Abstracted Artefacts

We recently held one of our regular Interesting Things lunchtime chats, where we ‘chew the fat’ over whatever occupies our minds….

One new product that prompted some discussion was the B&O Moments control unit. The artefact / device itself is interesting for its use of wood, both as a material, and as a control surface. B&O have continually sought to break category norms using advanced technology – the BeoSound 2300 system used proximity sensors to unveil itself as you approached, it did nothing but make me drool, make we want one….

So, is the use of wood in the same vein as previous products, where technology is used to create a sense of theatre ?

Our debate seemed to suggest a more encompassing idea - that the old rules, the ‘category norms’ have been eroded. Perhaps even more challenging is the idea of detaching product form from function.

Dieter Rams design philosophy has inspired some of our most successful designers & their output - there is a serenity & beauty to certain electric razors, smartphones & computers inspired by such principles. The way an iPhones’ form ‘silences’ itself to allow you to consume content is still one of its most compelling experiences. It is honest, and to a certain extent silent, in a sea of noise and clamour, despite its seemingly endless use cases & functionality. Its reason to exist is to provide content, and its form was created to enable that to occur in the best possible manner.

Yet when we see other new devices and artefacts launched, they all too often seem to be trying to present themselves in ways that don’t explain their purpose. Producing what could be called abstracted artefacts – objects where form, materials & finishes do not suggest function.

Maybe this is a reflection of our advanced markets, where such literal interpretations are seen as passé, and (ironically) simplistic. We, as users and consumers, are using products to express our personalities and aspirations.

We can see this approach in the work of Phillippe Starck & others, where everyday objects are created with a wider perspective on functionality… Perhaps most famously the Allessi Juicy Salif, that Starck is rumoured to have said: 

"It's not meant to squeeze lemons, it is meant to start conversations."

A juicer meant to start conversations… A USB ‘stick’ that is a TV antenna, a bracelet that’s counts our steps, or a wooden ‘stereo’ control panel with no physical connection to physical media.

To misquote Madonna, we are living in a de-materialised world. Our media & content exists everywhere without physical form. The concept of what is ‘ours’ has melted away, we simply consume it – we don’t own it, store it or recycle it. As a result, the artefacts & devices we use to consume them have morphed into unfamiliar forms.

From a UI perspective, there has been a long and wide ranging discussion on the concept of ‘skeumophism’ – simplistically surmised as the use of analogue / old world icons & images to help us understand dematerialised functionality. The use of a floppy disk icon to save a document, despite such media being outdated many years ago helps us understand that we are performing the same functions despite the new pathways and actions.

Part of the debate centred upon the use of ‘old’ to explain the ‘new’, and how futile that would be in the long term. Why use an outdated concept to explain a new one ? We don’t necessarily need to actively save a document, it is auto saved, and / or ‘in the cloud’. Yet we still feel the need to do so - our behavioural change is slower than the technological change occurring.

Whether it relates to hardware or software, the challenge now is to express & explain new technologies in ways people understand and appreciate. Skeumorphism is also apparent in hardware / product design, with devices presenting themselves using old languages, and we will quickly arrive at the same result of outdated messages unable to express the true value of certain objects & artefacts.

For example, if we look at the emergent IoT, and all that it entails, how do devices & services express their added value ? What is it that makes we want to buy a ‘connected’ object ? For now, we use the word SMART, when in fact it is almost always the exact opposite – they are not smart, because if they were, they would be able to explain themselves to me. My own (and I suspect others) cynicism about this shows this to be true.

What matters to us as customers, users and humans is rarely expressed or represented in such artefacts. Why the disconnection ? We know that creating and developing the incredible technology we all use is extremely challenging, and once launched, the competition is intense.

We have a deep understanding of how atoms, particles and waves behave and interact, and harness this to create flexible screens and all manner of amazing things. What amazes me is that this is not balanced by a deep understanding of us, of people and our emotive, contextual decision making & behaviour – the net result is that we are able to create a touchscreen computer small enough to put on our wrists, but don’t know who would buy it, or why.

Rectifying this imbalance is the key to future success. In its simplest terms, it means defining what someone might want and developing the technical solution to meet that need. Easily said, but HOW ?

