Det er en udfordring at formidle kvalitative indsigter fra research- og analysearbejde på en overskuelig og let tilgængelig måde. Tætskrevne rapporter eller lange PowerPoint præsentationer tager ofte pusten fra folk, som i værste fald aldrig når frem til de væsentlige pointer. Derfor er der fordele ved at kommunikere visuelt, så afrapporteringerne eksempelvis udformes som fotoscenarier, videosekvenser eller billedfortællinger.

I et projekt vi netop har udført for Erhvervs- og Byggestyrelsen, afrapporterede vi en del af projektet i form af en billedfortælling. Første opgave bestod i at få skrevet et storyboard. En dramaturg gav os en masse gode tips til, hvordan et storyboard bygges op, og hvad man skal have på plads, inden historien flettes sammen. Eksempelvis er det en god idé at finde en præmis for historien – et slags bærende koncept for fortællingen. Fx blev DR’s tv-serie Rejseholdet skabt ud fra præmissen ”Man jagter et bæst, men fanger et menneske”. Desuden arbejde vi med et indledende anslag, hvor fortællingens univers og hovedtema anslås, og også med at udvælge enkelte bærende temaer for fortællingen. Næste skridt var visualisering af historien, og her var rådet fra dramaturgen at udarbejde nogle simple og abstrakte visualiseringer, som ikke nødvendigvis var bundet til konkrete handlinger og karakterer i fortællingen. Alt i alt en lærerig proces for, hvordan en større mængde af research data kan omdannes til en simpel fortælling, som på en hurtig måde får budskabet frem til målgruppen.

Udvalgt illustration fra billedfortællingen til Erhvervs- og Byggestyrelsen

Det kan imidlertid være en udfordring at afrapportere visuelt, hvis der ikke er en designer eller andre kreative kræfter tilknyttet projektet. Men der er heldigvis hjælp at hente. Evangeline Haughney, som arbejder for Adobes Experience Design team, har afrapporteret en række brugertest som tegneseriestriber. Hun anbefaler at bruge software programmet Comic Book Creator. Her kan man hurtigt stykke sin egen tegneserie sammen ved hjælp en række templates. Ifølge Evangeline Haughney er hendes afrapporteringer blevet et kæmpe hit, og det har været med til at sikre, at hendes research indsigter hurtigt spredes internt hos Adobe.

Eksempel på brugertest som afrapporteres i tegneserie-format hos Adobe

Der er efterhånden ingen tvivl om interessen for servicedesign. Onsdag mødte over hundrede repræsentanter fra offentlige og private virksomheder op til vores gå-hjem-møde om servicedesign.
 
Formålet med mødet var at give et bud på, hvad servicedesign er, og hvorfor det er interessant at investere ressourcer i design til at forbedre eksisterende services eller udvikle helt nye. Bidragsyderen, udover repræsentanter fra 1508, var Frank Petersen, marketingsdirektør og manden bag Jyske Banks omfattende redesign i 2006.
 
Hvad er servicedesign?
Indledningsvis fortalte partner i 1508 Mikkel Jespersen, at en service består af mange komponenter, og at det er vigtigt at holde dette for øje, når man skal designe en god serviceoplevelse. Når du fx skal rejse, er det ikke alene flyrejsen, men også oplevelsen i lufthavnen ved check in etc., som er afgørende for, om du i samlet set får en god oplevelse.  Servicedesign handler derfor om at designe de berøringspunkter, hvor brugeren møder en service (front Stage), men også at redesigne de bagvedliggende processer (back Stage). 

En veludtænkt eller designet service giver ikke alene en bedre brugeroplevelse, men også øget effektivitet, konkurrencefordele og i sidste ende en bedre bundlinje set fra et forretningsmæssigt perspektiv. 

Hvordan designer man en service?

Designantropolog Katja Øder fortalte, hvordan vi i 1508 arbejder både praktisk og metodisk med at designe en service. I første omgang handler det om at få identificeret, hvad der motiverer og giver mening for slutbrugerne af en given service, men også for de mennesker, som skaber servicen. Det sker ved hjælp af en eksplorativ tilgang, hvor forskellige etnografiske metoder bruges til at afdække både erkendte og uerkendte behov hos brugerne. På baggrund af researcharbejdet genereres ideer og koncepter for et fremtidigt serviceforløb, som løser de problemstillinger, som brugere oplever ved det eksisterende serviceforløb.

