Last September, Method sponsored TechBikers, a collaboration between the London startup community to help children in need through Room to Read – a non-profit organization focused on developing literacy skills and a love for reading by providing access to libraries. 40 tech professionals cycled a combined total of 6,925 miles from Paris to London and raised over £25,000, all proceeds of which were dedicated to building a fully functional library in Nepal stocked with 1,5000 local language children’s books. As a result of our collaborative efforts, TechBikers have built a new school and two libraries in Nepal.
Earlier on this week, Method received news that the Room to Read school construction project has just completed!
For those who enjoy cycling and good causes, TechBikers Prague to Berlin is taking place this July 25-28, and is still looking for riders from the tech community. Email info@techbikers.de to register or learn more.
The next TechBikers Paris is scheduled to take place again this September. Registration is not open yet, but if you want to get involved, fill out: http://goo.gl/8lhhO.
Congratulations to our friends at Boxee, who recently sold their successful startup venture to Samsung.
Mashable reports:
“Samsung has acquired Boxee, a streaming media startup that develops set top boxes, the company confirmed Wednesday.
“Samsung has acquired key talent and assets from Boxee,” a Samsung rep told Mashable in a statement. “This will help us continue to improve the overall user experience across our connected devices.”
The acquisition could help Samsung in the increasingly competitive smart TV market. Intel confirmed earlier this year that it is planning to build a smart TV, and Apple is widely rumored to be working on its own as well.”
The Method team enjoyed collaborating with the Boxee team to develop their industrial and brand design. View our work outcomes and process with Boxee here. We wish Boxee the best of luck as they continue to change home entertainment experiences.
The Method team was recently invited to visit the PERCH studio in New York for a walkthrough demonstration of their new and innovative hands-on display technology – now finding its way into retail locations all over the country. Utilizing spatial and gestural recognition, PERCH creates interactive retail displays that enable consumers to interact with in-store products at a more playful and revealing level.
The PERCH technology is housed in a light projection that can be propped above any light-colored table surface. With products arranged on a table, PERCH transfers an ordinary retail display into a full responsive interface. When a shopper picks up a product on display, PERCH projects the images of information, eye-catching animations and related media onto a light-colored surface. For example, if an interested customer picked up a bottle of Chloé perfume, PERCH would allow him or her to access information about the composition of the scent, the origins of the perfume, social media related to the product, and online reviews – all wrapped in a very enticing user experience.
Method was excited to receive a fun demonstration from the PERCH team, walking us through the various features and functionalities of the product. Housed in a very concise and simple backend platform, the interactive display can offer a multitude of different benefits to both retails and consumers – from simple info add-on’s to robust data displays.
With more retailers adopting interactive solutions to enhance their in-store experience, it seems like the physical brick and mortar is becoming a once again formidable competitor to the e-shop, in the context of providing consumers with a value-add experience. Many brands are devising ways of how to make the 360 shopping experience offer value from all ends of the consumer cycle – with digital and physical touchpoints working in tandem. PERCH is another interesting example of how digital is beginning to compliment the physical space. As behaviors enabled by touchscreens and light projections become more familiar to the everyday consumer, we’re excited to see how digital will begin to become more of a natural contribution to the retail ecosystem.
The Method team had an engaging time at our personal demonstration and we cannot wait to see PERCH begin to take off in stores alongside other tech-retail touch points.
Slate.com recently posted an article, “You Won’t Finish This Article,” which created a buzz throughout the collective studios at Method.
The article shared statistics from Slate.com that are not unsurprising, however the commentary around why people don’t fully read online articles sparked a discussion around the medium and context as well as quality of content. Slate pointed out that:
Most people who get to a webpage don’t actually interact with it.
There is no relationship between scrolling and sharing.
People don’t read, they skim.
With online content consumption, the battle for a person’s attention is occupied by fierce contenders: advertisements, recommended articles, social sharing links, other browser tabs, instant messages, email notifications, and many more distractors that aim to engage. In sharp contrast, a magazine or a newspaper (or Kindle) provide a single content experience. The physical entity demands your full attention: thumbing through the Facebook app while holding a newspaper is cumbersome and unwieldy. While the internet yields a never ending stream of content, a magazine has a finite number of articles and pages.
In an age where content consumption increasingly moves to digital, how do we create, and design for, content that can be digested? What are the reasons that cause a reader not to finish content? Is it the medium and the distractions on our screens, or because we live in an age of skimming – where attention spans are shorter than ever before? And how does the quality of online content, which is often churned out without being fact-checked with their SEO-optimized titles, impact our habits and expectations when reading online?
Many web usability experts such as Steve Krug, author of “Don’t Make Me Think,” believe we don’t read online, we scan.
“Instead, we scan (or skim) them, looking for words or phrases that catch our eye…if the document is longer than a few paragraphs, we’re likely to print it out—since it’s easier and faster to read on paper than on a screen.”
Dever Thomas, Method Designer, shares: “As I skim and see articles I think others might be interested in, I share them. There is no obligation to read. Many do the same for me.”
