It is perhaps fitting that, as we scrambled to the finish line of Playful 11, the last thing we had to do was stack the chairs in Conway Hall so that the ballroom dancing could start on time.  Last time I stacked chairs to make way for dancing was at school, at a time when I thought the future was bright, shiny and full of opportunities.

Bemoaning the future now.

That time was the 1970s. But, as it turns out, not everyone who went to school at that time thinks the future now is as bright, shiny and full of opportunity as it could be. We saw touch screen interfaces. We got the iPad. We saw 3d chess sets, we got the Nintendo 3DS. We saw Logan’s Run. We got the Olympic village. Hal, Siri, etc. We’re creating bits of the future we’d like to have had in the 1970s. We’ve created a ‘middle aged future’. At least, that was the jet-pack thrust of what Marcus Brown (“more of a Mr Ben kind of person”) had to say in his talk, which I rather liked.

It wasn’t just Marcus who had a slightly disappointed view of the future now. One of the recurring themes of the event was a mild annoyance that we’re still looking at the Usborne Book of the Future (pdf) and comparing what we’ve done with what we predicted, like we’re somehow just checking it off on a huge future to-do list. We’re stifled by the science fiction canon. We’re sick of the near future. We’re not making a dent on the world, according to Toby Barnes.

Which might be true. It also might be a bit self-fulfilling. I like a bit of nostalgia and everything, but some people have never even seen Star Wars or Dr Who. Imagine that.

Relishing the now now.

So hurrah for the curious, delightful mix of presenters gathered at the event that had their own diverse, compelling, and ingenious offerings that, for the most part, simply revelled in the possibilities of the now.

The eminently likeable Matt Sheret described cities filled with buildings that can talk back to us and how we can develop personal relationships with epic things placed on a human scale. The utterly charming Chris O’Shea shared his wonderous work in progress on apps that encourage children to build their own physical worlds around them. And, oh my, following Brendan Dawes journey through his virtual shed (“my shed is a mental construct in my head”), I’ve immediately gone out and purchased an Arduino, to play, and make, to become better at my craft.

Slightly tangential, but nonetheless, most brilliant, was Matt Ward’s walkthrough of GREEN = BOOM, a project that started as an interest in a fictional bomb, but became an experiment in designing an environment that makes us feel like we’re in a cinematic experience full of tension – creating a ‘tense event’. This was playfulness at its best, albeit, a playfulness that wilfully stretches the boundaries of taste. In a fun way. With a bomb.

We were also treated to not just one, but two, possibly three design studios that talked about those most playable of things: games. Naughty Dog and ustwo Studios were in the house, but Emil Ovemar from Toca Boca seemed to get everybody most excited. His examples of their kitchen and store apps being used within real-world play scenarios were super-cute and I think half the audience cried a little when they saw the beautiful simplicity of the hairdresser app.

An embarrassment of riches

So chock-full of goodness was the day, that I can’t even give due credit to all the speakers I haven’t mentioned thus far: Al Robertson for his highly engaging discussion of science fiction, play and some wonderful references to H. P. Lovecraft and J.G Ballard’s contrary visions of the future and Martin Luther King’s message to Uhuru; Sami Niemela on how we find comfort in humanising the environment around us and what technology talking back to us might mean; Louise Downe for sharing her experiences at the Tate and how making things easy and fun can disrupt patterns of behaviour. And ferrets; Georgina Voss for her brilliant dissection of safe, sane and consensual play through the ethics of play as evolved in the BSDM community; and Paul Rissen, who proposed a genius reversal of ‘data to fiction to physical’ to encourage constructing data directly from fiction, and the atomisation of gaming.

We even had Scribble Tennis, featuring the fabulous Gemma Correll, Ian Stevenson, Rex Crowle and Mr Bingo battling it out, old-school, on an overhead projector. Happy to say that Gemma won the final, deserved for the Ipswich snowglobe, if nothing else.

The future’s bright.