It means that in parallel to the experiments & tests undertaken required to develop technology, we perform tests & experiments to assess how people might respond to certain propositions / ideas and products at very early stages in the process. We perform tests to define & optimise the technology development AND to help define a clear and concise proposition that has meaning & value to people.

To me, that’s the power of design, that’s why we exist – in a time a huge technological advancement & change, it is our role to help businesses understand people, and to use that insight to improve their commercial performance, by making lives better and easier.

Frankensteins turkeys voting for Christmas

In the past two weeks I have attended two events focused on the future of TV, and am sitting here wondering how it has gone so wrong. The first event was the IPTV World Forum, the second a Technology Strategy Board event about the Future of TV Convergence. I attended both as I was interested to see / hear how TV could re-invent itself or manage the ‘eyeball migration’. Boy was I in for a shock.


TV has been the most important media platform in all of our lives. It has defined who and what we know and what we feel is important. It still does to a certain extent (depending on how old you are) but from what I have seen and witnessed recently TV is losing its’ way.
Both events were focused on convergence, a widely held and misunderstood term, but my experience has taken this misunderstanding to a new level…


Imagine 2 events in the same city taking place in the same month tackling the same issues. Now imagine that that neither event references the other, or that the companies and people attending were completely different. Then remind yourself that the subjects they both tackle are about convergence.


I had hoped to see some interesting ‘solutions’ on show at the exhibition – examples of complex services accessed through intuitive interfaces that would enhance the viewing experience. I didn’t.


The most interesting example on show at IPTV was of an early Android prototype that provided a translucent twitter feed on the side of the screen. It represented the best of a poor bunch where two distinct forms of content & interaction were being squeezed into a single experience to create an experience that is less than the sum of its parts - Frankensteins monster…


My big issue here is that broadcast (in all its forms) is a passive medium to viewers, while the internet (& social media) are active. To simply combine them and expect a positive result is wrong on so many levels.


One simple example – the remote control – Given the new found freedom to access the internet through your connected TV, many remotes have grown a QWERTY interface. Yes, that’s right – the example used by most people as poorly designed has added upwards of 30 new buttons to what was already a soup of characters, numbers and hieroglyphics.


One interesting statistic was that only 5% of ‘smart’ TV’s are connected, so it seems that to drive this connection and usage, the hardware manufacturers have decided to add complexity… 


The device and technology people are not alone. The Convergence conference was very interesting, but equally worrying as a key topic for broadcast channels and production companies was their desire to increase ‘engagement’ using the 2nd screen – ie more tweets from viewers…. Forgive me if I am missing something here, but when I tweet I tend to not be able to watch the programme….. or the advert. (From my own experience with Twitter, Facebook, Zeebox etc volumes seem to go up during the ad breaks).


So, imagine a business encouraging it customers to place less value on the very thing that pays their salaries and costs…. I asked one of the broadcasters about this, and their answer was to admit that it was true, but that people were doing it anyway, so it’s better to at least remain part of the conversation. – To repeat again, they see something that is harmful to their business, but to remain relevant they encourage that migration, like turkeys voting for Christmas…


So, we have an industry craving convergence, but unable to bring itself to actually look at the problem from a converged perspective, creating solutions that are alienating either the users or the funders.


I am not saying it is easy, nor that I have a complete packaged solution. What I can say is that they have seemed to have missed the 3 key elements that I would regard as the drivers of successful innovation – people, content & experiences.


It seems that little time or effort has been put into taking a step back to look at how new combinations of the above could produce the answer, an answer I think that defines the new business models where classical 30 second adverts shift, where viewers interact and define content and where the numerous screens and platforms blur into history as we just enjoy the content.


What’s missing is an intelligently designed model to do so - once again, in an industry of massive complexity and shifting markets there is one pillar of continuity – that of people and their needs and desires. Starting there and working back might produce something more interesting than a Frankenstein and more sensible than a turkey running towards the knife.

Unexpected human in the selling area

I thought I would mention some recent interactions I have had with automated retailing as I have had a couple of experiences that I think highlight the lack of user experience consideration.

