When I had the pleasure of speaking to key telecoms and technology industry figures at November's Smart Device and Mobile User Experience Summit this is the question I attempted to address.
As always at Fjord, people come first. So when looking to provide sustainable design a future market within the Internet of Everything, we have to look at the economic and social situation that many people in the world are facing. In the west this looks like what the LifeStyle News Network is coining 'The Just Nots': aspiring and hard working citizens affected by increasing inflation, food prices, and housing costs; just not able to create the life they thought they were going to achieve.
It's likely that we'll have to design niche services and create flexible, open source brands to meet the needs of this generation – who are digitally native and happy to hack; they transcend the demographic driven models that brands have traditionally targeted.
We believe the experience of the Internet of Everything is a liquid experience, where platforms and even interfaces begin to disappear. This is our new challenge – how can we design liquid services to address the new needs that are emerging from from a age where digitally mature, and connected people want more value with less money?
2. WE DESIGN BREAKTHROUGH DIGITAL
BRANDS, PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
No Boundaries: | Telco | Device | Financial Services | Media | OS | Portal | Retail | Startup |
20. CONTEXT WILL DRIVE FUTURE EXPERIENCES
Personal/Situational Technological
Who Device
(Laptop, Desktop,
are you Location Smartphone, Tablet
Where Who are …)
are with? (GPS, NFC…)
you?
you? (Generally)
Who are Personal
you now? Delivery Network
How much (Behavior)
(Contacts, Friends, S
time have Technology ocial Platform)
you got? (SMS, Mobile, Web,
What are Application…)
you trying
What to do?
What do Operating
did you
you Access System
just do? What
need? Technology (iOS, Android, Symb
are you (2G, 3G, 4G, HSDPA,
ian…)
doing? Wifi….)
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10 years oldBegan designing for mobile 1st, when no-one else wanted to do soWe’re experts in mobility.Evolved the paradigm of multiplatform infancySmarcosAs we are so entrenched in mobility, our design philosophy is our natural place – the internet of the world
Actually rather than limiting ourselves to the platforms we know about, we need to start designing for an integratedly connected world.At Fjord we call it Liquid experience
Beautiful vision of how we will interact with data in the futureSome great ideas of how internet of the world start to seep outta platform into a liquid experience‘Platforms’ become invisible to users
I especially like the meeting location idea - shows how Internet is starting to seep into how you experience the worldThere are some obvious challenges:market challengesService design & technology challengesbrand presence challenge
At Fjord, we think this means that our core business is on the move. And we need to adjust our tools and processes to empower our clients to operate confidently in this liquid world. Our overarching approach is to design for the long 'Of course', rather than the sugar rush wow moments that marketing campaigns offer - moments that will become even more annoying in the internet of the world, as you can imagine.So I’m going to take a few minutes to talk about how Fjord is begninning to adjust to this challenge of designing the Orange curve into our design practice.
Im going to talk about three elements: people, services, brandWe all know how to gather insights and understand behaviour from a group of potential users, the trends are indicating that in the west, conditions mean that values are changing at a macro level. Markets are maturing out of the traditional segmentation model, and we are seeing a new reality of the market that is being formed by the current world circumstances
Hourglass shaped westValue conciousaspirationalthey have screens. 3 screens. Apple screenconnected. But they’ll shop at Lidl for fruit. Wine from OcadoThey're on Ebay, and gumtreeAirBNB, WHipcar. anything that helps them get more value out of life. These people are smart. the are natively digital. They'll hack thing together if they can’t get what they need. And they know the value of their personal data...
Frog design, here today, discovered just how valuable it is to people. It’s set to go up. 57$ todaybecause they know how it can be used to shape goods and services and personalise them.so there's a growing economy in data - for example absolute radio...
The trouble is that these people are increasingly different people on different minutes of the day. they have to be. Because they've grown up with so much choice.So there are more niche rather than mainstream services required to satisfy heterogeneous personalities of more peoplePeople are being personal and busness people when they’re at work – and manage it through 1 device
And the more tailored services become, the less interesting life is. spotify example. iTunes google ads.Some are calling data driven services, a filter bubbleWhat humans need is to bump into things. For life to throw up random stuff that is interesting.People need new stuff. They like to discover it, share it, show off about it.The liquid internet of the world by its very nature can provide an antidote.It's the world! random things happen!I've been thinking and writing for 3 years about serendipity, and it's potential as a way to discover in in the world now that we have connected mobile devices.I now think that mobile social networks have a good chance at providing this sense of controlled serendipity - but providing credibility through friends.
So that's about the new market...but what form do their services take in this liquid future?
Well, sort of formless, really!. They'll just 'exist’Services won’t be any platform specificBBC online won’t be ‘Online’.People just want to do, in the closest, easiest wayDesign for service 1st. device affordances. This will make things invisiblebut they'll be designed with platform affordances in mind! small screens, camera capbilities, 10ft / 10 inch exerience - these variables will help to drive invisibility because the content fits naturally into the worldTwitter is a great example of how this platform invisibility
of course it'll need the infrastructure we all know and love, to offer the liquid experience we know is possible. iCloud API for x-platform supportFB Connect which is one of the biggest things in the foundations of the internet right nowAnd it's happening - I can flag emails on my phone and they'll be flaggon on my computerKindle booksMedia continuity is getting there...i com on iPlayer - all you have to do is remember one timecode!
But that's hygene. It's almost a given that technology is moving forward the people described earlier want more value, , more engagement, more agency in personalizing what they pay for.And they are keen to hack.They want to to create, tweak, upgrade their productsAllow them to not only own the product, but own the design.Facilitate their design of products, and let them share it with othersEG. Yahoo Pipes IfThisThenThatGoogle app creator for schoolsCardboard Vacuum: industrial design graduate Jake Tyler created a RIY vacuum for VAX3D printingAddidas data boots
So how can brands live within the liquid internet of the world?And how should brand respond to the hetrogenous needs of people who seem to defy traditional market segmentation?
Well, it's a challenge. in controlling brand promises in a liquidexperiencefrom the static logo driven world – to the engaging, interacitve, personality, behavioural driven brand worldIt’s a risk, but one worth pursuing
appearance, behaviour and performnace from previous slideiplayer play button logopredicable behaviourknow what to expectand coherent with the MANNEr it's being experienced - coherent with not only with the affordances of the platform(s) but with the situation of the user...
So in the end it's context, rather than static profile data, provided with permission by the user that will be used increasingly to provide these liquid experiencesAnd after gathering this, the platform and operating system become bit parts in the whole theatre
Therefore if there's any time to get into the UCD process, it's now. This will help to define contexts for niche services or services that have serendipity built inThese people are the drivers of brands. find out who these people are. what makes them tick. They’re value driven. Brain changerThese people are different people on different days and different hours. they're getting smarter and understand their value within a service design. they'll hack bits of services together to make it their own - the question is arebrands flexible enough to adapt to these increasingly changing market demands? Brand flexible enough to adjust and ride the liquid experienceBrands brave enough to provide not just products but facilitation and blueprints?