Designing for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is a hot topic right now, with it meaning many things to many people. From a design perspective, the IoT means creating a seamless smooth experience, where products don’t live in bubbles but as part of a connected framework that creates the customer journey. Simple (or binary) examples include Nest, Easybulb and the Apple Watch. More complex examples include Build-a-Bear (where the user builds their online profile as they go from stage to stage, you can find a walkthrough here). It’s the more complex interactions and digital touchpoints in IoT that allow a brand to extend its customer reach.

Audi London is a great example of using IoT to disrupt the car dealership experience.

But these are experiences that need to be thought through and designed – these actually create digital touchpoints within a customer journey – that is, brands now have more control on how customers connect to them.  This is why when designing the experience you must consider the following:

The devices – not just the ones you want people to use, but expect the unexpected. A user who can’t engage with you because they use the wrong kind of phone is not their problem, its your business problem.

Force-feeding the experience – process design, esp. with IoT is a user experience that needs design. A simple example is easybulb, a WYSIWYG simple UX on the phone changes the color of the lights, the ability to time mood lighting, etc etc. All create a simple (consistent) experience. Do not try to wedge your user into an experience because of the limitations of the hardware.

Expose your data to the user -  Your data is part of your IoT design, Nest does a great job of this by allowing users to access on their iPad their energy usage and provide recommendations on saving on their energy bill. Too often enterprises design a system of IoT with a misguided concept that the collected data is only for their eyes. But it’s the data collection that differentiates these objects to your customer. Provide use cases for them that leverages what the smart objects collect.

Its not just digital – Don’t forget the physical part of the interaction, face to face customer interaction such as a guided walkthrough of a kiosk is just as important as the kiosk itself. The spaces between your objects in an IoT experience are where most of your problems can arise, because you cannot predict human behavior. Work on narrowing those gaps for a truly seamless journey.

4 reasons most Intranets and Employee Portals fail

Intranets have evolved beyond the need for document repositories we saw in the 2000s. The Intranet has become what it always conspired to be – a true work tool employees can use to be more effective and drive greater results for an enterprise.

But most attempts at portals, whether it’s used as a source of communication, or a brand resource library, fail spectacularly. Here are some common reasons portals don’t live up to their potential.

Excluding the end user from the process- Portals are underestimated in what they can do and how they can improve organizational effectiveness. This leads to a portal which is forced upon users and adoption suffers as a result. Ensure your users are interviewed, their requirements are addressed, and they get to review design artefacts such as wireframes, visual designs etc. This does two things: the design becomes better, but more importantly it guarantees wide-spread adoption.

Avoiding the power of social – Most enterprises want to empower their employees but a common pushback is when anything social is encouraged – the concern is that the client will have to moderate and pull down inappropriate behavior. But getting back to point 1, about incorporating your users into the process, it's important to understand that trusting your employees to use social professionally is an important aspect of successful adoption – your employees were hired for a reason, let them use the tools to be effective.

Ownership - It is very important that the Intranet is owned internally by the client, and by the right person. If for example the portal is used to manage a CRM aspect to the business, Customer Relations should own it, if its for Internal Communications, Corporate Affairs is the right choice. Identifying early who owns the Portal is the most important first step in delivering a successful project.

Physicians are terrible patients – Often enterprises attempt to define the user requirements internally and outsource the visual design; often due to portals being seen as low level projects because of a lack of understanding of their true potential. What happens is a consensus, light, opinion on what’s right for the employees rather than a deeper, objective understanding. Fellow employees internally designing a work tool tend not to think beyond the scope of the knowledge of their work environment. Choose a vendor who can act as your collaborative partner, enhance your vision, and execute well.

Inserting design into the DNA of your company

Many clients ask our design team on ways of inserting design into their product based companies. Many companies tack on design rather than take a deeper look on how to leverage it. But this isn’t quite the right strategy, and this tactic is often used because they see their competitors doing it.

Why do I need design as part of my company DNA?

