under-utilised. Any progress which can be made in this area will be an enabler for advances in many others. It should be first priority.

Seamless utility and immersive experience

Looked at in aggregate, there seemed to be a polarisation of the digital experiences discussed at MEX. Some, such as Yuli Levtov’s Reactify, Ghislaine Boddington’s installations and Paul Bennun‘s and Nicky Birch’s Papa Sangre were designed as immersive activities in themselves. Others, like Victor Szilagyi’s ideas of automotive mobility transforming into a service, were clearly intended as utilities.

There is no shame in recognising an experience for what it is: a background activity, something users simply want to get done. Sometimes the best you can aim for is to make it as forgettable as possible for the user. There is unlikely to ever be a moment of magic in, say, the mundane activity of paying a bill. Indeed, trying to make something more memorable than a user wants is often a recipe for unwanted complexity. Context aware techniques, discussed by several speakers, including Jon Mann of Artefact, showed how new levels of convenience could be delivered through every day technology.

However, there were also inspiring examples at MEX which showed a class of experience neither utility or video game, but something more. These were creative endeavours which extend our senses of touch, sight and sound, imbuing users with an ability to edit their world through digital means.

Editing the world

If the first generation of mobile technology has allowed users to consume digital content and annotate what they see through a viewfinder, the next looks set to turn what we see, hear and feel into a creative canvas we can adjust through digital means. Jon Mann raised the idea of technology providing ‘super powers’ and this doesn’t feel far off.

‘Mobile’ as a term is evolving in itself. It was telling that the group on form factor innovation, facilitated by Lennart Andersson, found themselves exploring companion devices capable of independent movement and reporting back on journeys of their own without being tethered to the pocket or human hand.

The working session on Diffusion, facilitated by Alex Guest and Sam Dunne, came away from 4 intense hours of creation with an experience that used just a single mobile screen – every other digital element (and there were many) was embedded into the fabric of their user’s life.

Craft skills for a digital age

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino of Designswarm showed that mobile devices don’t need screens to deliver meaningful, even emotionally charged, digital experiences. The detailed tooling and seamless connectivity of her Good Night Lamps highlighted an important point: finessed, beautiful experiences are created through a craftperson’s knowledge of materials, be they digital or otherwise.

The rise of the senses

Perhaps this was the strongest impression of all I took away from MEX? The assumption that digital design will be forever dominated by screens seems to be changing. Indeed, on the evidence of two days at MEX, it is not hard to imagine a time when visual elements will be a relatively minor part of a design practitioner’s day and a new toolkit of skills will be needed: skills that are today found in the world of audio, electronics, sculpture, live performance, fashion and art.

The next MEX is on 24th – 25th September 2013. Tickets are available today. There are also opportunities for speakers and sponsors.

Thank you to those involved in the ongoing efforts before, during and after the event: the participants, speakers, facilitators and Brunel team. Also, to our sponsors ICTKTN, CIKTN and Qualcomm for having the vision to support this endeavour.

Thanks to Alex Vissaridis for the photos (and MEX booklet).

Summary

Jason DaPonte came to MEX in December 2010 to explore the evolution of storytelling in a multi-touchpoint digital environment. In addition to leading several early MEX working sessions on this theme as part of Pathway #2, Jason formerly led editorial for the BBC’s mobile channels. He went on to found his own agency, Enter The Swarm, pioneering new approaches to multi-touchpoint digital experiences. His MEX Session shares examples and techniques.

The next MEX is in London on 26th – 27th March 2013. Register for one of the last few tickets (£1499) before they sell out.

30 MEX Sessions in 30 days

This video is published as part of the special ‘30 MEX Sessions in 30 days‘ series, where we are sharing a new MEX video every day every weekday at 08:00 London time in the build up to the next MEX in London.

Follow @mexfeed on Twitter to get notifications each time a video is published or add the RSS feed using the links in the right-hand side bar. Watch the full collection of videos here.

