Prediction For 2009 #1: The Rise Of The Presentation Layer

Blake Ross of Firefox fame once said, the next big thing is whatever made the last big thing more usable. I've always loved this quote and I think it's going to become even more important in 2009.

Innovation comes in many forms. Sometimes it's about creating an entirely new way of doing something but more and more, it's about creating new and innovative ways of experiencing something differently that is already there.

One of my favorite examples of this is Coolaris. What is it? According to their site, Coolaris:

"Transforms your browser into a lightning fast, cinematic way to discover the Web"


In practical terms it means anytime I view images on the web I can click on the that image and have an entirely new experience viewed through the Coolaris interface.

While this may seem trivial, what's been happening is that I mostly view my Google images searches through the lens of Coolaris. Why? Because I can browse the images much much faster and the visual experience is far more rich. What this means is that I no longer have my relationship with my search content with Google - their engine has become just that - an engine for where my real experience is happening - in the presentation layer with Coolaris. And due to this, Coolaris now has the opportunity to create an entirely new business as they are the ones controlling the interface I'm interacting with.

Coolaris isn't the only example. From products like Perceptive Pixel which I talked about here and that CNN used during the elections, or newer products like Boxee that present your multimedia content in a new way, it's how we experience content that presents the opportunity.

And as we are looking for richer experiences online, it will be businesses and brands that capitalize on that who could become the next big thing.

Innovative Project Management

As we evolve from traditional software development to experience innovation, the need for creative PMs that view the world through a lens that goes beyond simply an time on budget is mandatory. Found this presentation online that sums it up brilliantly.

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Designing Around Social Structures

I came across this quote from the architectural school at McGill:

"We design physical structures around social ones!"

What a great thought. And then I got to thinking:

Is this how most people design customer experiences? Or in fact, do they build websites and tack on "social features." Do most people try to understand the dynamics of networks and the edge or do they instead try to build "social media" strategies. Are they trying to figure out how to connect with customers (or facilitate customers connecting with each other) or are they trying to figure out their Web 2.0 strategy?

Designing physical structures around social ones means going far deeper than we ever have before to understand what is at the heart and soul of our customers needs. It means figuring out the whys and the seismic shifts that are affecting identity construction, culture and community.

I think that might be my mantra from now on.

"Build digital structures around social ones."

A sunny thought for a sunny Monday. :)

Retrieval: Cultural Lost & Found

As I read my brother's very interesting post on the history of the leather jacket in modern culture, it reminded me of the importance of 'retrival' both in user-centric strategy and design.

Dave's take on the importance of the "hide":

"Why is a hide important as a concept? Hide implies and imbues all the earliest conceptions of what leather is. Leather is a skin; the skin of an animal. We are hairless, clawless, toothless beings who took the hair, claws and teeth of the animals we feared and revered most and through creativity, invention and respect fashioned our own hair, claw and tooth. Protection from the elements, animals and each other were fundamental to the fashioning of leather jackets. That paradigm stretches far into the 1970s, where North American made leather jackets arguably reach the pinnacles of the representation of those instincts. Where jackets run a perfect gamut of utility meets fashion."

If we look at one of the core quadrants to Marshall Mcluhan's tetrad of media effects it the notion of retrieval. What does the medium bring back that was previously lost? In David's case as he begins to create this new couture vintage leather business, he is deeply rooted in what drives our basic desires and needs to own leather.

One doesn't have to look further than this as a concept to understand why traditional market research fails to uncover deep insights and rarely predicts accurately change. The sum of the parts rarely becomes a meaningful whole. Instead, we must look to things such a figure and ground to understand not only what is visible but what lies culturally and socially below even our own daily conscious to provide a foundation for strategy and design lost and found.

Ad Targetting & The Future Of Mybloglog

I just noticed a feature that Mybloglog has. The old, "What My Members Clicked on Other Sites Today." So couple things...Yahoo please, hire some copywriters. It sounds like something I would write if someone called me about a second before a site was to go live and they realized they forgot the title header - i know you don't write copy but pulllleeeaaaseeee...anything, just send through in email, don't worry i'll edit it i swear....


The more important point i would like to make: I get people are trying to unlock emergent value. Applause and encouragement. But don't launch something that has nothing to do with me. Apparently, the members of my community (granted the list is rather short) all care about home renovations today. Wow. Great. Glad to know.

