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.

The Challenge of IoT UX: The Future of Digital Design

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

You start having a conversation with someone and you find yourself talking about how blogging was so 2004, but then you realise that was 7 years ago, and then it turns out that actually blogging is so hot right now. The digital landscape is changing rapidly. We all know this and live it every day. We find ourselves well acquainted with initialled neologisms like “FB” and “TBT”, and depending on your technological inclinations, words like “IFTT”, “IoT” and “UX” somehow slip into your day-to-day repertoire. 

UX (or User Experience) design is not a new concept, and is certainly not limited to digital media. User Experience is about how a person ('user” suggests they are abusive of the system, i.e. drug user) feels when using a designed artefact. You feel something when you use a mug. You pick it up, the porcelain feels soft on your hand and it’s comforting. It feels hot when you have tea in it, too hot! MAKE IT STOP! These are not necessarily conscious critiques of the designed object, but they are thoughts that have (or should have been) considered in the design process.

The recent boom in the discourse about UX has arisen as a result of the digital revolution. The User Interface (or UI) of the digital medium, the visual elements that a person will interact with on the screen, is limitless. Compared to a mug which can only be made out of a fixed number of materials, the digital UI can appear to contain anything you want in the world. You want your app to be a solitary unicorn braying in the breeze? You got it. This is where the discussion about UX becomes critical. Maybe Users don’t realise you have to pat the unicorn three times to get something to happen. The confusion might make people frustrated. The unicorn might make people happy. The feelings that arise as a result of the UI/UX are infinite and, through design, can be infinitely manipulated.

Do you know what this symbol means? In 2008, you probably didn’t. UI/UX Designers have developed a visual language we slowly grow accustomed to as we get more tech savvy (sorry I used the term “tech savvy”). We only take 10 seconds to assess a site, or an app, to make our judgement: do we hate it or do we not hate it? These 10 seconds are critical. If something does not work the way we want it to, we give up and complain to our friends or, worse, we forget about it and never visit the site again.

Our understanding of screens is getting increasingly sophisticated. The process of how to interact with a digital screen is a visual language we are all slowly learning, and most of us are not even aware of it. We immediately recognise the burger menu, the kebab menu, the back arrow, the settings cog with no text caption needed. Our navigation, interaction and entire digital experience has been sharpened to the point that our attention span has dropped from 12 seconds a decade ago to 8 seconds in 2015. That’s shorter than a goldfish’s (at 9 seconds). The danger for brands in this highly sophisticated world is that average UX is bad UX, and design standards are only growing.

IoT

This presents quite the pickle for the UX designer of devices beyond the phones, desktops and tablets, to which we have spent years growing accustomed. We are guaranteed a world in the not-too-distant future (by 2020 at the latest), where screens will be an old concept. Surfaces will be how we interact with the digital world. Integrated within other pieces of objects and furniture, this future is referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). Indeed, the role of the UX designer will be critical in shifting our relationship with technology to make the most out of IoT, to make these advancements manageable, friendly and useful. 

The challenge that the UX designer of 2015 faces is that the visual language of a phone does not necessarily translate to the visual language of a fridge. Both devices have certain capabilities, one will perform a task better than the other and vice versa. It is one thing to learn to double tap your phones home screen button to show open apps, it is another to learn to give your fridge a five-finger pinch to give you ice. 

The Digital Table

My job is as a digital designer for digital tables. 

Think about the tables in your life. The table is a unique, horizontal meeting spot, designed for any amount of people and for various personal and collaborative tasks. You can come at it’s surface from any angle, so unlike a phone or a computer, tables have no orientation. Tables are for leaning, work sprawls, food sprawls, chortling, chatting, sitting. Sitting at a table with a friend, while they are on their phone, automatically takes them out of the conversation. Personal devices break the social contract. The surface of the table is already a collaborative tool. As our tech savviness only increases, the digitisation of the table as a multi-user device makes sense.

A search for multi-user, multi-touch software design yields negligible quality results. This blog is aimed at helping people understand the challenges of UX design for the future, and also to help others to design for engaging multi-user, 360 degree usability based on our research at nsquared.

As technology advances, our digital user experience is constantly improving. To tackle this challenge, UX designers require innovation, creativity and a keen understanding of human behaviour.

My blog next week will be on what makes a successful tabletop app; a device that is horizontal, static and multi-user. 

Introducing the DIGITABLE PLUS

 

The DIGITABLE PLUS is the ultimate in meeting space technology

Multi-user technology is the next step in technology. This has been the unshakeable vision of nsquared for the past eight years.

Collaboration is a powerful  agent for productivity. Well-designed modern workplaces have ‘anchor points’ to encourage planned and unplanned meetings. These are key to encouraging and harnessing creative team thinking and organisational innovation. 