Katja kom med flere eksempler på servicedesignprojekter udarbejdet i 1508 regi, heriblandt et projekt for virk.dk, som har resulteret i økonomiske besparelser, som beløber sig op i et trecifret millionbeløb.   

Banken der udadtil lignede de andre, men som følte sig anderledes

Et andet interessant eksempel på, hvordan man kan arbejde med servicedesign, blev præsenteret af Frank Petersen, som er idémanden bag Jyske Banks omfattende redesign og repositionering af bankens brand. Der var tale om et tiltag, som ikke blot bestod af en dyr markedsføringskampagne, men også betød omfattende nytænkning af bankfilialerne med indføring af pengebar, kaffebar og fodboldbord i mødelokalerne, som forsøg på at nedbryde barrieren mellem kunde og bankrådgiver.

Det interessante ved Jyske Bank er, at banken selv varetog servicedesign processen, og at hele projektet blev igangsat på baggrund af en enkelt mands gode ide. En idé der udsprang af Frank Petersens dybdegående kendskab til bankens identitet og værdigrundlag - og ikke mindst en af god mavefornemmelse for, hvordan banken udover at kunne skabe en god kundeoplevelse også kunne differentiere sig afgørende fra hovedkonkurrenten, Danske Bank.

Projektet omfattede ikke involvering af slutbrugerne (front stage), som i 1508´s arbejdstilgang, men til gengæld blev der gjort et stort arbejde for at involvere bankens ansatte i projektet og gøre dem til centrale ambassadører for den nye serviceydelse, således at det nye koncept kunne forankres i organisationen. Ved udelukkende at tage udgangspunkt i Jyske Banks sande kultur og identitet (back stage), formåede Frank Petersen med andre ord at skabe en af de mest integrerede og succesfulde repositioneringer, som i årene efter også har nået internationale medier og business forskeres interesser.

Vi fik et humoristisk indblik i bankens vej fra en bank, som følte sig anderledes, men måske ikke så sådan ud, til en bank som i dag må sige, at være anderledes end Danmarks øvrige banker. 

Du kan se flere billeder fra arrangementer på flickr eller downloade præsentationerne om servicedesign og redesign af Jyske Bank. 

Sofie & Stine

Målet med årets New Media Days var at ”guide deltageren i udviklingen indenfor nye medier”. Overordnet må jeg sige, at konferencen kun i nogen grad levede op til denne målsætning. Mange af de indlæg jeg overværede, gennem den to dage lange konference, skuede lidt for meget bagud og havde mere fokus på status quo end den fremtidige udvikling (hvorfor er vi hvor vi er i dag? og hvordan kom vi her til?). Men i sig selv er New Media Days konceptet stærkt – det fungerer rigtigt godt som et fælles rum for inspiration og networking. Lyspunkterne er mange - særligt når man pludselig finder sig selv i en teoretisk diskussion om danske virksomheders åben/lukkethed i forhold til brugerinvolvering og markedsføring samt profitering af web 2.0. Jeg har fremhævet tre oplæg, der på den ene eller anden måde skilte sig ud fra mængden på årets konference.

‘We feel fine’
Det første oplæg jeg vil nævne er Jonathan Harris  der har udviklet konceptet: We feel fine  – en løbende on-line visualisering af klodens humør. Princippet bag We Feel Fine er, at et stykke software hele tiden scanner blogposts over hele kloden for sætninger, der inkluderer følgende ordlyd: ’I feel ’ og ’I am feeling ’. Programmet henter hele sætningen og får således også værdiladningen i sætningen fx sad, fine, happy etc.. Disse værdiladede ord samles i en database og visualiseres på forskellig måde. Ideen er sjov og konceptet omkring visualiseringen helt fantastisk – tænk at rå-data kan gøres så indbydende – men tjek det selv ud.