The whole thing wreaks of trying to create an advertising platform and all i can see is the value to Yahoo. To successfully embrace the concept of emergence you have to understand that it is about VALUE EXCHANGE - it's about leveraging and encouraging a dynamic that has already been created. It isn't a top down discussion that says "dang, how can we make more money from mybloglog?."

Nice try Yahoo. But I would try again.

Hema Rocks

Man i just love great creative ideas....

go here

hema homepage

(now if only i could read and understand the text!)

It's Not The Brand, It's The Network Silly......

Ive been wanting to write a post on this for a long while but I've been having trouble articulating exactly what my issue is. And I do have an issue. Forrester came out and said that digital agencies aren’t positioned currently to be key brand strategic partners.

Why?

"The interactive agencies are in a position where all their staff is focused on executing on digital," he said. "They need people who understand that broader relationship between online and offline media."

Ok, so here is my beef. The relationship between offline and online media is only relevant if:

a. you are speaking about advertising
b. you are speaking to a target audience that even differentiates between offline and online (which is becoming a smaller and smaller segment of the population as the lines between virtual and real become completely blurred)

The key isn't offline and online - it isn't integrated 360 media, or convergence - it's about networked brands and understanding new and complex networked marketing models.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, digital has changed everything except how traditional advertising agencies build brands. A singular brand promise can be communicated in a 60 second TV spot or print ad. However, if you want to now extend that brand to be meaningful in a call centre, in retail, or on a corporate website, you need to dimensionalize it beyond one aspirational thought.

Similarly, marketing models need to account for the interrelationship of complex parts - the ecosystem approach that I have blithered on about for a while now.

Anyhow, it's sounding like a rant. Read this article (i've mentioned it before) about asking if ideas are too big for advertising and then add on to that, is it really about an 'idea' or is it really about building networked brands and networked marketing architectures that can then support that.

The Creation of Omission

CBC radio had an interview with a Jazz writer who was talking about the genius of the late Oscar Peterson. One comment that struck me was his reference to Oscar's ability to know when NOT to play and rather defer to the talents of others. It was this notion of his genius of omission that reminded me how important that is as well, for the creation of brilliant digital experiences.

It might be a fundamental principle of design to know when not to put to many elements on a page however, it remains one of the biggest struggles in the interactive space. By wanting to ensure we satisfy a myriad of business objectives and meet a host of customer needs, we end up cramming features and repeat navigation elements - often to the detriment of the overall user experience.

In an age where there is often too much information and too much choice, simplicity and focus can become a competitive advantage.

Apple has done this brilliantly and on the Web, Google was one of the first companies to take this approach in the search space and look how that turned out. Truth be told, if they had taken a traditional business approach to looking at their competition (Excite, Go, Yahoo) they might have felt compelled to create a crazy directory page.

The creation of omission - a great reminder - thanks again Oscar....

Communities of the Moment & The Role of Place

As we continue in our UCaPP world, digital experiences are becoming less solitary and much more about our interconnection with others - our collective experiences.

Collective consciousness isn't anything new and yet we have only begun to explore what its implications could mean for the creation of networked communications.

One idea that's been milling around in my head is the notion of communities of the moment. Groups that come together around an idea, subject or place but only for a short period of time.

Let me give an offline example that I started thinking about after I bumped into Bob Jacobson's book in progress referencing exemplary cases of experience design.

I went to the Viet Nam memorial for the first time on a Mother's day. If you haven't been there, next to the Yad Vashem in Israel, it was probably the most powerful memorial I have ever experienced. Seeing it in pictures cannot capture the experience of walking down the path and slowly having the wall with the names of the dead increase until you are practically drowning heads below them. Even more, the five minutes of the walk connects you not only to those names, but also to the individuals who are there with you - the hands on the wall, the mother day's cards and flowers, the veterans in their army garb.

What struck me in particular, was how connected I felt to all those other people, none of whom i knew, simply because they had been at the same place at the same time as me. For those five minutes, we were all having some sort of collective immersive experience.

I can't quite think of any digital experiences that have captured that. I realize probably comparing very emotional memorials is a bit of an unfair comparison, but still I wonder is something to the notion of creating communities of the moment?