I haven’t had a physical air ticket for years. Nor have I sat in a travel agent while they tapped away and responded with a “computer says no”. I book, check in and board without needing assistance or a printer. I also get a greater sense of ownership and control of my ‘journey’. I am a real sucker for changing my seat more than once (don’t ask, we all have our foibles). The final piece in the jigsaw was the iphone screen boarding pass – that still makes me feel like I live in the future…

Compare that to a recent journey I took with my family on a train. Again, I booked using the operator website, was provided with a booking reference and told to collect my tickets at the station. I collected a total of 12 pieces of paper from the machine (for 4 people, 3 needing tickets). I had so many I cleared out the tray just in case I missed one. We then decided to treat ourselves to an upgrade to First Class, so I now had a total of 15 tickets that filled half of the table.

The tickets were checked by a machine as we entered the platform, again on the train by the ‘train manager’ twice, and finally as we left the platform in Liverpool. Each time meant me searching through a book of tickets, and passing them to my wife and children (all while carrying numerous bags).
The journey itself was lovely – space, time to read, friendly staff… but something was niggling me. Why cant my train journey be as seamless ? why haven’t they adopted more efficient (better) ticketing and customer journeys ? My cynical side thinks its because they haven’t had to – there has been no 9/11, no competitor that costs a 1/10 of the price. Necessity is the mother of innovation.
UK Supermarkets are also guilty of poor UX – at a recent shop I was presented with 8 printed vouchers for BOGOF toilet tissues and the like, a receipt telling me I had saved 8p compared to a Tesco shop and a £10 voucher for a delivery service (please don’t come back )!
Given the hugely complex back end supporting the various schemes (Tesco is a data company) I question the logic of all this unnecessary paper that fills my wallet. There are 2 issues here…

1) They need to show me clearly where they are making an effort (BOGOFs & saving) – is there no better way to share this with me than paper ???

2) The vouchers represent potential savings - they are dependent on redemption rates being so low that the lost revenue doesn’t harm earnings.

Vouchers aren’t the real issue with supermarkets though.. The inhuman voice stating “unexpected item in the bagging area” has replaced the dulcet tones of “clean up in aisle 4” by a checkout lady. I can clearly see the benefits of the system to both business and customer – the proposition of automated tills and smaller queues is clearly a compelling idea to any retailer. So where did it all go wrong ?

It is interesting as in the UK, the major retailers all have a slightly different system or at least have the same system with different variable settings. I find Sainsburys easiest to use, while Tesco and WHS almost always require a reset by the supporting staff member. Maybe I use Sainsburys more often, maybe I use it more often because it is easier…
I can understand the challenge – I don’t mean the technology. I mean us customers aren’t terribly honest or helpful most of the time. The real issue to me seems to centre around the systems ability to check what has been scanned is what is in the ‘bagging area’. This requires the system to access other forms of data (weight etc) to check authenticity. This works, but is unreliable when there is a pesky human messing about.

I can almost see the look of disgust on the engineers face when he / she will have been shown the research videos of failure mode screaming “you’re not supposed to do that !”

I understand, I really do. They are clever, amazing things that can perform almost all the tasks of a cashier, but they just don’t work well enough – or should that be the other way round ?

That they are just about good enough.

Fine - set the bar low, get to market quickly, manage the negative response and grow. That’s how its done isn’t it ? My carefully considered response is… NO.

UK retailers are some of the best in the world. They have created highly complex systems to ensure we get our fruit and veg uniformly fresh from all corners of the globe to every store in the land. THAT is impressive. Why would a retailer then step back and allow that wonder to get lost in the disappointment when the customer is actually paying – the one moment that the whole edifice was created to serve?

I am not advocating some radical redefinition of retail here (although there is scope for that). It is simply a matter of creating a richer definition of work flow – wireframing and prototyping user experiences that include the irrationality of human behaviour, or the variability of response.
This is the important bit – this variability is rarely included because it is complex to measure and can ‘dilute’ the purity of optimisation and technical developments. Yet it is the complexity that makes it valuable. If it is difficult to do, then others will find it difficult to follow, and those who do it well will have a competitive advantage. To paraphrase JFK – we need to do it because it is difficult, not because it is easy.

There is much talk about the need for innovation to stir up our moribund economies, but to what end ? Why do we need innovation ? If it is all about the money then we create things like CDO’s and other such poisonous financial tools. We need an inclusive vision, a collective goal that drives us forward... 