Et andet indslag jeg vil fremhæve var et nyt tiltag på konferencen inspireret af den japanske oplægsform: Pecha Kucha , hvor oplægsholderne fik 20 slides af hvert 20 s varighed og dermed samlet 6 min og 40 s. til at komme rundt om deres pointer. En formidlingstilgang der kan tiltale i en verden, hvor enkelt, kort og præcis formidling ofte er en mangelvare. Emnet for oplægget var unge og mediebrug, hvor seks oplægsholdere, i spændet fra den unge teenager selv, over ungdomsforskeren til reklamemanden, gav deres bud på hvordan medierne bruges i dag og i fremtiden samt hvorfor.

Branded Engagement
Morten Remmer fra bureauet Relate konkretiserede og eksemplificerede begrebet ’branded engagement’ i en on-line virkelighed. I sig selv er bevæggrunden for at arbejde med begrebet, at man som virksomhed vil knytte sine brugere/kunder tættere til sig ved at skabe et fx on-line oplevelsesrum, hvor de selv bidrager til udvikling og indhold. Dette ud fra en betragtning om en form for ’spill-over’ brandingeffekt og i sidste ende noget der kan ses på bundlinjen (enten via salg eller reklameindtægter). Eksempelvis kan nævnes on-line brandede experiences eller communities som Nike Plus  og Endomondo.com . Som eksemplerne viser, er der nogle typer af ‘branded engagement’ der ligger lige til højrebenet – det er ofte emner af kulturel karakter eller mere nicheorienterede emner med en iboende tradition for, at folk diskuterer og involverer sig  - fx sport og hobbys, design, musik, kunst, film mm. Det gør udfordringen desto større i forhold til andre produktområder som FMCG og services indenfor fx bank og forsikring. Udfordringer er der nok af, fx den måde virksomheder i dag er organiseret i forhold til traditionel en-vejs kommunikation på nettet samt i tanken om, at afgive kontrol og lade brugerne/kunderne komme helt ind til kernen af ens brand. En yderligere pointe er, at den måde ‘branded engagement’ ofte bruges på i dag, er baseret på, at brugerne kommer til dig i stedet for, at skabe oplevelsesrummet der hvor brugerne er (fx via embedded communities).

‘Serious Play’ is the title of the conference I recently attended in Pasadena, California. Is the title a paradox or does it actually make sense? To me it makes perfectly sense – that is, if serious equals values like: meaningful, absorbing and valuable.

After having interviewed his kids, John Hockenberry put it like this: “Play is so fun, that it’s serious!” In my ‘post-conference’ state of mind I will add to this: since being essential to our ability to learn, create and innovate, play is serious matter!

Consequently, I will claim that play is a seriously important part of the design process. Without knowing how to play, we will lack a crucial tool for creativity and for creating anything new and truly remarkable. To create new innovative and creatively splendid ideas, products or designs you may as well take playfulness quite serious!

During the conference ‘Serious Play’ was addressed from many different angles - from speakers of different professions to performers and musicians, during the workshops and as the theme for the evening parties.

Serious versus Solemn

Artist and Pentagram partner, Paula Scher took her outset in the distinction between the serious and the solemn. She emphasized the importance of changing focus before the serious, imperfect and explorative gets stuck in popularity and moves into the comfortable and all to perfect zone of ‘solemn’. Paula Scher further argued how you need to go places that you don’t know, where you can be a fool and where you can PLAY! Because this is where you learn and grow.

Role-play and prototyping

Among the featured speakers were also Tim Brown, President and CEO at IDEO, John Maeda, President-elect at Rhode Island School of Design and Charles Elachi Director at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, all of them integrating elements of play as an essential part of their professional careers.

In his presentation Tim Brown focused on tree aspects of the design process: exploration, building and role-play. All tree being an essential part of children’s games and their way of learning through play. He emphasized that in order to explore and be playful you need to feel trust. If not, you are not likely to take creative risks. Tim Brown emphasized the counter action between playfulness and seriousness and argued that play needs to have rules in order to be constructive – especially when playing in groups.

Tim Brown showed examples of how they have integrated these elements of play in the design processes at IDEO, providing the team with tools for generating and sharing ideas, for grasping form and functionality through building and prototyping and gaining insights and empathy through role-play.