Eight years of research, one year of meticulous designing and six months of solid perspiring has led us to the point where we are today.

And today, we are excited to announce, marks the launch of our newest and best digital table to date: the DIGITABLE PLUS.

The DIGITABLE PLUS has been designed to be the ultimate ‘anchor point’. Researched, designed, prototyped, and tested to within an inch of our lives here at nsquared. We are excited to announce that it is now available to purchase for your workplace to get your collective juices flowing. Start having truly productive meetings. Work. Together. Better.

To learn more, watch the video below and send us an inquiry at info@nsquaredsolutions.com.

For updates on digital tables and multi-user technology, follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

Activity Based Working: The Future of The Office

 The Ogilvy & Mather Office has a variety of places to work Picture: Future of Work

The Office has seen a number of transformations over the past thirty years. The cubicle farm of the 1980s, fraught with privacy issues and distractions, eventually broke down its walls to make people feel more accessible and lessen these distractions. The detest of the cubicle farm led to its exact opposite, the open plan office. Just destroying the cubicle walls as a solution for distracted employees and a lack of transparency meant a number of new flaws itself. Studies have shown that people (especially introverts) find the open plan office can actually hinder or intimidate lowering productivity and teamwork, and more often than not, other people are a significant source of distraction.

    

The approach to the office space of 2015, which has been favoured by nimble startups such as Dropbox and even huge corporations such as Google, is the idea of ‘Activity Based Working’ (ABW). ABW is a style of working which is team-oriented and allows for a significant degree of flexibility for workers. There is no fixed desk for any individuals, who position themselves wherever they like within the office depending on their preference and work from laptops. 

    

Why are office architects designing in this way? Steven Hodder, president of the Riba and chairman of Hodder and Partners Architects, put it this way - "The idea that the desk is a unit of productivity is changing very, very rapidly. Your productivity is not measured by the amount of time you sit behind a thing called a desk. It is what you do. It is about your output.”

Open, fluid spaces means people can sit themselves where they would like depending on their mood that day: stressful project due tomorrow? Private booth it is today. Creative brainstorming of a product needed? The beanbags near the kitchen it is. 

   

This concept of ABW is beginning to be more freely accessible as technology progresses: we are no longer confined to landlines plugged into a single person’s desk. Computer software means the same level of communication can easily be achieved wherever a person has their laptop. 

When you go to ABW, however, you lose the idea of 'your own space' in the office: having your pictures on your wall, your snacks in your desk drawer, your favourite pens on your desk. In ABW, you personalise your environment to suit your personality. This is a look beyond technology which often, and mistakenly so, mediates communications. Going to a pure digital world is often a fallacy, and overlooks the joy we get from physical spaces and objects, which is why the importance of human interaction is so vital to the modern office. 

   
And so, most importantly, this kind of fluid space takes full advantage of a team atmosphere by providing designated spaces for interaction and collaboration. As Steven Hodder put it, “there are great stories of researchers having incidental space and just bumping into one another and having ideas.” Anchor points, for planned or accidental meetings, are key to harnessing and encouraging innovative team thinking. Collaborative technology like digital tables are designed specifically for this purpose, to achieve a real, dynamic and interactive activity based work space, to enhance collaboration and communication instead of controlling it. 
  
 ABW is an exciting next step for offices moving to a social, collaborative approach to work. AB provides more productive employees, which is good for business, and happier, more satisfied employees meaning a better outcome for everyone.  
  
 To learn more about collaborative technology, visit nsquaredsolutions.com or follow nsquared on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Users collaborate on a DIGITABLE PLUS

How Do You Emotionally Engage Your Audience?

 

Windows Hello uses Iris detection technology source: Mashable.com

Humans are animals. Sure, we have a consciousness that our primate counterparts might be lacking but we are still driven by instinct. We still have no control over our emotions.  Our emotion is what drives our behaviour - and it is for this reason why brands need to consider engaging on a deeper, emotional level if they really want to reach their audience meaningfully.

Engagement involves understanding what your audience wants, grabbing and sustaining attention and keeping ideas simple. But emotional engagement is a whole step up from this.

So how can brands meaningfully engage with audiences? There are many different ways, dependent on both brands and audience.

Microsoft has focused their energy on creating a more personal computing experience for their customers. Recently, this has involving the release the Windows Hello. Windows Hello means your computer or device is able to recognise your fingerprints, face or iris. As well as enhancing peace-of-mind by significantly improving security, the device becomes a highly personal and personalised piece of technology. Windows Hello authenticates applications, enterprise content and customises online experiences. The technology adapts to the user instead of the other way around.