Here’s my suggestion - We have spent years creating, establishing and building this incredible network of interconnectedness powered by accessible tools and ecosystems– now what ?
The technical challenges inherent in this development were immense and solved by people with way more brain power than I can imagine (along with a shedload of determination). But the same brains cant provide the solutions to our new challenges.

If the ‘noughties’ were the age of the geek, then I think the ‘teens’ will be the age of the UX designer. The challenge is not how, but why and to whom, and that is our collective call to action, our moon goal – to make the digital and physical worlds we inhabit more pleasant, more productive and more compelling places to exist.

Its getting very serious.

McKinsey released two white papers / articles recently, and I think they hint at a future where the creation of customer / user experiences is taken very seriously indeed.

The first – ‘using behavioural science to improve the customer experience’ (pdf download) sets out that...

“By guiding the design of customer interactions, the principles of behavioural science offer a simple, low-cost route to improved customer satisfaction."

Within a week another article titled “The Human factor in service design” looked at how the

“Focus on the human side of customer service to make it psychologically savvy, sound, and easier to scale”.

I admire McKinsey – it’s fair to say they have been more than a little successful, and their recent articles, research and models on the themes of user experience and service design show the increasing role data has to play in the creation, measurement and refinement of experiences.
What registered with me about the article was that it’s a good sign when a McKinsey article is full of what I consider to be well established practices, and reminded me that it takes a data driven approach to validate critical business decisions. (another truism.)

But what data? What can you measure, and how do you prioritise / synthesise one data stream from or with another ? I think the value of design processes and practices have been massively underestimated in the innovation process because the measurement models were too simplistic, and that the models failed to truly understand human behaviour. The processes used to form decisions are only just beginning to be truly understood, and the impact of this is perhaps best described by Alan Greenspan who said that he found a

"..flaw in the model..... the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works"

The (fundamental) flaw was that they failed to understand was human behaviour, there was irrationality in the markets, like there is irrationality in almost everything we do. (The last truism.) This has driven a new interest in behavioural economics, something we have been exploring for some time.
The challenge we face is applying the principles and models of behavioural economics to the creative process. Essentially we are running hundreds of tiny little tests to assist in the creation of the look, feel and behaviour of devices and digital platforms.

The results of our tests are maps, sketches, code, layouts, models – whatever. There are a huge number of ways to measure any form of design from MRI scans to simple card sorting exercises, but for us they either aren’t fast enough or provide little insight.

So, we have stuff that is tricky to measure and tests that are too slow or inaccurate. To get round this we use techniques like role play and empathy to inspire us. As designers we are perfectly comfortable with this approach and our assumptions, when tested, are often proved correct, but this isnt going to be good enough in the future, we are going to be inspired by a more direct form of data.

Which brings us back to the McKinsey articles. I don’t think the new models and data will be produced in experiments and tests, but in the real world.


One of the many impacts of the Internet of Things will be that we can have access to multiple macro, real time experiments running 24/7. One of the challenges we will face as a design and innovation business will be to really harness data driven design – not only how the data influences our work, but in how we structure data streams to provide better user experiences over time.

review of new .gov site (an expansion of BBC quote)

We were asked to review the new BETA .gov site by the BBC. They wanted us to cast a quick (1hr) glance at it and comment on how it improves the user experience.

I realise that the new site is the culmination of millions of hours of work. It is the ‘baby’ of its creators, so any comment I make may be seen by its creators as idiotic – that my understanding of its purpose and design are irrelevant and baseless. I accept that, but also suggest that is the exact reason why we were asked – to provide a viewpoint of the ‘average user’.

I have included the copy I provided for review to the BBC. As always, not all of what is written is published, and what is published is often not given a wider context. I accept that is what happens, but the beauty of digital is that I too now have a platform to share a fuller perspective.


Review of the new .gov site. – on Firefox, IE9, Chrome & Safari (iPhone)

The new .gov site is an improvement on the direct.gov site, but the bar wasn’t set too high in the first place… The new site initially looks quite different, with a more concise front page, but even that still doesn’t have a clear call to action. The new visual impact loses its purpose when it isn’t placed in a broader context – what is the new ‘look’ trying to do ? This is less about the experience, and more about the purpose of the site / portal. Perhaps this is unkind to the developers as its purpose will become clearer over time.

