On each day, post lunch, at UX Australia there were 4x10 minute talks. Such sessions can often equate to a quickfire rendition of some great ideas, and so it went.
Because of their pace and swapping rooms at the halfway mark my notes were scant or non-existent for these sessions, but from what I can remember and make out from my terrible scrawl...
Drew Smith on UX and its correlation with your brand
Drew (@drewpasmith) talked about two brands, one that had cornered the European luxury car market with its class-leading design, and one that would truly love to do so.
Given we were talking about vehicle interfaces I knew that one brand would be Audi, the other could well have been BMW (who led the way with the concept, but got it so badly wrong with their first iterations of iDrive).
Lexus was the other brand, however. Some points were:
- Audi is a luxury brand that holistically applies its 'user experience' ambitions - from vehicle design to interface and interior design. Everything about it says luxury, leading design, the best. It's in-car system and dash screen is cutting edge, designed as part of the overall interface with a purpose-built place in the dashboard (right next to, and on the same eye-line, as the engine/speed information). Audi also evolves and develops its interface design, so new iterations are instantly familiar to existing users.
- Lexus tries to apply the same ethos, but fails in key areas. In the example model used (possibly an LS400), the in-dash screen and system on this $200k car was the same as the one found in a $33k Toyota.
- What's more, the system was dated, its placement below immediate eye-level in the centre console was inconvenient for users, and because it required more than a split second look away from the road, was set to switch off at 5km/h.
Even just writing the description you can sense the failure of the Lexus interface in comparison to the Audi's. With Drew's slides it was clear cut.
Vehicle interface design is one of the most innovative areas of interface design itself. Let's be honest, if you had never seen a car and someone said, "I'm going to put you in an environment where you'll use both feet and both arms independently, and your eyes and brain will take in an obscene amount of information every second as you travel at an average speed of 1000 metres a minute (70km/h), plus operate media and environmental controls, plus engage with people around you - and if you fail at a combination of these you may well have a problem" you would probably panic a little.
But not so in cars. Well, most of the time anyway. As cars become increasngly complex, the amount of information they present also increases. But we seem to be able to navigate a lot of it relatively easily via systems such as Audi's MMI and BMW's [now much-improved] iDrive.
Drew's presentation also highlighted the importance of UX being holistic, (something Joel Flom also talked about later in the day). You have to "walk the talk" when it comes to the application of a company's strategy. So often you'll hear grand ambitions and brand targeting from companies saying "this is the best!" but the words become hollow as soon as you visit their website, use their product or interact with their customer service. Nobody's perfect, of course, but does user experience stop at the use of one 'thing' or the entire interaction with a company?
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Gary Barber on 'The Ultimate UX Tool!'
Gary's (@Tuna) talk was 10 minutes of entertainment and a satirical look at some of the activities, tools and methods typically used in UX design.
It's difficult to convey, but think Harvey Norman advert where they OFFER YOU THE WHOLE WORLD REPEATEDLY, FOR FREE, WITH NO INTEREST FOR 50 YEARS! YES, 50 YEARS! THAT'S WHAT THIS PRESENTATION WAS LIKE! (But it was honestly pretty funny - unlike those awful Harvey Norman ads.)
The 'Ultimate UX Tool' was actually a pencil.
Gary has also posted a summary of the whole event over on his blog, with a good post entitled 'UX Australia - the Maturing of a Community'.
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Ruth Ellison on the Uncanny Valley
No notes from this but Ruth talked for a few minutes on The Uncanny Valley - the point along the realism curve where the object looks alive enough to trigger biologically-programmed responses, but not quite alive enough to pass for human. Robots, essentially. The 'cute or creepy' comparisons got many laughs in this short presentation.
A full description is over on slideshare (which seems completely screwed at the moment).
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