In a recent project, Idean re-designed the Kauppa.fi web site. The site is maintained by the Federation of Finnish Commerce, an association driving the interests of Finnish commerce that covers over 10 000 enterprises.

Actually, the project involved much more than a redesign of an existing service – the entire site concept was designed anew, from top to bottom. The challenge was to successfully meet the needs of the client by catering content for a highly versatile target audience. In addition to existing content, the goal of the new site was to aggregate news and information regarding commerce in Finland and to enable efficient two-way communication with the association, its members and the media.

Fortunately, our client was enthusiastic and brave enough to renew the entire site concept – not just adding a few features and a facelift to the existing site. Idean designers were able to involve target users in the design process, obtaining valuable insights for creating the concept. Effective iteration with the client ensured that the design met the set requirements.

Idean successfully met the challenges, and delivered the site concept and visual look to the client. The key factors behind creating a successful concept were
- client’s forward-looking attitude and courage to start from a clean table
- user-centric design: involving both target users and client stakeholders in the concept creation
- Idean’s expertise in combining concept design, information architecture planning and visual execution

The renewed Kauppa.fi will be launched by the end of May, 2009.

To learn more, visit Markkinointi & Mainonta’s website for the news (in Finnish).

Our dear “mobile_web-iphone-android-everything-else-interesting-related-to-mobile” exercise lives it’s own life, check this out from the inspiredology.com, cool stuff.

Btw, over 80 000 downloads at Android Market.

And quess what will be the next episode? (hint: cute… QT…)

In my blog entry in Tietoviikko, I’m discussing the possible convergence of two current evolution paths for the TV broadcasting industry.

On one path, digital TV receivers have technically evolved to computing powerhouses, with more processing power and networking capabilities. On the other, traditional TV broadcasting industry is providing more and more addional content (such as interviews, behind the scenes footage or short webisodes) to boost popular TV shows.

The problem is that the paths do not cross, nor do they seem to do it in the future. On the contrary, broadcasters seem to fight this with all their might, relying on traditional PC Web delivery instead of tying the knot between the two. This is a losing battle: eventually the evolutionary paths must combine, or become extinct.

Here is a group of technologies that could be easily adapted by the digital set-top-box manufacturers and broadcasters to start their joint evolutionary road.

1) Built-in Web browser with Adobe Flash support
This is self evident and there are lots of open source technologies to choose from. Ease of use should be a key driver, as a bad UI and user experience kills the entire concept. Some service providers are already offering their service with optimized UIs for remote controllers.

Edit: Adobe has clearly noticed the same issue and they are gearing up their troops for deployment.

See YouTube XL

2) Web address recognition
It makes more sense to access Web sites related to the TV show with the same device and even during the show than remembering the addresses for later use. Even if the viewer visits the Web sites during the commercial breaks, they are still kept within the broadcasters area of influence (read: subject to targeted advertisement and promotions). Web addresses can be easily scanned from the picture, EPG or from other delivery stream metadata.

Samsung already has a similar concept, which utilizes closed captioning and seems to work quite nicely. See Samsung See’n'Search.

3) Services optimized for set-top-boxes
A global standard is needed for the developers to provide their widgets for the TV viewers. Yahoo! has a good start partnering with Samsung, but the playing field is still open.

See Yahoo! Connected TV.

Samsung, Sony and others are headed to the right directions, but I’m really hoping that the manufacturers of traditional set-top-boxes would step up to the game and offer similar services in their products.

Harri

In a recent project I ended up having difficult schedules for executing a client project for improving an existing service. In the project, I had to do end-user research, discuss the needs of the client company for their product and start designing UI wireframes based on the available data. A basic project setup, but with tight schedules and Easter smack in the middle of the project, it became very challenging to manage user recruitment and discussing the project with client stakeholders during a popular holiday period. This forced me to think about how to carry out the process, as the traditional “user research first, UI wireframes later” way would not allow sufficient time for design work. This describes what I came up with, trying to reach the goals taking into account user needs and usability issues, while still balancing the client’s business goals and the project schedule.

First, I tackled the existing input from lead users and the business owners within the client company. This gave me a good overview of the current service and its pitfalls as perceived by the users. This information is a great start for the first versions for the UI wireframes.

Second, I focused on the needs of end-users by conducting contextual interviews with them. The idea was to focus on the current version of the service by discussing the ups and downs of the service and the user’s wishes. The interview took place at the user’s workstation, with access to live data and actual working environment of the user.

At this point I already had the first UI wireframes with me. My goal was to take the users to an instant small-scale participatory design session right after the current version was sliced and diced. That way I was able to get direct feedback, markings and suggestions drawn right into my first wireframes.

Finally, I went back to the drawing board and analysed the needs and issues that were raised about the current version. I updated my UI wireframes accordingly.

With the first interviews and UI wireframe iterations now behind, the project continues with a reality check with the implementation and other client stakeholders. After the project is completed, I’ll write about my experiences and lessons learned from working with this method.

Harri