I didn’t go to the pub. I had to get the train home. But, as I sat on the train and reflected on the day, I realised that the future’s bright. As Brendan Dawes said, ‘I love the future we’re in’. I also love the future we might make. Maybe my children will look back in 30 years and say ‘yeah, I mean, we got our own avatars, but I’m still a bit depressed’, but that shouldn’t stop us trying to make our world a better place. We should make a dent on the world. Let’s get playful and see what happens.

All images © Toby Barnes from Playful 11 on Flickr.

Back in May, we popped over to Koleksiyon's beautiful showroom in Brewhouse Yard to run two ideation workshops for Clerkenwell Design Week. We hoped to use the space to inspire new product and service ideas for interactive and intelligent objects and spaces for home, work and play.

The two workshops were linked, with the first creating new product and service concepts, and the second considering design solutions. In this blog post I describe the conduct and results of the workshops. For more on the structure of the workshops and the materials we created, please read my earlier blog post.

Creating concepts

I facilitated the first workshop with my colleague James Sunderland. During the morning we set ourselves up in the office furniture area of the Koleksiyon showroom, and when it was time to start we had 13 willing participants.

As part of our introduction exercise we had asked everyone to think of a piece of furniture that had a special meaning for them. This worked incredibly well, both in illuminating the personality, history and passions of the participants, and also in highlighting the depth of the connections we can have with seemingly mundane objects.

A brief but passionate talk by Koray Malhan, the General Manager of Koleksiyon, was a late addition to the workshop agenda, but I'm so glad we managed to include it. Covering aspects of history, politics, economics, design theory and industrial sociology, the talk set the scene for some broad and innovative thinking about the position and influence of furniture in our private and working lives. About the place of furniture as emotional and meaningful, rather than just practical, objects.

We then divided the participants into four groups to begin exploring possible concepts. Each group had plenty of pens, sticky notes and worksheets. At this stage James and I toured the groups, joining their discussions, encouraging them to visualise their ideas, and giving occasional reminders of time left. Interestingly, some groups chose to work together on a series of ideas, while in other groups, individuals used the worksheets to record their own ideas before sharing them with the rest of their group.

We then encouraged the groups to review their initial thinking and to refine and capture their concepts ready for sharing with the rest of the group. As before, James and I toured the groups, helping them clarify their concepts, and giving occasional timing reminders.

The concepts that emerged in the Show & Tells were beyond anything we expected. From a 'pimp my chair' service complete with racetracks, leader boards and an accessories market. Through a 'sharing couch' where people could leave ideas, thoughts, stories and calls for help for others to pick up and respond to and extend or just learn from or be inspired by. To furniture that accretes a patina of memories over its life, that could by accessed by future users, with some memories worn away, overlaid, extended or replaced as the furniture is passed on and freecycled through many generations.

Here are some of the worksheets that the groups produced along the way:

And you can view the groups' Show & Tells on our YouTube channel:

Design solutions

My colleagues James Sunderland and Stuart Penny were back the next day to facilitate the second workshop. This time we had 6 volunteers, so we divided them into two groups of 3 and James and Stuart each joined one of the groups.

We started the workshop with the same introduction exercise and Koray gave another inspiring introduction.

We then showed the teams the recordings of the Show & Tells from the first workshop and asked them to choose one of the concepts as the start point for their work.

At this stage the groups worked to create several options for realising their chosen concept. Once again the groups had plenty of pens, sticky notes and worksheets that they could use to capture their design ideas.

Once they had created some initial options, we asked the groups to synthesise and refine their ideas and to use the worksheets to capture one design solution. James and Stuart worked with their groups to help them focus their efforts and prepare to give an 'Elevator Pitch' of their idea.

The groups produced some great designs including intelligent and interactive street furniture that used near field communications to promote a community spirit and tables that promote information sharing through food!

Here are some of the worksheets that the groups produced to express their designs:

And you can view the groups' Elevator Pitches on our YouTube channel:

Conclusion

We had a great time running the workshops for Clerkenwell Design Week. Koleksiyon were fantastic hosts and we'd be proud to work with them again. And we met lots of smart and enthusiastic people who astonished us with their ideas. We just hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.

Can't wait for next year!