If you sell a product, or a service, design matters. If you have a customer interaction with your employees, design matters. The best design is the one you don’t see – the feel of a well crafted car, a checkout at an airline that’s seamless, calling a customer service center that doesn’t frustrate you – design ensures that every experience or touchpoint you have as an enterprise is delightful, smooth, engaging and builds your brand. Steve Jobs was asked how he was going to bring Apple back to its former glory when he returned as CEO – the answer he presented to the board : I’m going to use design. You want more customers, or happier employees, or a stronger brand – you use design. This is why McKinsey consultancy now has a design arm, or why Capital One partners acquired Adaptive Path. They understand the value and ROI design brings to their company. But like any merger, integration is the key.

But what does design actually mean?

Design isn’t just pretty pictures. It isn’t about explaining the difference between a UX and UI designer (which I will save for another post). Design is a philosophy that must be woven into the fabric of your company in order to grow and evolve your company into something greater. Design is an attitude – wanting to create beautiful, elegant products that people not only find useful, but love to use. Design can also impact beyond the physical (product design) through to the digital (interaction design) to the more ephemeral feeling of a smooth process (system design). It makes things better, stronger, elevated.

You’re convinced, so how do you get design into the company. There are a couple of simple steps that can bring a new mix of energy into your company to evolve your business plan.

Do a design prototype (you can find more information about that here). Doing beautiful visual concepts of a high value piece and then placing on a device gives the feel of the designed experience, and begins to change the conversation. Its low-cost, visionary, and excites people. Design is an opportunity to overcome preconceived roadblocks – it’s a problem solving discipline that reveals the real potential of your business.

Present the value of design to the executive team – A pretty bold move, but you must explain a hard return of putting design in place. Examples can include comparative results with a similar company that uses design, cost-benefit analysis, etc. Cultural change must come from the top so executives need to be bought-in.

Design externally first, in order to create the change internally – what this means is that by redesigning highly visible touch-points such as your logo, brand, website you can effectively rejuvenate the company and build excitement for design as part of the company. This can be done with an external vendor, but ensure that vendor is a partner who can train your team on how to use the design process to their advantage.

Either become, or hire, an executive dedicated to a design position, with an equal vote in the direction of the company. One mistake large companies do is have the Head of Design report to a CIO or a CMO, but this relegates design to only one section of the company, not across the entire organization. C level design officers make a statement not only to your customers and to your employees, but act as an an incentive to create the change required, rather than default to another skill-set (I highly recommend this book about the Design Executive) .

BlueMetal has gone through its own period of transformation, starting as a small technical architect led firm to become a full service solution consultancy. Design motivated that change and we can talk with you in detail on how we did it. It wasn’t always easy, but the results have been outstanding for our business. We often partner with clients to not just execute on a highly visible project internally, but to help mentor that client on ways to get design part of their culture. For further details contact horganjames@gmail.com

Is the Laptop dead?

Back in late 2009/2010 before the launch of the first iPad I did a series of articles on what the design could potentially be (you can find my concepts before the launch here, a feature wishlist, and a discussion on whether the iPad should have a stylus). As a side note you can also read my scarily accurate prediction of TV which we will discuss in my next post on the Internet of Things.

After the 2010 launch I was disappointed in the iPad (essentially a large iPhone) but today I am little more excited as the iPad Pro edges its way to fully replacing the laptop. Though there are some flaws – a pencil that sticks out perpendicular to your tablet when charging presents an ergonomic problem – it’s a step in the right direction.

I initially hypothesized that the iPad would be essentially a MacBook pro without a keyboard, and slowly but surely the iPad Pro is becoming that original concept, 5 years later.  So does that mean the death knell for the MacBook for the average user? I believe so, but some other things need to happen culturally before we start adapting tablets as laptops:

iOS replacing OSX – or in general, the majority of users not needing an OS at all. Many tasks traditionally done on laptops: reports, word doc, browsing, can all be done on a tablet – but there is a psychologically barrier of a generation letting go of the archaic concept of files, folders, etc. and letting everything be in the cloud. Expect the MacBook to be a backup drive for most folks who do not require a heavy CPU for the majority of their tasks. The follow through feature between iPad and MacBook certainly helps that transition.