Summary

Sofia Svanteson returned to MEX in December 2009 to share ideas on the creative process for digital user experience. Sofia is a pioneer in digital creativity, having worked with Razorfish in the early days of the dotcom era, before founding her own agency – Ocean Observations – one of the first and most acclaimed specialists in crafting mobile experiences. Her 2009 MEX Session – one of several contributions she has made to MEX over the years – focuses on different approaches to creativity, addressing questions about leadership style. She offers particular insight into how process evolves as agencies break outside sector specialisms, such as mobile, and expand into multi-touchpoint digital experiences across TV, PC and embedded systems.

The next MEX is in London on 26th – 27th March 2013. Register for one of the last few tickets (£1499) before they sell out.

30 MEX Sessions in 30 days

This video is published as part of the special ‘30 MEX Sessions in 30 days‘ series, where we are sharing a new MEX video every day every weekday at 08:00 London time in the build up to the next MEX in London.

Follow @mexfeed on Twitter to get notifications each time a video is published or add the RSS feed using the links in the right-hand side bar. Watch the full collection of videos here.

Some of the most innovative sensory interactions can be found in gaming devices. Gaming is ahead of the curve compared with regular consumer devices for the following reasons:

• It is better suited to novel, challenging control where you are rewarded for skill and progressive learning is part of the attraction.
• Users tend to be totally focused on the task of gaming.
• Game controllers can get away with being heavy or oddly shaped.

Great games systems can deliver a deeply emotional user experience. An entire games system can be built around a novel interaction (e.g. Wii or Kinect). In other consumer devices, it is likewise tempting to put interaction centre-stage as a key selling point of the product. This is understandable given the additional design and engineering effort required to build multi-sensory experiences. But history has repeatedly shown that, such novel interactions must quietly and intuitively blend into the greater purpose of the product.

One common situation that can benefit from non-screen interactions is navigation. A user finding his or her way in a busy, sometimes loud, public space, will be distracted by the surroundings. This is a totally different context from a gaming system or TV at home, the user needs clear, private feedback and simple, forgiving control. Google’s Field Trip app applies these principles in an interesting and subtle way: when you are near an interesting location, it alerts you with a vibration, then briefly describes the location in your headphones.

Sensation has been on the MEX agenda for a while, in particular when used to supplement ‘inhibited activities’, when the user isn’t fully focused on the screen. At the MEX Event in September 2012, Charlotte Magnusson presented Haptimap: a set of tools and guidelines for developing multi-modal navigation systems (watch the video of her MEX Session here). Sophie Arkette experimented with audible and haptic feedback devices to give financial traders an edge on the trading floor – she found that quite rich information and alerts could be transmitted if preceded by a ‘meta signal’ to prepare the user.

But tools and principles are not enough, we need design decision makers who are able to think in these additional dimensions of sound, feeling and gesture. The growing realisation that there is life beyond the screen will hopefully encourage designers to dust off their physical interaction skills (I know you learnt them at uni!) and take on the challenge of creating more meaningful sensory experiences.

The work of the MEX initiative continues in this area next week at our March 2013 MEX event, where several speakers will address Pathway #9 and a working session will explore multi-sensory tools which allow audible, haptic and visual interactions to be prototyped in the same environment. Other questions to be explored included:

1. Have today’s smooth, glass touchscreens caused designers to forget the senses of sound and tactility in interaction sequences?
2. Which digital experiences are uniquely enabled through audible and tactile elements?
3. Which sounds and feelings are innately suited to digital interaction? Is there a need for common palettes of audible and tactile elements?
4. How should visual, tactile and audible elements adapt in response to changes in the ambient environment? How should the priority afforded different senses change in response to context?
5. Does the success of audible and tactile interactions increase when users have been alerted to expect them?
6. How can design process evolve towards parity for audible, tactile and visual elements?

