Can we live tech-ier ever after?

3 minute read

Empathy – there’s an app for that. Well, a technology at least.

Thanks to Apple’s acquisition of artificial intelligence start-up Emotient at the beginning of this year, your iPhone may soon be able to respond to your emotions as well as your requests.

Your partner, friends or family might not understand how you feel when you’ve had a bad day or have good news to share, but your devices will. In fact it looks like analyzing facial expressions is set to be the next big thing in the tech world right now. With brands and retailers using this kind of software to identify everything from how we feel about their products to whether we look like potential shoplifters.

As our ability to harvest and interpret different forms of visual and verbal data improves, so does our power to effect personal changes; big and small, personal and societal.

At one end of the spectrum we have the kind of Fitbit style products and apps that nudge us into upping our exercise quota, as well as eating or drinking more healthily. With lots of gamification thrown in to help us reach our goals, while competing with or encouraging others. At the other end we’re moving into seriously non-trivial issues.

Take mental health. It’s a sad truth that suicide is a leading cause of death in men under 35 in the UK and a difficult issue to tackle. The Samaritans (a leading UK charity) launched Samaritans Radar in response as a simple web tool monitoring Twitter feeds for trigger indications that someone may be at risk. Concerned friends and family could sign up for alerts relating to those they worried about.

It was shut down fairly quickly, not because it wasn’t a useful tool or for privacy reasons, but because its two audiences (those at risk and those concerned) and the user experience required for each around such sensitive issues just couldn’t be easily squared. Those concerned felt reassured, while those affected potentially felt more exposed and vulnerable.

Meanwhile, an app such as Operation Reach Out in the US has faired better. Set up with the same goal (suicide prevention) but with a more singular target audience (military personnel and veterans) and a user experience geared around their specific needs (developed by prevention experts). Making the point that if you get the experience as well as the tech right, you can literally save lives.

As AI improves so will the relevancy and applicability of these types of tools. Making how they are targeted, how they are joined up and how we interact with them very interesting and a critical design job. Especially when they’re combined in multiple ecosystems.

In essence we’re talking about Big Data that’s turned into very smart aggregated behavior insights, turned into actions and haptics as part of an integrated user interface built with emotion. It’s not hard to see why Apple has bought Emotient and what they could do with the Apple Watch next given the possibilities.

So what can we learn from this as business leaders, branding and marketing experts? Well if it wasn’t clear already, data and behavior analytics is our new best friend, as is using what we learn in the way that retailers have done historically (avoiding stories like that old Target one about the pregnant teenager).

Combining this kind of approach with beautifully designed and empathetic user experiences has the power to transform both our actions and our lives. Making us all happier and healthier.

Want to explore this topic more? Email us

Tim Allen makes things
for people

1 minute read

Tim Allen became Wolff Olins' first ever President of North America last October. He comes with a heavy product and experience design skill set honed at companies such as IBM, Adobe, R/GA and most recently as Executive Creative Director, Product Experience at Amazon; skills which were called up on in his recent stint as a judge at the Cannes Lions awards last month.

Having led projects ranging from fitness apps to voice-enabled wireless speakers, Tim has a firm belief that execution on promises made by brands is the only route to emotionally and functionally impact a person’s life. And it all revolves around a simple, human centered truth: “Make things for people. Realize those people aren’t you.”

“True brand experience plays in the space of brand, design and technology but from a perspective rooted in empathy, humanness, joy and all of the best emotional responses. What I loved about our work with Zocdoc for example, was that we started from the perspective of the patient, seeing a confusing and often scary landscape to creating something with warmth, friendliness and trust. Technology enables but does so invisibly to allow the experience and user to come to the foreground.

I love to create things that are above and beyond utility. Utility can be outdone - always. There’s no loyalty in utility. But when you temper that with love and empathy, you can create a partnership. Between product and service, and consumer and brand.”

Want to chat with Tim, connect on @timmmeh

Experience counts

20 minute read

With the rapid adoption of technology in every industry, it is becoming increasingly important to design for the digital world ahead of the physical. In such an age, when both design and tech are booming, it’s simply not enough to create something beautiful, or futuristic; we need to create experiences that users want and find fundamentally useful.

It seems more and more executives are ready to prioritize customer needs. According to Gartner research, 89% of companies rightly predicted that customer experience would be their primary ground for competition by 2016. Accenture, too, have found that 81% of executives place customer experience among their top three priorities for their organization – of which 39% say it’s their top priority. While 90% of executives agree that customer experience and engagement are the core objectives of their digital strategies (MIT Sloan/ Deloitte).

Design and tech are now joining forces. With 9 of the 25 top Venture Capital funded startups co-founded by a designer, it’s clear these kinds of hybrid companies are here to stay. What will differentiate them is the experience they can provide.

We found this Design in Tech Report by John Maeda of Kleiner Perkins Caufeld and Byer particularly interesting – we think you might too. Be sure to check out pages 13 and 14 for predictions of the future and what the new-age tech designer might look like.

You can read the report here

A view inside: Zocdoc

2 minute view

The US Healthcare system is broken and expensive. Try to find a new doctor, or claim on your insurance, and you’ll soon find yourself negotiating a complex web of bureaucracy.

Now Zocdoc is giving power to the patient, by redesigning the system around them.

Read the full case study