I love working in our offices in Clerkenwell. We have great labs and studio rooms, lots of skylights and even our own courtyard. And we are also at the heart of one of London's most creative districts. This is exemplified by Clerkenwell Design Week, a three day international festival celebrating the best in design with more than 150 events, pop up exhibitions, installations, talks, performances, music and workshops.

Flow and Koleksiyon

This year we got together with Koleksiyon, a furniture design company from Turkey, to run two ideation workshops in their beautiful new showroom in Brewhouse Yard. From the start we were impressed with Koleksiyon's commitment to collaboration and co-creation and their philosophy of rooting design in the "culture, history and geography" of "a particular time and place."

Ideation workshops

We planned two short workshops that would use Koleksiyon's showroom space to inspire new product or service ideas for interactive and intelligent objects and spaces for home, work and play.

Our aim for the first workshop was to create new product and service concepts. Here we would not focus on how the product or service might work, just what it would be capable of and what the experience would be like. The output of this workshop would be a 'show and tell' of each concept.

Our aim for the second workshop was to take the output of the first workshop and consider how the new product or service might actually work and how a person might interact with it. The output form this workshop would be an 'elevator pitch' for each product or service.

We scheduled the 90 minute sessions that participants could fit into a 'long lunch' on the Wednesday and Thursday of the festival.

Recruiting participants

We promoted the workshops through the Clerkenwell Design Week website and timetable, through twitter and through our professional and personal contacts. For each workshop we wanted to recruit 16 participants from a variety of backgrounds so we could put together mixed workgroups of three or four.

To help the participants start their thinking before the workshops, we gave them a homework task. We asked them to think of a piece of furniture that was connected to a special meaning, experience or memory for them. And to bring an image of the piece of furniture to the workshop.

Workshop structure

It can seem like a contradiction, but creative workshops need careful planning to create a structure and set of rules that help focus participants' efforts, but leave enough room for participants to find their own path and use their diverse skills. This was particularly important for these workshops as the time constraints (90 minutes sessions) did not allow for any wasted time.

The structure for the first workshop was:

1. Introductions - to help the participants get to know each other and to give them time to get comfortable with the showroom space
2. Inspiration and context - Koray Malhan, the General Manager of Koleksiyon, explains their design philosophy
3. Exploration - groups create lots of possible product and service ideas
4. Capture - groups refine their best ideas and record them using the worksheets
5. Show and tell - groups present their best ideas to camera using the materials they have created.

The structure for the second workshop was:

1. Introductions - as first workshop
2. Inspiration and context - as first workshop
3. Concept showreel - participants watch the Show and Tell recordings from the first workshop
4. Options - groups choose concepts to work on and create several design options for each concept
5. Capture - groups refine their designs and create descriptions and interaction storyboards for their best designs
6. Elevator pitch - groups present their best ideas to camera using the materials they have created.

Materials

For the introductions we asked the participants to pair off and to fill out an introduction card for their partner. Participants would then introduce their partner, and their partner would describe their special piece of furniture.

To structure the participants' efforts and to help them work quickly, we gave them stacks of worksheets and lots of pens and sticky notes.

Wait and hope

Recruitment went well and both workshops filled up quite nicely in the days before the festival. We were getting excited.

On the day before the workshops I dropped in on the rather lovely party that Koleksiyon hosted to launch their new showroom. All we could do now was wait and hope that someone showed up the next day.

Coming soon: Find out how the workshops turned out!

I read the blog by Steve Denning from RETHINK and it is obvious that either he doesn’t really understand the true purpose and value of User-Centred Design (UCD) methodology or he has never been exposed to it in its true form. With so many amateurs selling themselves as user experience (UX) experts, it is understandable.

We are UX designers not UX artists. We design for a purpose, but that does not mean that creativity is not a large part of what we do. Design via a UCD process supports creatively with freedom and low risk if implemented properly. In the context of the business objective and the users’ needs, the UCD process allows us to inject creativity into the design process with little risk of creating something that has little or no value to either the business or the customer. UCD also supports collaborative working with a multidisciplinary team, increasing the creative gene pool. UCD is user-centred, not user-led.