The next MEX is in London on 26th – 27th March. Register for the last remaining tickets (£1499) here.

Summary

Sian Townsend, at the time a user experience researcher with Google, spoke at MEX in May 2009 on mobile user experience in the emerging markets of Africa. 2009 was a time when hundreds of millions of users in developing countries were joining mobile networks for the first time and Google set out to understand what the concept of ‘search’ meant for these customers. Sian shares the results of research examining the questions people asked the first time they were able to connect to the web, providing a remarkable picture of users’ life priorities, which went on to shape Google’s approach to digital experience in these markets.

The next MEX is in London on 26th – 27th March 2013. Register for one of the last few tickets (£1499) before they sell out.

30 MEX Sessions in 30 days

This video is published as part of the special ‘30 MEX Sessions in 30 days‘ series, where we are sharing a new MEX video every day every weekday at 08:00 London time in the build up to the next MEX in London.

Follow @mexfeed on Twitter to get notifications each time a video is published or add the RSS feed using the links in the right-hand side bar. Watch the full collection of videos here.

Summary

Oren Horev, at the time a user experience strategist for Plan, spoke at MEX in May 2010. He shared the results of an ethnographic study into the mobile user experience of ‘van man’, a colloquial term in British society for the legion of delivery drivers and tradesman who drive tens of thousands of miles each year in their white-coloured vans. Horev draws lessons from the ethnographic results, explaining how it prompted new thinking about multi-touchpoint digital experiences and how they could be delivered in the users’ working environment.

The next MEX is in London on 26th – 27th March 2013. Register for one of the last few tickets (£1499) before they sell out.

30 MEX Sessions in 30 days

This video is published as part of the special ‘30 MEX Sessions in 30 days‘ series, where we are sharing a new MEX video every day every weekday at 08:00 London time in the build up to the next MEX in London.

Follow @mexfeed on Twitter to get notifications each time a video is published or add the RSS feed using the links in the right-hand side bar. Watch the full collection of videos here.

Summary

Jason Mesut used his December 2010 MEX Session to prompt new thinking about physical controls, touch interfaces and mobile device form factors, inspired by his love of music making tools. Jason traces the development of music making interfaces and identifies where lessons could be learnt for digital design, challenging participants to think beyond flat, glassy touchscreens as the endpoint of mobile form.

The next MEX is in London on 26th – 27th March 2013. Register for one of the last few tickets (£1499) before they sell out.

30 MEX Sessions in 30 days

This video is published as part of the special ‘30 MEX Sessions in 30 days‘ series, where we are sharing a new MEX video every day every weekday at 08:00 London time in the build up to the next MEX in London.

Follow @mexfeed on Twitter to get notifications each time a video is published or add the RSS feed using the links in the right-hand side bar. Watch the full collection of videos here.

Summary

Mattias Andersson, an interaction designer for Swedish agency Ocean Observations at the time, came to MEX in December 2010 to give a ground breaking presentation on the role of 3D in mobile user experience. It was a time when 3D televisions were emerging strongly and the first mobile displays which could project 3D without the need for special glasses were emerging. Mattias’ practical and in-depth session highlighted the difference between 3D and visual depth, and brought a refreshing dose of reality to how consumers actually perceive depth and perspective.

The next MEX is in London on 26th – 27th March 2013. Register for one of the last few tickets (£1499) before they sell out.

30 MEX Sessions in 30 days

This video is published as part of the special ‘30 MEX Sessions in 30 days‘ series, where we are sharing a new MEX video every day every weekday at 08:00 London time in the build up to the next MEX in London.

Follow @mexfeed on Twitter to get notifications each time a video is published or add the RSS feed using the links in the right-hand side bar. Watch the full collection of videos here.

It is human nature to satisfy the immediate desire for the latest gadget or continuing a comfortable commuting routine when an alternative like riding a bike would do both you and the environment some good.