Once you have navigated away from the front page (search), it is back to business as usual – it looks like the same information architecture, but with a ‘pretty looking icon’ next to some titles, but these aren’t defined / introduced and they do not make it easier to navigate in any way.
On ‘detail’ pages there are numerous fonts used (up to 4 on some pages) – I would say this is poor planning / design, but perhaps more worryingly we’ve had anecdotal evidence that certain fonts such as Georgia are known to prove problematic to dyslexics when reading numbers. There are many uses of Georgia across the site.
The predictive search seen on the front page is nice, but is not contextualised as you progress, so the same search presents the same results wherever you are. Contextualised search should be provided here.

On mobile devices the site remains faithful to the desktop experience, but that isn’t all good news – fonts and buttons are small enough to be useless. New mobile / touch paradigms like Microsoft Metro UI show how content can be repurposed to many interaction archetypes.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that this should have been launched in 2007 – it is a prettier brochure, and not a space where communities can grow… The power of digital media is connectivity – linking, sharing, joining and so on. There is none here – you cant share a page, you cant discover charities, organisations, communities that exist to help and support. It is the opposite of the big society as it only offers official govt information – where are the rich, vibrant and informed communities that might help me ??


So, there you go. I was asked for an opinion, and gave it to the best of my best ability in the time provided.

I appreciate that there is so much to shout about its creation, and how it suggests a future where HM Govt are knowledgeable and confident enough to create digital platforms using the best tools and techniques (open source, collaborative, cloud based etc etc), but I do feel that it is outdated in its purpose and nature. That is not the fault of its creators, but shows how much they can hope to influence the culture(s) of Govt departments. I know this takes time – years, and countless “project wins”. Martha Lane Fox calls for revolution, so this may well be a spark that lights a fire…

I spoke to her about the need to reflect the activity and communities in the digital world at the FT Innovate conference last year. One or two days before, I had been sent a link to a Reddit forum that was simultaneously upsetting and inspiring.


The link is here, but be warned, the topic is “If you knew your child was going to be disabled, would you have had an abortion?” It is upsetting for all of the reasons you would expect, and then some. More surprisingly it is inspiring because it is filled with insight, support and experience. What struck me most was the clear sense that the decision was wider than the parents alone, that there were clear support structures provided, and where further support was needed. In short it was a policy discussion more informed and more productive than any other.

It’s this vibrancy, this sense of ownership and community that I think is the missing link between .gov and the real web (real world). They are not alone – include almost all large ‘old world’ organisations in the same category. Few have migrated to a more ‘social’ model and some are actively trying to stymie it (SOPA). The latest example of this is McDonalds who launched #McDstories on twitter. Looking for heart-warming stories of how a beef patty changed people’s lives, they were instead inundated by people sharing poor labour management or destruction of natural resources stories.

Large organisations are used to controlling the channel(s) through which they communicate. They find it difficult to ‘introduce’ themselves to conversations taking place because they never had to introduce themselves before – they had paid for a ‘spot’ and all they had to do was shout as loud as possible.

The new paradigm of social media, social innovation and social business is one that won’t be diminishing in the near future, the challenge to ‘us’ is to make sure ‘they’ make it even more social in the future.

What does CES show us about the forthcoming year ?

Blog Post by Matt Plested, Director, Alloy

We returned from our annual NY trip to Vegas a week ago, and as always the studio wanted to know what was cool, interesting and over hyped..
Where to start ? – well that’s the first problem of CES... It has always been big, but convergence has just stretched it.. Too far ? Well Microsoft seems to think so.

CES reflects ‘the industry’, well it did, until what defined the industry was broken. CES sits at the heart of how we will live, move, work, create and maybe even die… CES covers everything from advanced healthcare and 100” flatscreens to .20c accessories. It also covers in car entertainment, oh and now cars too. In fact the NCAA show in Detroit was showcasing how well the auto industry was reclaiming hype and excitement back from the latest smartphone / laptop launch. Except it wasn’t. The major announcements from the large auto brands seemed to centre around how they had improved integration of in car comms and content.


Super Hero Celebrities
Just like the comic books, we like to think that when we are in real trouble there is someone we can call on. Yet again, CES was packed with celebs of all kinds showcasing how much they were inspired by (jnsert random brand here). There is nothing new or exciting there, but it does get interesting when endorsement grows into ‘collaboration’.