Tomi Lahdesmaki, a Design Lead changed his lifestyle decisions to cope with the digital world, stating: “I’m personally making a conscious effort these days to read more and more magazines, newspapers and books, because they are a more in-depth moment with than any online experience could be. They are a pause, a focus, a promise and a carefully curated moment with information, thought and inspiration.”
Philip Blaikie, a Design Intern, offers a different perspective: “I think we can still have valuable curated moments online which instigate a focus, a pause, a reflection. It is our task as writers, designers, and consumers to create it and find it.”
The challenge for content creators, editors, and designers is to meet the desire for a focused, engaged experience with the changing habits of audiences.
Photo credit Arnaud Granata
Method’s Ted Booth – Principal and Managing Director of Method’s NY office – recently presented at the RDV_Design conference in Montreal, Canada. Hosted by Infopresse and Grafika, RDV_Design conference is a day of inspiration, case studies, and discussions of all forms of design. Ted was the opening keynote for the conference, presenting a thought-provoking perspective on experience design based on his recent Method 10×10, “11 Rules For Great UX Design, Adapted From An Original Mad Man.” The article draws on timeless principles from David Ogilvy’s book, “Confessions of an Advertising Man.” 50 years after it was published, Ted points out the similarities between designing great, contemporary user experiences and creating great campaigns.
Ted explains: “I put together a talk about the convergence of product development and advertising. In a digital world, there is brand engagement and connection throughout a product experience. It is no longer a top-down message, but instead multiple conversations and messaging touchpoints. What is a product? The product and the marketing used to be separate, and now they are beginning to overlap. Instead of creating a pure message, you create an experience that someone uses.”
As we start moving from a world where trends in advertising are changing, the role of digital is becoming increasingly important. Budgets are now shifting from traditional advertising into digital mediums. In a 2013 survey by Econsultancy, 55% of marketers globally are planning on increasing their digital marketing budgets this year, with 39% of them planning on reallocating existing budgets toward digital channels.
Ted reminds us that the Mad Men days are over. In those days, “the way that you got a message out and created an impression was through traditional media: print, television, and radio…but all three are starting to change. The publishing world is not what it was. Meanwhile, everything is being replaced by all these screens.”
The impact this has on both marketers and product designers is massive. It also opens exciting new opportunities to engage with audiences in a more meaningful, contextual, and rich way. Ted’s presentation to RDV_Design challenges the audience to collaborate between disciplines, as product and marketing teams are both responsible for creating a memorable and positive experience for customers.
View Ted’s presentation deck to RDV_Design below.
A few months ago, we wrote wrote about how our Method alumni, Raphael Grignani and Robert Murdock, are featured in the short documentary, Connecting, filmed partially on-site at Method by Basset & Partners and Microsoft. The 18-minute documentary explores how trends in UI, interaction,
and experience have influenced culture and society.
We are excited to announce that the film is going to be screened! On June 25th,Bassett & Partners and Astro Studios will be hosting a one-night only Connecting screening in San Francisco, and a panel that will bring interactive and industrial design to center stage. The two firms are organizing a special design-centered discussion inspired by the documentary that delves into future projections for connectivity and interaction design.
Afterwards, the Q&A panel discussion will feature four prominent figures in the industry: Carl Ledbetter of XBOX, Aaron Higgins of Native instruments, Steve Mason of Obscura Digital, and Method’s former Principal, Robert Murdock, now a Creative Lead at Google Glass.
The event is a must attend for all those in the design community, especially those interested in the growing impact of interaction design. We hope to see you there!
RSVP on Eventbrite
Where: Astro Studios | 348 6th Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103
When: Tuesday, June 25 from 7:00 – 10:00 PM
Watch the full documentary below
Paul and Baratunde at SXSW 2013
Using humor in a marketing campaign is something a lot of companies want to do, but few can actually pull off. Done smartly, you can end up with Kmart’s viral ‘Ship My Pants‘ commercial. Miss the mark and risk widespread criticism and a spot on various news blogs’ “Worst Campaign Ads of the Year” lists.
Our friend Baratunde Thurston, former digital director of The Onion, comedian, and New York Times Best Selling Author, knows a lot about this. He’s the co-found of Cultivated Wit, a company that combines comedy, tech, media, and strategy to “make the tech space more creative and the creative world more innovative.”
Baratunde tackled the topic of humor in marketing in a recent blog post on the Cultivated Wit Blog titled, “PBS’s Embrace Of Comedy In Marketing Proves We Know Everything“.
In the post, Baratunde explores the hesitation business leaders have when deciding to use humor in their own marketing, and the insights he’s learned from his own experiences. Baratunde draws directly from this past SXSW, when he teamed up with Method’s Paul Valerio to discuss what people charged with “innovation” can learn from standup comedy. The principles Baratunde outlines are directly influenced by Paul’s original 10×10 piece. Read the full blog post at Cultivated Wit!
Read the original 10×10 piece that inspired the SXSW event, “What’s so funny about innovation?“
Method is happy to announce that we received the Interactive Media Awards Best in Class award in the category of ‘Architecture & Interior Design,’ for our work with NBBJ on their website redesign and launch!
