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XR Twitter Ice Cream Social on High-Fidelity
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Design Challenge: Digital Watch Faces

This Creative Mornings Field Trip was held at ustwo’s new office in FiDi. Really their office is a whole floor of a federalist building that must have been a bank.

Wearables are quickly becoming a part of our everyday lives with the advent of Android Wear and Apple Watches. Designing for such tiny devices has become a coveted design skill. How do we decide which information we show? How do we stay digitally authentic? How do we make something look good enough to wear? These were some of the questions the ustwo team tackled whilst designing the collection of Android Wear watch faces you can see today. Join us in our studio for an exclusive in-depth look at how this project came to be, the unique challenges we faced, and how we overcame them.

Then, imparted with our team’s design principles, take the challenge yourself by sketching your very own digital watch face. We’ll choose our favorite of the bunch and mock it up!

Here’s what your morning will look like:

• 8:30 - 9:00 AM - Studio tour of ustwo New York

• 9:00 - 10:00 AM - Digital watch faces presentation & workshop

ustwo New York Studio Tour

Origin and Work

The two founders of ustwo created a firm and started by designing icons for Sony feature phones 10 years ago and now has four offices including their New York location.

 

Team Structure

30% UX
30% UI
30% DEV

work

70% client work
20% games
10% joint ventures 

Encouraging UI / UX to be product focused.
[probably 10% of the headcount is for strategy and other]

Clients: Google, Sony, Nook etc.

ustwo may be most well known for their mobile game Monument Valley.  

Screenshot 2015-05-08 13.29.06.png

They even have business inquiries through their games' popularity as industry members appreciate the quality of design and execution.

Culture:

They have a Gender Equality Task Force as they note women are underrepresented in technology.

 

"A big culture of feedback.

A place where you can sit down for honest and constructive feedback. And feedback is a gift. You give it because you want to improve.” - Carl

Every Thursday they have new speakers come in like Hyper Island

Every Thursday they have new speakers come in like Hyper Island

Double - to allow remote visits and a co-ambiguous presence from other offices

Double - to allow remote visits and a co-ambiguous presence from other offices

Global leadership accountability

Hearing what’s up from the bottom up

Hearing what’s up from the bottom up

They really use their wall space. Not just for illustrations, but a structured use of blue tape and sticky notes.

Shaun Tollerton presented the previous an overview of the market of android watch interfaces as well as the 20 faces that ustwo designed. He spoke to the rationale behind the designs.

Digital Watch Faces

From data interpreted watch faces to the human element, noting "People love to customize their watches. That's something we've learned." "People wear a watch face so it has to look good. It's not just an app." - Shaun Tollerton

Principles for Designing Digital Watch Faces

1. Be Zen

2. Be Glanceable

3. Make it Work

4. Show a Single Expression.

Workshop

The challenge was to design a digital watch interface featuring the weather by using the design principles ustwo just taught us .

What we came up with:

Love Forecast

Created by a front end developer with a keen visual eye named Cameron and yours truly.

Branded through collaboration with the creator of the watch face that ustwo will visually take to the next level. Excited to see how Tolly of ustwo takes it to the next level.

Thanks to:

Casey Hopkins @CaseyHopkins
Shaun Tollerton @Tollerton
Carl Martin @CarlMartin

Join Creative Mornings
Check out ustwo
 

Parsons SDM: Design Intelligence Conference

Parsons SDM: Design Intelligence Conference

"This year’s conference will be driven by the  question: What Can Design Intelligence Do? Through the immersive day-long experience we will explore these questions from various perspectives and sectors and through the course of the day have the opportunity to talk about design in the context of new economics, new models, and new work."

Biometric Passports

Which countries have biometric passports, which do not?

Biometric passports available to the general public

Announced future availability of biometric passports

Countries without Biometric passports.

Less than 13% of African nations have biometric passports.

How are biometric passports used?

220px-EPassport_logo.png

The chip is part of a process in a larger system.

Biometric passports also open us up to new security threats and like biometric data being stolen.

Better questions:
What other good forms of identification are coming out?
What methods and artefacts that allow people to travel with ease? Explore new lands, conduct safe business, visit loved ones?

Data via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport

Passport Index

Visualizing the ‘most powerful’ passports

Sort by:
Country, Location, Color, Passport Power Rank

"Advanced economies dominate the top of the list. Hong Kong comes in at 11, while Argentina and Israel are ranked 16th."