*Mark if you have a direct link to a definition send it to me and I'll repost directly to you....

Update: link updated and Mark has given some great exerts in the comments...

Oooooo How Lovely

Treat yourself to a moment of design zen...

Click here.

Intelligent Sticky Notes?

Some very funky ideas and work from Pattie Maes and the Ambient Intelligence Group.

‘Quickies’ enrich the experience of using sticky notes by allowing them to be tracked and managed more effectively. The project explores how the use of RFID, Artificial Intelligence and ink recognition technologies can make it possible to create intelligent sticky notes that can be searched, located, can send reminders and messages, and more broadly, can help us to seamlessly connect our physical and digital worlds.

Have to say the intelligent sticky notes sounds very cool. I happen to be obsessed with sticky notes (stickies and sharpies!).

Quote Of The Week

Peter sent me this from A List Apart:

So what is web design?

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

Let’s repeat that, with emphasis:

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.


(i love the way he repeated it twice....goooooo Jeffrey Zeldman!)

It's Official: WPP Buys Blast Radius

“With its focus on creating interactive experiences with the customer at the core, Blast Radius will add a unique expertise to [WPP & Wunderman's] digital platform.”

For more read on.

Tag And Flow: Connecting The End Points

For oponia, we had a planning session with some really great ideas that came up for the enterprise space. Since we don't plan to focus our efforts there I thought I would put up the ideas in hopes that they spark some thoughts for other people developing applications.

The basis of the concept was merging tags with the concept of flow. What am I taking about?

Traditional business works hierarchically. We create project folders. And yet that mode of working doesn't necessarily help work flow across projects. How does one then accommodate enterprise 2.0 concepts of viewing things by ideas? Or type?

What if project folders automagically created tags? What if files did the same? What if people in your network automagically were tags as well? Couldn't you then search by project (if that's what you wanted) or also then across projects by idea or type? You could then even search by person.

Alfons liked the idea so much he put some initial screens together. One is the search screen and the other is the results. Of course, if everyone on the network is a node (which is the basis of the ucaster concept) we can do some things that others can't right yet.





Conceptually though the idea is that you can create a results page that is centered around a project (trad style), centered around an idea (enterprise 2.0 style) or centered around YOU (always the best style).

We still plan to implement some of the cool parts into the consumer product when we can get to it. I'd be interested in what people think.

update: R/WW has an intersting post on what the big players are thinking. Check it out...

The Experience IS The Product

A great article "The Experience is the product"

Some people think the product is more important than the experience.
And other's believe what I believe - that the product IS the experience...

"You press the button, we do the rest."
In 1888, an inventor named George Eastman designed, manufactured, and marketed a camera that changed not only photography, but consumer products—forever. Four years earlier, Eastman invented a new kind of film, roll film, that was much easier to handle than fragile photographic plates. Now, had Eastman taken a typical engineering approach to designing a camera that used roll film, he would have copied the typical camera of the time, just on a smaller scale, providing an incremental improvement on his predecessors. Instead, he focused on the experience he wanted to deliver, captured in his advertising slogan, "You press the button, we do the rest."

Digital Design Maoism: Jacob Nielson and Web 2.0

Apparently Jacob Nielson doesn't like Web 2.0 design.

He says:

"The idea of community, user generated content and more dynamic web pages are not inherently bad..., they should be secondary to the primary things sites should get right....The main criticism or problem is that I do not think these things are as useful as the primary things..."

I am all for good design. I just question who gets to decide what good design is. Usability? Sure, if things aren't usable what's the point. But I think if Jacob N had his way, all sites would look the same and behave the same way. Design Maoism if you ask me and I hate the idea.

Read for yourself and see what you think.

(oh and for where I got the title Digital Maoist go read this brilliant and contraversial article by John Lanier if you haven't read it called Digital Maoism and The Hazards of the New Online Collective)

Visual Shopping

Alfons showed me a site called browsegoods.com. Love the whole concept of visual shopping and appreciate what they were trying to do from a user experience perspective. Practically speaking though, doubt I would use it for too long. The cost of my time compared to the benefit of the visual shopping execution just didn’t seem worth it.

It's just in beta though so it will be interesting to watch.