HP felt the need to issue a superhero call a year ago, and hired Will.I.Am as a creative director. Within 12 months they had abandoned WebOS and the consumer market – quite what HP hoped they would achieve is still a mystery. The same was also true with famous (photographer) Lady Gaga & Polaroid.

Celebrities are brands, and are increasingly channels too (Stephen Fry has a greater readership than all UK tabloids combined). Dr Dre showed that linking premium audio quality to his ‘brand’ was successful. He helped to develop the devices and create market leading products. To see the trustees of Bob Marleys estate thinking that sticking his name on devices is enough was like a trip back to the bad old days. Unless I am mistaken, I don’t think (Sir) Bob had much role in their development, and I don’t think it will be as successful as Dr Dre.


Converge & Diverge
The impact of the convergence (standardisation) that has taken place for the past few years is now clear for all to see – mobile phones are now central in how we consume and communicate to a point where the best other manufacturers from auto to medical can hope to claim is the level of integration with mobile platforms.

What CES’12 showed was that we have come out of the other side – that convergence is now driving divergence. One of the most powerful things we saw was the volume of ‘i-suppliers’. An enormous collection of cases, stands and general accessories from companies you have never heard of - all supplying the personalisation / protection needs of the smartphone & tablet markets. More importantly alongside the cutesy cases were medical monitoring and other complex electronic accessories, many of which were from new companies. Whole new industries have sprung up to supply the divergent (specialised) needs of users. What this suggests is that users are increasingly the architects of the devices and services they use – we now have platforms onto which we attach content, connections and control.

MVP (Minimal Product Value)
The success of platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Android demonstrate that huge value lies in the ability to create an open platform that connects with other platforms. More importantly, their value stems from not being a ‘complete’ experience, but enabling the user to integrate their own data streams into them. This is almost the exact opposite of classic tech innovation, where companies competed on feature lists (mines longer than yours !), they now compete on how they each add to the overall user experience.

The term MVP was created to define this new approach to innovation, and we can see how even a closed ‘ecosystem’ like Apple provides huge opportunity for companies to grow around them. This is a wonderful opportunity for new entrants to the market, but it has been a challenge for the established brands like Sony, Panasonic et al – the behemoths of the ‘closed’ innovation movement who now find themselves left behind or sidelined in the race to provide the connected, ubiquitous lifestyle.

The battleground this year looks to be TV, or rather how the big screen in your home becomes part of, and then central to a connected lifestyle / home

Bezels, pixels, inches yada yada yada..
While the latest sets all boasted incremental improvements on 2011 models, the really interesting innovations looked to how they could integrate other forms of content into the TV experience. Right now this is a hugely fertile area – current attempts seem to think that simply putting 2 different forms of content and interaction archetypes on the same screen will be the answer, instead it seems to produce some kind of mutation that is neither man or beast.
That is perhaps being a little unkind, clearly we are only seeing V1, by the end of the year I expect to see products, apps, services and mash-ups of the 3 that really add to the experience.

Digital to Physical
‘Open’ innovation is as much a philosophy as a process. While it is typified by the open software movement, it is now extending to open hardware. (We highlighted this last year in our report for CIKTN seen here.
CES debuted a number of simple kits of sensors, controllers and 3D printers that enable people to become designers and manufacturers in their home. All manner of collaborative platforms exist to connect the users / creators. Exactly what impact this will have on the devices we use in the short term is still up for debate. What is much clearer is the long term impact such behaviours will have on how we choose, make, buy and share devices and artefacts in the future. – In other words, it has the potential to redefine what brands stand for, how we will manufacture, retail and a whole lot else.

So, not much happening really !

We will post another blog after our visit Barcelona for World Mobile Congress where we will be speaking and helping to judge the UK's most innovative company for UKTI.

If you want to catch up there, feel free to get in touch

 

My phone is faster than my car...

I have been meaning to write about this for a while, and as ever, didn’t want to simply moan about what was wrong, but to suggest what could be done about it. What prompted me to pen this has been the Detroit Auto Show and CES, and the myriad of press releases and blogs about the convergence of cons tech and in car controls.

Perhaps the one that tipped me over the edge was a short blog by the esteemed Helen Walters, see her blog here. She, and many others, make the point that this convergence is going to throw up some real challenges.