A redesigned experience – not just visually, but more from the UX. The advantage of a laptop OS is the applications within easy (but not invasive) reach, and the ability to have multiple windows. This type of paradigm should be possible in the iOS world but requires a rethink in order for users to experience both the mouse driven and touch experience when the Pro is docked/undocked. And in landscape or portrait mode, the experience must be seamless.

Perception of professionalism – this is the reality, if people see you on a tablet, they just assume you are watching a movie or playing a game. It’s a weird catch 22 which has held the iPad within the grasp of  a traditional laptop, never being seen as a work tool in its own right, but a periphery. The 3rd device that Steve Jobs originally pitched has become a legacy which now hurting its evolution. Certainly offering themes in iOS for the professional rather than the default candy color icons might be a step in the right direction.

Where’s my mouse?  You simply cannot beat the mouse for precision pointing and clicking on a user experience. Its that last bastion of comfort that business professionals need to start viewing the iPad as a meaningful enterprise device.

There have been a few attempts for this integrated tablet/laptop experience that uses apps and a browser to function, not a desktop – the Chromebook, the Surface – but each one has not been a hit the way the iPad Pro potentially could be if its takes the next step in evolution.

Data Visualization Tips

With data aggregation becoming easier and faster, professionals have to be able to make decisions rapidly. Problems arise in the analysis and display of data, where some insights can be missed. When visualizing your data, three things should be considered:

Less is more: Often the instinct is that once we’ve gathered all the data, it's important to show ALL of it. But understanding the context of what you’re seeing, coupled with the context of the needs of the the person viewing the data, is vital to design a visualization that gives powerful insights. A great example is our work with an energy company. The instruction from the operators who were viewing this data on a wallboard (or digital wall) was: "it needs to be red, green and yellow," which is a common statement when users are asked how they want to see their data. The problem is that a wallboard full of red indicators has an ergonomic component – its impossible to tell how to prioritize what’s bad and what’s really bad unless you have months of experience working with the data. Instead, working with the operators, we learned what was the key reason that motivates them to examine a piece of data in detail: deviation from average. So, we decided as a group that the more something deviates from its average, regardless of whether its good or bad (which is subjective anyway), the brighter we made the text. In this way, operators could immediately discern which pieces of information they needed to pay attention to and examine in more detail on their own desktops. In this way, we saved the operators time to focus on the items that matter and become more effective.

What is important to the user: Often, data is simply accessed, but not necessarily leveraged in a way that is meaningful to executives. Your data platform is something that needs to be designed by your own specific needs and what you hope to gain as a business. For example, with a financial client we worked with, we could have taken the typical route of aggregated dashboards for executives – make the dashboard look great and show the big picture. Instead, we created a visualization that shows the executive both the big picture and the details at the same time by using a ‘watermelon’ metaphor – something that could be green (good) on the outside, but red (bad) on the inside. Users simply click on what KPI they want to see the ‘insides’ of. This creates an actionable tool for the executive, not simply a passive viewing experience that gives a distorted view of health that lacks real transparency.

Connect the dots: A piece of data on its own does not give you the full story; how that data flows through time can tell you just as much if you connect the dots. For a news media company in the UK, we created a timeline of a piece of content. As the user swipes left and right through time, they can see how that content was shared or commented on and on which social platforms via which devices. This creates a picture of the newspaper's demographics – age range, gender, location, preferred device, and preferred related content. This not only helps create a more 360 editorial coverage, but by fully understanding the consumer through time, the paper now has a powerful advertising platform by being able to place targeted advertisements based on their needs of demographic, content, and device.

Our examples show the myriad ways data can be shown. By understanding the user, the context and  the story you want to tell, effective data analysis, and decision making becomes a consequence of good data visualization.

Note: James Horgan will be speaking in person at upcoming event in October in NYC, covering Data Visualization in the media industry. Details coming soon.