Countries by the colors

There are more countries with red color passports, then blue, few with green, least with black.

How many have biometrics installed in the actual passport?

Trust on a Global Scale

"Countries that are allies often offer each others’ citizens a quick visa on arrival. For countries that are not so friendly, a visitor may have to provide entry and exit information, a letter of invitation, and even list all of the clubs they belonged to in high school — as well as paying a hefty fee."

View the Passport Index www.passportindex.org by Arton Capital.

h/t: Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/15/a-ranking-of-the-worlds-most-powerful-passports/

Cats vs Dogs in Data

A Decade in an Eternal War

10 years of cat v dog & cats v dogs.

10 years of cat v dog & cats v dogs.

A view of a decade of battles between 2010 to 2014 in the eternal war for human affection.

Fluffy Spike

Year over year view of interest in our furry friends. Popularity spikes in late spring with
"dog", and then "cat" leading the way only to have "dogs" sprint up a month later.

As someone who loves dogs, the data is pleasantly surprising.

I expected the popularity of cats to be higher.

Grumpy_cats.jpg

Evolution of an Interface

To see how Google evolved their Trends interface scroll the gallery below.

Sources: Google Trends, Grumpy cat, Doge.

Ziba Design - Company Profile

Post from 2011

"A Design and Innovation Company""We exist to design beautiful experiences."

Featured Speaker

"Presenting the Sunshine Generation: China’s answer to Gen-Y Jeremy Kaye, Creative Director, Ziba Design Karen Reuther, Director of Consumer Insights and Trends, ZIBA Design

Jeremy and Elizabeth will relate some surprising insights about young Chinese consumers gleaned over 350 person-days of in-country research: Their unique attributes and their expectations for design and consumer experience. Broader implications are also presented for effectively serving this diverse and nuanced market.

Jeremy Kaye

Jeremy’s deep knowledge of business and design enables him to identify how design can solve complex business problems for organizations and industries on the brink of change. His clients at Ziba have spanned numerous industries, including health insurance, retail, finance, and hospitality.

Prior to Ziba, Jeremy worked with consumer-experience driven brands—J.Crew, Patagonia, and Nike—to lead brand, design, and marketing efforts in support of new business opportunities. Jeremy has a Bachelor of Science in Clinical Psychology from University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, and a Bachelor of Science in Product Development and Marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. He has lectured at Parsons the New School for Design, and contributed to BusinessWeek.

Karen Reuther

At Ziba, Karen leads our team tasked with surfacing innovative, relevant and compelling insights that define and deliver consumer experience innovations. Karen is a master connector—ensuring that insights translate to real design solutions. Prior to Ziba, she worked at Nike as Global Creative Director – Color, Graphics and Materials. There she led the creative vision and implementation of design strategies from product creation to merchandising across footwear, apparel and equipment. Karen has a Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Design from Purdue University and a Master of Science in Business from Lesley University.

Ziba

Ziba is a design and innovation consultancy based in Portland, Oregon. For more than 25 years, Ziba has provided companies large and small with award-winning design and innovation solutions."

via http://www.dmi.org/dmi/html/conference/annual10/sp_ziba.htm
 

Modern Manufacture and Design

Modern Manufacture and Design "And you must remember always that your business, as manufacturers, is to form the market, as much as to supply it. If, in short-sighted and reckless eagerness for wealth, you catch at every humor of the opulence as it shapes itself into momentary demand - if, in jealous rivalry with neighboring States, or with other producers, you try to attract attention by singularities, novelties, and gaudiness - to make every design an advertisement, and pilfer every idea of a successful neighbor's, that you may insidiously imitate it, or pompously eclipse - no good design will ever be possible to you or perceived by you. you may, by accident, snatch the market; or, by energy, command it; you may obtain the confidence of the public, and cause the ruin of opponent houses; or you may, with equal justice of fortune, be ruined by them. But whatever happens to you, this, at least, is certain, that the whole of your life will have been spent in corrupting public taste and encouraging public extravagance. Every preference you have won by gaudiness must have been based on the purchaser's vanity; every demand you have created by novelty has fostered in the consumer a habit of discontent; and when you retire into inactive life; you may, as a subject of consolation for your declining years, reflect that precisely according to the extent of your past operations, your life has been successful in retarding the arts, tarnishing the virtues, and confusing the manners of your country."

pg 288 The Genius of John Ruskin.