I bought a Ford just over a year ago. I bought it because I wanted a car that would have the 'entertainment' that would make my regular 3 hr commute more bearable (1.5 hrs each way). – I didn’t need performance as most of my driving is essentially a fast moving queue. I chose Ford as it offered all the automation & connectivity I needed – (supposedly).

The truth is far from that. Sure, it has multiple colour screens, and a LOT of buttons (16 on the steering wheel alone, with a further 45 on the radio / air con console). This is where I should have walked away – those numbers alone shout “unresolved”, but no. Like a Blackbird I saw shiny things, and dove straight in.

Some simple examples of this unresolved interface are that I have cancelled cruise control when meaning to turn the volume down, and turned the volume up when I wanted to slow down cruise control… Neither good outcomes.

What really got my goat was the iPod connectivity – Bluetooth integration ranges from patchy to non-functioning. My address book, recent calls etc are rarely shown on screen, and I needed to buy a ‘Ford iPod connector’ to play music in my car. This is a triumph of stupidity, seen below.

Fords’ Flux Capacitor

It’s only when you actually plug it in do you realise how silly it is.

upside down reading skills required

The fact that I have to have my phone in my glovebox is annoying. I cant read texts or emails without having to first unplug it. Who thought that a wire that is too long to fit comfortably into the glovebox, but too short to actually extend to the seat is a good outcome ??

My solution is to use the iPad, as it seems to be a little more stable than my iPhone (classy, I know). The really bad thing is that once plugged in, I cannot control my music from the device. Instead I have to go through the Ford UI…..

Living the convergence dream

The Ford UI only lets me listen to the current playlist, so if I am listening to a particular podcast, I can only listen to that – no others, no music, no choice.

Why would a company believe that the best way to integrate with a device lauded for its UI is to disable such a function ? I am sure that someone at Ford can provide a reasonable, logical reason for this, but still…

For example, I can understand people citing the varying product development lifecycles –cars take about 5 years or so to move from concept to market launch. (Although next week marks 5 years since Apple first announced the iPhone). As others have pointed out, the increase in processing speed, screen resolution and functionality of smartphones has outpaced almost every other industry, so in car interaction is not alone in being behind the curve.

so what can we do about this ?
All comms / entertainment interaction in a car is a distinctly secondary consideration. The overriding objective is safety, which is interpreted as minimising distractions (generally keeping your eyes and mind on the road).

Clearly voice control is the best option, but what can we use until we crack voice control ?

The decision to develop auto touchscreen interfaces seems to have been driven by some kind of tech gravity (“everyone else is doing this, therefore it must be good for us..”). Yet even the most cursory use of any touchscreen device shows us that they require more visual attention than physical / hard buttons. Touchscreens aren’t really the natural platform for cars.

I remember a mobile phone project completed for Nokia Japan back in the 90’s where a key insight was that students were able to text in their pocket using a standard alpha-numeric keypad, you can’t do this on a touchscreen device (have a go, its worthwhile).

This is a big problem – mobiles aren’t really mobile anymore. We developed the Fuse concept with Synaptics and others in response to this challenge. The key insight was that people had to stop walking and had to concentrate on the screen to use the device. Which prompted the question why is touch so focused on screens ?

I think the car is perhaps the least developed element of my connected life, and it should be central – it is the common link between home and elsewhere.

In fact, convergence is the reason for both the causes and the resolution to this problem. Convergence has highlighted the lack of innovation within the auto industry, yet convergence has also shown how standards, and a more open form of innovation can drive innovation at an industry level.

Here’s the rub – the auto industry pioneered this stuff. It used standards (gear change, pedal positions) to drive market growth. It also created highly integrated value chains with key partner organisations – a kind of open innovation. So it’s not as if this is a foreign concept to them. I think what caught them out is the increasing speed of innovation. Our interconnectedness (in part driven by the auto industry !) means adoption of innovations happens at a hugely increased rate, and they haven’t sped up.

We’ve had companies from missile manufacturers to professional telecoms asking us to help them to launch products that can sit alongside the latest smartphone / tablet. These devices have become a key element of our personality, the question is when they will replace the car as the key artefact we use to embody the ego, and that has dramatic implications on pricing and branding the vehicles of the future.