This makes it impossible to consider how digital experiences can help sustainable living without first considering how design can respond to, or change, customer behaviour.

It is an issue MEX has been examining for some time in Pathway #7, starting with a May 2011 working session facilitated by Franco Papeschi (watch the video of his related presentation). The impetus for this Pathway arose in user research, where we found customers choosing products which reflected their desire for a more sustainable life in several industries – automotive, travel and food – but a dearth of such options in the digital world.

Our explorations are focused in two areas:

1. The potential for digital to facilitate sustainable living
2. Improving the sustainability of digital products and services

Sustaining digital

The second is perhaps the simpler of the two. Consumers buy a new mobile device, on average, every 17 months. Every purchase has an environmental cost in extracting and processing the materials, generating sufficient energy for manufacture and then delivering the product to the customer. In addition, there is the risk of the old device being sent to landfill, thereby contributing to pollution.

The obvious answer is to extend the replacement cycle. What would happen if consumers replaced their mobile devices every, say, 10 years instead of every 17 months?

We posed this question at a previous MEX and the look of fear in the eyes of mobile veterans was clear to see. If users were to change their habits overnight and keep their phones for 10 years, the industry would collapse. Every aspect of the business is currently built around this replacement cycle. It defines the supply chain and sales model.

However, what if – for a moment – we ignore accepted commercial wisdom and try to imagine what a device built to last 10 years would feel like, and how it could be economically viable?

Immediately there are questions about durability. How do you think 10 years of constant use would affect a handset commonly sold today – a Samsung Galaxy, for instance? Given the materials currently employed and the way it is manufactured, would it still be something you’d want in your pocket after 10 years of knocks, scratches and drops? Would it even be functioning?

Users have also been conditioned to associate obtaining new features with buying a new device. In user research, one of the first questions people ask about keeping a device for 10 years is how they will gain access to new capabilities and not be ‘left behind’.

It might be possible to make device hardware more modular, allowing individual components, like camera and screen, to be upgraded without having to replace the whole product. It is an attractive concept, but more research would be needed into whether, once the manufacture and delivery of these individual components is factored in, the total lifecycle of a modular hardware device was significantly more sustainable than that of the existing model.

There would certainly need to be more emphasis on continuing enhancements through software. As a result, there would be a knock on effect on the culture of software creation, where developers would need to consider how they could build services capable of running on a much wider range of hardware specifications, so that their apps could function on a 10 year old device, just as well as the latest model.

There is no precedent for this in digital. Vertu, the luxury handset manufacturer founded by Nokia, attempted it in the early days, promising users they would be able to keep the same handset shell, often crafted from precious metals like gold and platinum, but upgrade to the latest screens and cameras as they came out. However, this approach seems to have quietly faded from Vertu’s marketing over the years.

It is still theoretically possible with some PCs, with modular memory, processor and disk upgrades, but in practice more and more manufacturers are moving to slimmer, smaller designs that are hard to modify.

Instead, we must look outside of the digital world for inspiration. Take bicycles, for instance (an example we’re fond of at MEX – see also Andrew Muir Wood’s analogy with mobile device form factors). It is possible today for any amateur equipped with a few basic tools and some patience to fit the latest gears and brakes to a bicycle frame from 20 years ago. When components wear out (and, in places like the UK with wet winters and lots of mud, they often do), users can buy new ones from a wide range of sources, and either fit them at home or have a local bike shop do the work.

The upfront costs of the average bike and a mobile device are of a similar magnitude, yet customers are able to keep bikes for much longer because they can easily repair and improve them. The bicycle industry has facilitated this by designing products which are intended to be upgradeable, keeping fittings relatively standardised and supporting a network of third party suppliers and service centres.

Dame Ellen MacArthur, who made her name as a record breaking sailor, now heads a foundation which promotes this ‘circular’ approach to product design and sustainable industry. The underlying principle is that no product should be created without first considering how it might be recycled, upcycled or maintained.

