Thursday 25 February 2016

How Do I Use a DIGITABLE?

And that's a wrap, #FactFeb has finished! Every day in February nsquared released a video demonstrating the power of the DIGITABLE, features that you might not have known existed in each of our 15 nsquared tabletop apps. So how do you use a DIGITABLE? Check out our final seven short videos:






















nsquared produces innovative multi-user software and hardware with cutting edge technology: smart tables for smart solutions. Intuitive technology with a unique user experience, each of our touch tables has been intricately designed to compliment and enhance your team work flow. Rethink the office table. With a range of touch screen meeting tables available, from smart conference tables and interactive desks to coffee touch tables, nsquared has the tools for you to transform your old workspace into a paperless office in the digital age.

Follow nsquared on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook for updates on cutting edge multi-user technology.

Thursday 4 February 2016

The (Not-So-)Hidden Secrets of the DIGITABLE

The DIGITABLE is packed full of cool features to make your shared screen experience productive, smooth and intuitive. So, we decided to make this month #FactFeb. Every day we are releasing a video to help demonstrate some of the finer details we have built into each app.

Check out the full list of Did You Know videos below to learn more. We'll be adding new videos every day so be sure to tune back in.

You'd be surprised at how much the DIGITABLE has to offer.












nsquared produces innovative multi-user software and hardware with cutting edge technology: smart tables for smart solutions. Intuitive technology with a unique user experience, each of our touch tables has been intricately designed to compliment and enhance your team work flow. Rethink the office table. With a range of touch screen meeting tables available, from smart conference tables and interactive desks to coffee touch tables, nsquared has the tools for you to transform your old workspace into a paperless office in the digital age.

Follow nsquared on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook for updates on cutting edge multi-user technology.

Thursday 28 January 2016

A Digital Table...?

Creating a unique product like a Digital Table sometimes makes it hard to explain to people what we actually do.

So, what did we do about it? We made a #digitable infographic.


nsquared produces innovative multi-user software and hardware with cutting edge technology: smart tables for smart solutions. Intuitive technology with a unique user experience, each of our touch tables has been intricately designed to compliment and enhance your team work flow. With a range of touch screen tables available from smart conference tables and interactive desks to coffee touch tables,  nsquared has the right digital experience for you.  To see what the future of work looks like, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook

Thursday 10 December 2015

The DIGITABLE PLUS is coming to America!

 

We are excited to announce something that we think is kind of a big deal; nsquared is bringing the DIGITABLE to the USA.

Since 2010, innovative thinkers all across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia have been working better together on nsquared's award winning digital tables. 2016 is an exciting landmark event for us at nsquared as we hop over the Pacific to give our American friends the chance to start collaborating together better.


We would like to invite all our friends and fans in the Seattle area, or anyone feeling adventurous, to contact us to organise a visit to check out what we have been making down under. Very soon, we will have a DIGITABLE PLUS on show.
 
Complete with all the cutting edge apps nsquared has been finessing on our latest operating environment, nsquared tabletop, you will have the opportunity to experience multi-user, collaborative technology unlike any you have seen before. We will also be accepting orders for 2016, with our American table materials wholly sourced from local suppliers using FSC certified wood.

To find out more, send us an email here, or connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.


 Work. Together. Better. See you soon USA!

Thursday 26 November 2015

The Future of Work

Are you still using paper in your office?


Here are two short videos to help you think about your office space in the 21st Century.


Enriching the Real Easte Experience


Meet Paula and Sam, business owners looking for a new office space. Sebastian, their real estate agent, uses his DIGITABLE to dynamically present information, enriching the real estate experience.

 

 

Creating a Collaborative Design Experience

 

Paula and Sam need help furnishing their new office psace. Together with their interior designer, Rachel, they collaborate on her DIGITABLE to efficiently and innovately reach the perfect solution for their space.

To be continued



Stay tuned to see how Paula and Sam use their DIGITABLE PLUS in their new office space to work more efficiently with their team and halve their meeting times. Work. Together. Better.

Multi-user Solutions


nsquared produces innovative multi-user software and hardware with cutting edge technology: smart tables for smart solutions. Intuitive technology with a unique user experience, each of our touch tables has been intricately designed to compliment and enhance your team work flow.

With a range of touch screen tables available from smart conference tables and interactive desks to coffee touch tables, nsquared has the right digital experience for you. To see what the future of work looks like, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

Thursday 5 November 2015

iBook Launch: The Digital Table


We are excited to announce that this week nsquared launched our very first iBook, 'The Digital Table'. 'The Digital Table' is a beautiful, interactive and fully illustrated iBook taking a look at our changing relationship with technology, and what this means for our future.

There is no doubt about it, the world is changing rapidly. We now shop for groceries on our phones and find our books on our tablets.