Why is this so? First, we are afforded a true understanding of what a business is trying to achieve via business research, establishing their objectives and goals and agreeing what success looks like. Second, we also acquire insights into the users’ context via user research. User research doesn’t just tell us what the user thinks they need (as users are not designers) it provides us with the stories that we use to not only solve the problems they are facing, but to innovate in a way that will extend the solution beyond what they could possibly imagine. All of this is done while still supporting the goals and objectives of the business.

Following on from the research phase is conceptualisation. At this point, user experience consultants are free to create and express their creativity by producing many diverse, off-the-wall, way out solutions, without restrictions. The freedom is implemented without risk. This is possible because as a result of the research stage, we will have created artefacts that that are essentially used as concept filters. These filters are used to determine which ideas will create solutions that will extend beyond usability; not just create designs to best practice or standard convention. Those artefacts include, but are not limited to, personas, scenarios, business objectives and goals, and prioritised user requirements. Also in the filter mix is foundational knowledge, as UX experts that will include understanding of human behaviour, emotion, and physical and mental limitations of users.

These filters are used to select and extend the best, most innovative solutions. This part of the process, pre-design, greatly reduces the risk of implementing a creative phase between research and design that doesn’t limit creativity but ensures the solution solves the problem and isn’t just creative for the initial wow factor.

So in reply to Steve’s assumptions about user centred design:

• User insights cannot predict future demands, but creative people can easily address this within a UCD process that includes collaboration of a multidisciplinary team.
• UCD does not stifle creatively, but by significantly lowering the risk within a design process allows creativity to flourish, but not run wild.
• The process is not user-led; it is fuelled by user insight. Users are not designers. The products that don’t benefit from the insights provided by user research are notoriously bloated by unnecessary user requirements- making them more complicated and ultimately more expensive and prone to overruns.
• User-centred (not user-led) only leads to sameness if the practitioners aren’t very good at their jobs. You should not confuse poor implementation, skill, or knowledge with what you believe is poor methodology.

Only a bad workman blames their tools. So ultimately, I agree, a user-led process cannot create innovations, but true user-centred design does.

On Thursday evening, 19th February 2009, I was privileged to be at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London for the HSBC Rail Business Awards to co-receive the Information Technology Excellence of the Year Award for the new National Express East Coast (NXEC) booking engine and website.

As any of you reading this who have used the NXEC booking engine know, it dramatically simplifies the process of finding and buying rail tickets online...not just on NXEC routes, but for any train in the UK.  We have blogged before about the intuitive user interface and its cutting edge use of AJAX technology as well as the positive customer feedback and improved business results for NXEC before.

We (and NXEC) have also received lots of accolades from customers and the industry about how great the new booking engine is.  So it fills us with a great sense of pride and accomplishment to receive this well-deserved acknowledgement from the Rail Industry for all the creativity and teamwork that went into making it happen.

It has been a long road, but the hard work and effort has paid off, not just because we won this award, but because we succeeded in creating a first-of-its-kind, innovative and successful new booking engine for trains that will set the standard for all that follow, in terms of business performance, ease of use and customer satisfaction. It is also a clear demonstration of how User-Centred Design makes a tangible difference to customers and business.

I just want to take a moment to thank the entire NXEC team from Flow:  Simon Hatch, Alejandra Obregon, Martina Schell and Kelsey Smith; our partners at Splendid: Paul Bishop, Simon Parbutt, Alistair Thomson and Karl Wortmann; the team at Atos Origin who built it:  Graham Bodman, Richard Phillpot, Ian Collier, Eleanor Waldron and Chris Rees; and the team at Tullo Marshall Warren (TMW) for bringing the marketing website together.

But perhaps most importantly, I want to thank Emma Passey and the entire NXEC team for their vision, passion and perseverance.  We couldn't have done it without you!

Congratulations to everyone. A well deserved award!

- Ian Worley, Director of User Experience at Flow Interactive

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Download Case Studies about this project:

• National Express East Coast Booking Engine Case Study (78k .pdf)
• National Express East Coast Website Case Study (92k .pdf)

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