MacArthur’s Foundation points out that, correctly managed, such an approach could increase medium term economic gains as well as ensuring long-term sustainability. However, for the mobile industry to operate in this way, it would need to completely rethink the current business model, where manufacturers make money only when they ship a new box full of plastic and metal. Instead, it would require an approach where manufacturers built a long-term relationship with consumers, making money from providing upgrades, service and support over a much longer device lifecycle.

Digital sustainability

Setting aside the sustainability of digital devices themselves, there is also the question of how technology is enabling humans to live more efficiently. The first benefit is so obvious that it is often overlooked: mobile phones have all but eliminated distance as a barrier to communication. The travel miles saved by being able to converse with anyone, anywhere, without physically being together has already made a significant difference.

There are also obvious and direct benefits in technology which provides more control over major consumers of energy such as heat and lighting, either domestically or in commercial buildings. It is now possible to control all of these things from a connected mobile device, although such deployments remain niche for the time being.

More subtle gains are being made because access to information is allowing users to make more sustainable choices. Devices equipped with Google Maps, for instance, provide a level of automated public transport planning unheard of just a couple of years ago. Google Maps on iOS can show me how to walk from my house in a tiny village, connect with a rural bus service and plan my train connections to almost any city in the UK in a matter of seconds. Not having to own stacks of timetables and maps can make the difference between using these options and falling back on the convenience of jumping in the car.

It won’t be long before users can scan the packaging of food products to find out exactly how far the produce has travelled, where it was grown and its nutritional benefits. There are already applications, like DriveGain (presented at a previous MEX by Simon East – video), which can monitor your driving style and suggest ways to save money and fuel. Further developments in this area will be ushered in by products like Automatic, which integrates directly with your car’s computer systems to provide even more detailed advice.

However, although all of these things are being made possible by greater connectivity and smart mobile devices, the number of users who have sustainability as their primary motivation remains low. The impetus usually comes from more immediate priorities. Simon East explained how the user research for DriveGain guided them towards a UX strategy which prioritised the financial benefits of driving more efficiently and simplified complex sustainability ratings into a clearer indication of whether the users was doing better or worse.

Employing language which communicates immediate benefits to users is just as important as the underlying technology. It is here that the skill of the UX designer comes to the fore. The most successful examples will identify obvious user benefits that also happen to lead to more sustainable ways of living. The difference might be as simple as presenting energy savings in financial units rather than more technically precise measures of emissions reductions.

At the March 2013 MEX we will be pushing further into this area, looking at techniques for guiding users towards a more sustainable life, and more sustainable digital tools. Some of the questions to be examined include:

1. Is the contemporary nature of digital experiences incompatible with the more patient values of sustainable products? How can an industry reliant upon constant replacement cycles embrace a more sustainable approach?
2. How might the design of digital products evolve in a future where sustainable and premium are synonymous?
3. To what degree can digital experiences influence users to live more sustainably? In which areas of life are these applications likely to emerge first?
4. How can users track and measure sustainable behaviour in units relevant to their lives?

The next MEX is in London on 26th – 27th March. Register for the last remaining tickets (£1499) here.

Summary

Nicholas Wheeler came to MEX in December 2011 to share his view on the evolution of media in an age of multi-touchpoint digital experiences. With more than 30 years in the industry, including running radio stations and building some of the first video news services for mobile devices, Nicholas’ brings a unique understanding to what drives media usage and what new forms might emerge in the future.

The next MEX is in London on 26th – 27th March 2013. Register for one of the last few tickets (£1499) before they sell out.

30 MEX Sessions in 30 days

This video is published as part of the special ‘30 MEX Sessions in 30 days‘ series, where we are sharing a new MEX video every day every weekday at 08:00 London time in the build up to the next MEX in London.

Follow @mexfeed on Twitter to get notifications each time a video is published or add the RSS feed using the links in the right-hand side bar. Watch the full collection of videos here.