John Maeda once again inspired through his engaging playful and experimenting approach and his ability to keep an open, creative mind. His design and art installations sparkes your curiosity and make you see things from a different angle - often adding a smile on your face. An example is his human computer installation, which showed how prototyping and role-play helped his students grasp the complexity of the computer. Finally he shared with the audience his concerns about how to fit unrestricted creativity into the academic world.

Charles Elachi gave a great example of how to keep a playful attitude in a complex context. Having worked as a principal investigator on a number of research and development studies and flight projects sponsored by NASA, Charles Elachi knows the value of innovative thinking, passion and imagination, - and seing some of the solutions for launching a satellite into space and make it land safely on a foreign planet, - you can tell that experimentation and creative thinking has been put into play!

Celebrating uniqueness and curiosity

(Photo © Matthew Barney; Gladstone Gallery)

Athlete and artist, Aimee Mullins, has a different motivation for being innovative and playful in order to affect her world. Aimee Mullins had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she was one year old. Being determined to live through her successes, Aimee Mullins shows how she used her obvious difference as a potential to opening up possibilities rather than constraining them. Wearing amputees she has learned to explore the fun of changing her personality – and her physical appearance.

Aimee Mullins has realized how we in childhood learn that differences are bad. Instead she encourages us to consider diversity as a quality that make us aware of our uniqueness and makes it enriching to collaborate. She asks us to see our potential and go for wild and improbable goals and to constantly practice our curiosity, - since curiosity makes us see possibilities and allow us to take risks.

Both Aimee Mullins, Tim Brown, John Maida and Charles Elaschi thus seem to agree with Paula Scher on avoiding the solemn.

The conference was great. Now go play, …seriously!

User Experience Group Denmark is the formal name of a new network initiated by 1508 and Creuna. It consists of danish top agencies who work professionally with interaction, strategy and digital communication on a daily basis.

 The aim of user experience group is to share knowledge in order to profesionalize the whole area. For more info, check out this article in danish magazine markedsføring.dk. (written in danish, though).

 The responses have been overwhelming, showing a great interest amongst the invited participants. We look forward to the first meet up that will take place february 8th 2008.

Future posts from User Experience Group Denmark can be read on their blog www.uxgroup.dk

 wauv..

We returned from Euro IA summit last Saturday. We have been busy since then. That is the reason why we have not published our thoughts about it before now.

However there’s plenty of good reasons to spread the message: The conference this year was a great succes. Both in terms of content and quality, atmosphere, people and location there is no doubt that this was the best summit so far. The only thing to point fingers at - seen from our very narrow danish perspective - is the number of danish attendants. Last year Denmark was surprisingly well represented, this year we were very few.

Of course some presentations were more relevant to us than others, but generally speaking the professional/academic level was just perfect. I will not go through all the insights (and we did not go to all presentations), so this is just a brief note on the speakers who gave new ideas to include in our next projects.

Playful IA (Kars Alfrink)

Extremely interesting presentation on adapting ideas from game design to IA. We are currently designing a new intranet for a big danish company, and I believe we are going to adapt some of the ideas – eg. what happens when you think of an intranet as a game, with real challenges, tokens, rewards etc.? This could be a very obvious way to motivate users to participate and take ownership of the site.

How to (Really) localize an Information Architecture (Peter Van Dijck)

Peter presented a simple framework to address the questions that always arise when creating internatioal sites. It’s not that the content of the presentation was new to us, but it was the kind of presentation that inspired me to go back home to produce the 6 generic questions and slides to use at client presentations.

Service Design (Claire Rowland)

Service Design is in growing demand in Denmark. It was very interesting to hear that the same is true outside Denmark – or at least in the UK. Just like the presentation Peter gave, the most interesting part of Claires presentation was the methods and the way of presenting them to clients.

There was many other presentations that deserves to be mentioned: The Core and paths: Designing from the inside out by Are Halland and the one about the new site for Heathrow Airport by Georgio Venturi and Jonathan Culling were also excellent… and all the rest was good too…But this is all for now… :-)

Enjoy the EuroIA2008 photoset on Flickr

There has always been an intensive debate about defining the subject “design”. The traditional way of defining design has focused on design as aesthetics, forms, plans etc. A very material and more simple way of thinking. This way of thinking – or defining – design has often resulted in a product like a chair, a poster or a dress.