Computing is only getting more and more personal. We can see it in our smart watches, our smart shoes and our smart fridges. This trend is creating a new need; a need for physical spaces to share and collaborate digitally. 

'The Digital Table' has been designed especially for iPad so it is most engaging iBook possible. Download your copy now!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-digital-table/id1054832616?ls=1&mt=11



Friday 28 August 2015

The Challenge of IoT: Multi-UI Design

 This blog was written by one of our digital designers, Morgan Stokes.


Picture that you are a furniture designer and you want to make a chair and a bench. You’ve already designed the chair, can you just stretch the chair to design the bench?


The answer is no! Think of the strain that piece of wood in the middle will have to endure. You have to start again, take elements from the chair and adapt them into the bench to create a design that pleases not only the individuals on the bench, but also the gestalt; you have to consider the interactions to be had between these individuals as a result of this multi-user bench, how you want them to engage and socialise.

Following on from my blog last week on The Challenge of IoT UX: The Future of Digital Design, where I lament over the absence of quality of multi-user design discussion on the interwebs, this week I will be covering what makes good Multi-User Interface (Multi-UI) design.

As a digital designer for digital tables, my job is pivoted on the challenge of designing for multiple people. It might seem intuitive to take the UI design on your mobile and bang it onto a tabletop’s surface, but like the chair/bench analogy on steroids, that is just not possible. The thought of it makes me a little sick. The whole experience would be so individual-centric and isolate all but one person standing around the table, obliterating any hope of collaboration and discussion.

As most of us have developed anxiety around leaving the house without our phone, it is safe to say it is the phone’s interface we are most acquainted with today, and I will use it as a comparator with the multi-user table. I have divided the key differences between Good Multi-UI Design VS Good Solo-UI Design into four categories: (1) User Count, (2) Location Factors, (3) Accessibility and (4) Screen Size & Ergonomics.


(1) User count

The most obvious difference between the two devices: the physical number of people using an app. Phone’s single user screens require single user apps (duh). As we are social animals, we like to share things. Phone apps are very social media heavy and rely on messaging to communicate with friends. We are familiar with this in all our apps; the share functionality down the bottom of our News Apps, favourite websites, in fact all websites. On the flip side, table app design should encourage in-person socialising to deliver a rich social experience, leveraging the multi-user aspect of the table. This could be through having an open drawing canvas with infinitely spawnable menus to accommodate however many users are surrounding a table.

(2) Location Factors

The hardware itself is a hugely significant driver for design. One device is meant to go everywhere, the other is rooted in one specific space. Geo-location allows apps like RunKeeper or Snapchat to offer very specific detailed data customised features for its users. The Age of Context by Scoble & Israel outlines how our personal devices are increasingly able to anticipate our every move as they learn about us. Likewise, a table that is situated in a shopping centre can offer very specific navigation tools, or offer deals for nearby stores, especially as devices become more aware of one another.

(3) Accessibility

The privacy of a mobile versus the privacy offered by a public table is very different. This is especially important to understand because apps which are on your phone might not translate as an app onto the table. You would certainly not want to be banking on a digital table. Similarly, entertainment apps function differently on a shared device. Watching a YouTube video on your phone takes advantage of the single-user nature of the mobile, while a multi-user game will bring people together to create a social form of entertainment on the table.

Phone apps are specifically designed to deal with private micro-tasks, whereas table apps strengths lie in bringing people together to begin discussions. Because of the open accessibility of the table with a chance for a high number of amateur users, apps must be easy to learn (“intuitive”) and immediately understood.

(4) Screen Size & Ergonomics

The most exciting of the difference between these two devices, in my opinion, is the opportunity presented to the UX/UI designer by the sheer size of the screens. Design is the creative exploitation of constraint, and that constraint is especially constrained in the tiny little mobile screen. For the mobile, apps must designed to be used single handed (factoring in portrait or landscape mode) with thumb accessible buttons and simple and manageable navigation tools. A table, on the other hand, has an expansive screen for many hands and endless possibilities. The constraints are somewhat considerably relieved. The complexity of gestures able to be recognised is enormous - imagine whole hand swipes, five finger pinches, TWENTY FINGER APP MITOSIS.

Because of the expansive, horizontal nature of the table, however, apps must also have 360 multi-user usability, with the ability to be rotated, scaled and moved as the user desires. Believe it or not, apps being too far away are often a problem in tabletop UI design. Ways to get around this could include a tap-and-hold feature to bring apps closer to you, or a fist pound in the corner to slant the UI and make the app ‘roll’ toward you.


Redesigning the chair into the bench is the challenge that I try to tackle everyday, but Multi-UI Design is just one challenge presented by the IoT.  The above is just a guide as to what our research at nsquared has revealed, and my goal here is to inspire more discussion around how to make Multi-UI great. If you want, please check out our website or visit one of our social media channels to keep in touch.