The Best in Class award is the highest honor in the IMA Awards and represents the very best in planning, execution, and overall professionalism. Working with our client, NBBJ, a successful international architecture firm, we helped re-envision their brand and identity, resulting in a new, strong online presence. Method collaborated with NBBJ to implement an effective digital strategy to effectively communicate the firm’s architectural expertise. With a clean and sharp design custom-tailored to displaying NBBJ’s portfolio, we envisioned and designed a visually stimulating layout to convey NBBJ’s work.
We enjoyed working with NBBJ to launch a brand new platform to help with workflow, providing easily accessible information to clients and communicating brand vision and strengths.
Check out the award-winning website at NBBJ.com
Recently, Behance Network held their two-day annual conference, the 99U. The entire mission of the conference is to focus on bringing ideas to life through action – as Thomas Edison is famously quoted: “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.”
Method held the kick-off studio session for the conference with a workshop that aimed to get attendees taking ideas to action. We led participants through a 90-minute Lightning Brand Hackathon, working through potential design opportunities for IKEA and Airbnb.
We quickly broke attendees up into groups of 7-8 to dive deep into their assigned brand. The goal was to develop uniquely branded product and service experiences that engage users in ways that are authentic to the brand and true to the core brand values. Teams were assigned either IKEA or Airbnb to explore. The final deliverable was a one-minute elevator pitch for that product or service that the team might deliver to the CEO.
The first part of the workshop focused on articulating attributes using various stimuli to generate both literal and abstract ways of expressing the brand. Then, each team built on specific product or service extension opportunities and evaluated them against the brand attributes to determine if the proposed solution was on point with the brand.
The selected solution was storyboarded and then summarized for each group to present. In 90 minutes, teams generated product or service solutions around bespoke furniture and food offerings such as the official IKEA furniture hacking community, IKEAhacks.org, an interactive diary of a Airbnb host that gives visitors “keys to my life,” and a network of “local chefs” that invite traveling guests for authentic, homemade meals.
After the kick-off workshop at Method, myself and our attendees headed over to the conference, held at the Lincoln Center. Throughout the duration of the two days, the conference maintained an incredible energy with thought-provoking discussions around how to become more action-oriented and persevere through the creative process. Experts from all walks of life shared their experiences: social/behavioral psychologists, startup founders, brand gurus, authors, educators, and designers.
After it was all over, three major takeaways emerged that resonated strongly with me.
1: Feedback is important for more than just building a good product. It helps you persevere through the darkest times.
For many speakers what kept them motivated during challenging times wasn’t a blind passion, but a constant remainder that their work was having some, big or small, impact in the world. And the best way to see that was by getting feedback from users.
Jane ni Dhulchaointigh, the founder and inventor of sugru, talked about staying motivated through a rough patch by sending samples to her friends and family and requesting that they send in a photo of themselves using the product. Seeing her product in action gave her a sense of pride, joy and responsibility to get the final product out to the world.
2: It’s not about building awesome products, but building products that help people be more awesome.
Every product idea is born out of a need, superficial or deep. But sometimes the vision for addressing that need can get blurred by the pursuit of perfection during the creative process. The result is a product that makes sense to the one who created it, but not to those who would benefit the most by using it.
For example, Ramit Sethi, author of a NY Times bestseller and a dedicated personal finance blog, talked about a personal investment guide offered by the Wall Street Journal. Although written by investing experts, the guide was way too complex to the average American. Because there was a mismatch between what the creator considered as an “awesome product” and what the user needed to become more awesome in managing their money, the product became irrelevant for many.
3: Being action-oriented is less about tactics, and more about the mindset.
The topic of fear came up consistently throughout the conference. Mainly, creators talking about the importance of looking beyond users’ needs to gain a deep understanding of their fears and concerns.
For example, Josh Reich, CEO and co-founder of Simple, an intuitive digital personal banking solution, had observed that people think they need complexity in tools that help manage their finances. But after digging deeper into the users’ minds, he realized that their fears boil down to simpler things like carelessly spending way more than they can afford. To address the latter, Simple incorporated a feature that tells the user how much money it is “safe” for them to spend at a given point in time.
The 99U Conference was a valuable escape from everyday life to get fully immersed in thoughts that inspire reflection and realization. I left both inspired and ready to bring these learnings to practice at Method.
Light painting is a photographic technique in which photographs are captured at long exposures with a moving light source.
In our London studio, we decided to dedicate a Method PLAY to exploring this technique.
The results were beautiful– from alphabets to beautiful patterns, ghostly pictures to creating a scene out of a superhero movie. It was an interesting approach to creativity photography, which required a bit of trial and error and a rather meticulously calculated formula of timing, camera exposure, and the positioning of the light source in space.
At the expense of looking a bit ridiculous waving tiny LED’s in the air – the excitement of seeing the results was very much worth it. Every image was a surprise and no two images were the same. It was probably one of the most fun and engaging Method PLAY sessions we have had so far.
Check out some of the results below!