Business and society is rapidly changing: things are getting more complex. Therefore, there is a concentrated focus on innovation and creativity as important elements for our commercial survival in the future. Design is one of the central instruments to realize the vision of innovation and creativity.

For this reason, the design discussion is now focused on a more open and involves a broader definition. Today design is rather defined as an intangible process.

Steve Jobs from Apple says: “Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service”.

That means the current notion of design is comprehensive –some would say too comprehensive. Working with design as an intangible process also means that this kind of process combines various of professions and many different methods. This way of working – and thinking – often gives a perfect staring point for innovation. The results in this area are much more dynamic and inconclusive. The results can for instance be the creation of a better service experience or optimisation of a working process.

This way of working with design and innovation was introduced by companies such as IDEO and Frog Design. Both are design companies employing an interdisciplinary approach with designers, engineers, psychologists, anthropologists, technologist etc. working together, using design methods to create innovation.

This is how we define design at 1508:

Design is an interdisciplinary method to create measurable and innovative results.

We believe that working and investing in design will effect positive changes on the bottom line, in attitude and behaviour. Design is not art – or just a matter of form and aesthetics. When we are using our design methods and interacting with the user, we can create useful solutions, which quickly satisfy the return of investment.

Well… the discussion on the definition of design will presumably never end. And that’s good. Because it indicates that this area of business is dynamic – and most importantly will develop and hopefully expand.

We really would like you to discus this definition of design with us… Are we right or wrong in our way of defining design?

// Dezign Rix

Hey everybody in Copenhagen (and vicinity),

this might be short notice but tonight there’s going to be an event at Republikken on Vesterbrogade, if you want see and hear some nice work come and take part.
Sweet Talk is happening in Dublin, New York & Copenhagen.
Just to get an idea here are some pictures for you to view

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Here is what Richard Seabrooke from Sweet Talk has to say about it:

WHAT IS SWEETTALK?_
SweetTalk started over a year, and 17 editions, ago to encourage stimulating conversations about Design, Illustration, Motion Graphics, Fine Art, Animation, Photography and all those excellent disciplines in between that make up the fantastic creative world around us.

SweetTalk is about seeing the people LIVE onstage who practice these disciplines best… Pioneers, Legends and forthright thinkers. They are there so you can hear them firsthand in a relaxed, enthusiastic atmosphere,not a stuffy cold conference style format. People who attend get to make up their own minds on what the speakers have to say about their work and working process. We try as much as possible too not to tax the patrons, preferring to charge the minimum amount to cover costs and keep this going, something that has stood as we’ve moved out of Irish only editions to the UK, Scandinavia and now the States…
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SWEETTALK 18. COPENHAGEN
Candy in association with Tiger Beer present Sweettalk 18, Copenhagen.

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 8TH 2007.
Venue: RUMMET IN REPUBLIKKEN. 24 VESTERBROGADE. COPENHAGEN.
Admission: 75DKR. Tiger Beer reception from 7pm, first speaker 8pm.
Limited edition treats for early arrivers!

Speakers:
Bleed (Norway). http://www.bleed.no
Martin De Thurah (Denmark). http://www.dethurah.dk
Ingen Frygt (Denmark). http://www.ingenfrygt.dk

Hope to see you there
- Shaft

Have you ever used Google maps to look at those aeriel pictures, well then you’re going to love this. This site takes all the good, and available maps, and converts them in one place, and you can even choose between the different sources…looks sweet and the navigation is intuitive as well.

Flasheart.com

Lighning “S” of the Justice League of 1508

The blog “Design Oberserver” was founded by heavy-weight designers, writers and thinkers from Pentagram: Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand and Rick Poynor among others. It is one of the best places to look for intelligent discourse on graphical design and visual culture.

Another very good resource is “SpeakUp”, which is very much like Design Obeserver but with a slightly more humorous/light hearted angle to the articles. Here every designer can discuss what’s on their minds. If you want to have a small idea of how designers think you must check these blogs out and contribute, because without critical thought we will only amass mediocre solutions.

And talking about critical thought check these links out:

M-o-n-a-m-o-u-r Now defunct, but always good for creative inspiration
Serial-Cut
Asterik Studio
Tolleson
Zip Design
FWIS