Microsoft is a great example of the application of technology into peoples lives to impact them beneficially. With beneficial impact comes emotional engagement. As technology becomes increasingly sophisticated and the digital and physical worlds meet on the edge, this beneficial impact becomes more of a possibility.

This edge of the physical and digital world is an exciting step for engagement as brands have the opportunity to talk back to people. A static marketing brochure can suddenly become an exciting choose-your-own video journey, chosen through an immersive touch screen. Interactive media is up to 41% more emotionally engaging than regular static media. This is because people treat interactive media like a person, we suspend our disbelief of the virtual world and brand messages becomes a two-way, dynamic conversation.

Digital tables are the result of advancements in technology; delighting, engaging, two-way interaction. The digital table is a phenomenon because, unlike other forms of technology, it is designed for many people at once. Multi-user interaction means conversations happen in-person with friends and family, creating deeper emotional engagement. This is because as we interact, chat, share and laugh, we unconsciously draw these emotional connections.

The gradual meeting of the digital world with the physical world, with more personalised computing and the application of technology to enhance peoples lives, represents an exciting step in user interaction and emotional brand engagement.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter to learn more about digital tables or other emotionally engaging multi-user solutions.

 

Users interact on a digital table

 

Microsoft Surface Hub: New Collaborative Technology

Collaboration is increasingly being recognised as a powerful agent of productivity. We are told to have a laugh with coworkers and to help coworkers integrate into company culture to better retain staff. This is great because it's better for everyone: we get to have fun and the company gets more productive employees.

Image: Microsoft

This week Microsoft announced the launch of the Surface Hub, a collaborative tool to increase productivity for business meetings. While we at nsquared have been going on about the benefits of collaboration since 2008 (in fact, our whole organisation is built on the power of collaboration), this announcement shows the power of multi-user technology is beginning to be recognised, and on such a huge scale too. 

Microsoft is said to have billed it as a "large-screen collaboration device" which will automatically sync with OneNote, have an endless whiteboard for team brainstorming, as well as a number of large-screen apps. The device will be available in either a 55- or enormous 84-inch screen, and will be mounted vertically like a television. With Microsoft starting to take orders in just three weeks from 24 markets around the world, Microsoft's vision for the collaborative meeting space is truly at our doorsteps.

It is exciting to see steps forward in the collaborative sphere as the technology nsquared has been pioneering gets recognised as forerunners in this field. While a wall-mounted touch screen is great, there are of course limitations: Standing and arm fatigue means the meeting times would have a short life span. Only one or two people can interact with the screen at one time (in one physical location) means that annotating and brainstorming is limited to those at the front. nsquared technology specifically addresses these problems with our 360 degree immersive and inclusive DIGITABLE range. The DIGITABLE already has potential to share from tabletop to screen to create an immersive environment. Imagine the potential of the engaging conference capabilities of Microsoft Hub in combination with the collaborative interactivity of the DIGITABLE.

Users interact on an nsquared DIGITABLE

The future of meetings has arrived. While Microsoft may have taken a while to get here, we embrace new, intelligent technology that has real potential to improve peoples lives. If you would like to learn more about our collaborative DIGITABLES, or other intelligent business solutions, click on the respective links or follow us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Have a collaborative week!

Put Down Your Phones And Put Your Hands On The Table

 Image source: pazoo.com

Imagine you are sitting at a restaurant waiting for dinner, and your friend pulls out their phone. In fact, you probably do not need to imagine this as it is a daily occurrence for many of us every single day. This can be endlessly frustrating as not only does it break the flow of conversation but it also builds a barrier between the two of you as they quickly become distracted; one notification leading to another. Just like this image from How I Met Your Mother checking Barney's Facebook then needing to check Barney's Instagram. This is true of restaurants; lobbies, schools, libraries, museums and in almost every public space we suffer the same frustrating behaviours. This is the digital age however and more than ever we do expect digital answers.

A table has, and always will be, the natural place for meetings. We sit ourselves around one to chat, to eat, to socialise.

The DIGITABLE is a tool to help enrich these interactions. Instead of pulling out our phones, breaking conversations and isolating people, a communal screen in the centre of table makes technology a social activity.

nsquared attractor is the app developed for 360 degree, multi-user ad hoc interaction. With context-relevant content floating around ready to be engage with, it is a tool to help bring people to a table to interact with digital content collaboratively and socially. Whether to search through  information as the conversation progresses, to watch videos of nearby attractions or browse content in a retail or education space, nsquared attractor is the simple-to-use, sleek application that puts peoples phones back in their pocket and gets them talking again.

Check out the latest video on nsquared attractor below!

If you're interested in cutting edge multi-user technology, follow nsquared on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and find out about our latest news as it happens.