Kidaptive teamed up with Idean to create the hottest apps in edutainment

Posted by & filed under News, Press releases.

Learning games and “edutainment” are the topics on everyone’s lips in Silicon Valley at the moment. With their impressive background in cognitive science, statistics, visual effects and animation, Kidaptive founders Dylan Arena and PJ Gunsagar were perfectly placed to tackle the challenge of creating engaging games while measuring young children’s cognitive development.

Kidaptive’s ”Parent’s Pad,” an assessment tool designed to deliver the most comprehensive feedback on preschoolers’ learning, was launched on May, 13, 2013.

Kidaptive’s iPad games are in the form of “appisodes” – top quality animations with an appealing story, where kids are given tasks such as identifying colors and shapes throughout the game. All their actions and responses are recorded, enabling parents to follow their child’s development on various dimensions of learning. The challenge was visualizing this data, as the dashboard has to communicate information to parents in the right level of detail and complexity. With no UX expertise in-house, Kidaptive came to Idean for help in creating the perfect solution.

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2nd UX Summit, June 7th in Palo Alto

Posted by & filed under Events.

The UX Driven Business – Find Your Inner Startup, is the second in a series of groundbreaking events where we explore the wider impact that User Experience and design thinking has on your business.

This summer summit has a fantastic line-up of Silicon Valley trail blazers from LG, Oracle, Shutterfly, Accenture, Swisscom, Salesforce and many more (see schedule below).

Hope to see you there!

Register here: http://uxsummersummit.eventbrite.com/

Summit Schedule

8:30   Registration & Breakfast
9:00 Welcoming remarks by Risto Lahdesmaki, CEO, Idean
9:15 CX As a Catalyst for Organizational Change, Ursula Oesterle, VP of Innovation, Swisscom
9:45 Innovation and Intrapreneurship, Beth Polish, Former Director of Innovation, Hearst Corporation
10:15 Lessons Learned from Being a Designer and Entrepreneur in Large Organizations, Itai Vonshak, VP Design & Product management, LG Electronics
10:45 Coffee Break
11:00 Panel:The Value Created by a Design Led Business
  - Moderator: Craig McNeil, MD, Accenture
  - Madhuri Kolhatkar, Dir. Customer & UX Management, Oracle
  - Luke Ball, Director UX, Salesforce.com
  - Matt Holloway, VP UX Design, Shutterfly
  - Thomas Gad, Founder & Sr Strategy Advisor, Brandflight
  - Risto Lahdesmaki, Co-Founder & CEO, Idean
  - Richard Titus, Co-Founder, Razorfish; Co-Founder, Schematic; CEO & Co-Founder, Prompt.ly
12-1:00 Lunch and Networking
1-2:30 Bonus Program: UX Ideation Workshops Work Through the Process of Ideation. A hands-on, interactive deep-dive into the HOW.

 

UX Happy Hour starting at 5pm @ 411 Kipling Street, Palo Alto
Join us!

Idean Palo Alto is hiring!

Posted by & filed under Careers.

Idean is a global design agency dedicated to delivering the best possible User Experience. Since 1999, we have helped thousands of clients around the world to maximize the value of their digital solutions. We have a strong multicultural experience, multidisciplinary team and easily the most diverse design portfolio covering various different platforms and devices from tablets to heavy-lifting industrial machinery. No matter how complex or simple, how small or big, how normal or crazy your case might be, we are here to help you to be the best in your own domain.

We are currently looking for the following talent to join us in Palo Alto, CA:

Apply today & please help us spread the word!

Baby book KiDMEMO’s innovation is its interactivity

Posted by & filed under News.

Some years ago entrepreneur Jenni Lahti (right in the photo above) had invited friends over for a dinner. At the table the discussion turned to baby books. Guests included many mothers of young children who thought that with the disappearance of paper photos, the whole concept of baby books had become slightly dated. In fact, they found that these once so cherished books were nowadays often forgotten in the corner of the bookshelf, unfilled. The party was wondering why there was no easy solution online, just like there is for everything else.

The idea of a digital baby book fascinated Lahti. She herself had had relatives living far away with whom she wanted to share stories and pictures of her kids, but had not yet found a secure and easy way to do so.

Thus was born KiDMEMO, an interactive baby book online. KiDMEMO’s basic idea is very simple. Through the web service parents can fill in the details and stories of their baby. When the book is ready, parents can order a paper copy for themselves or their relatives. Relatives and friends can also be added to the profile, which enables them to access the baby book online. Read more »

Experienced Front-End Developer – America wants you!

Posted by & filed under Careers.

 

At Idean, we are passionate about our customers’ services. As the demand is growing rapidly especially in the USA, we are now looking for:

Senior level Front-End Developer

who will have an opportunity to work in Helsinki, Finland, as well as in Palo Alto, USA

Your role is to be a lead developer and a technical specialist of our user-centric concepts. You have great problem solving skills. You can work independently, as well as a part of our team. As a person you are social, creative and positive, also in a changing working environment and when facing deadlines. As your working language will be English, it is essential that you speak and write it fluently.

Required:

  • Excellent JavaScript skills
  • Especially advanced level in jQuery (plugin framework and widgets)
  • Excellent xHTML/CSS skills
  • CSS3/HTML5 skills
  • Familiar with adaptive/responsive UI
  • Good communication skills in English

Seen as an advantage:

  • PHP or Python development skills
  • Native iOS or Android development skills

Does working under the California sun sound tempting to you? Do not hesitate, but send us your CV and application with proven references and/or coding examples to our HR Director Niko: niko.frilander@idean.com, tel. +358 41 535 3283

Idean is a global design agency dedicated to delivering the best possible User Experience. Since 1999, we have helped thousands of clients around the world to maximize the value of their digital solutions. We have a strong multicultural experience, multidisciplinary team and easily the most diverse design portfolio covering various platforms for different devices from tablets to heavy-lifting industrial machinery. Our offices are in Palo Alto, USA and in Helsinki and Tampere, Finland.

We are very much looking forward to hearing from you!

Gestures and Distances – Controlling the Post-PC Devices

Posted by & filed under Backstage blog.

Software and hardware revolutions

The Windows 8 on desktops has had split receptions from the markets. On one hand it completely messes up the way we operate our PCs and on the other hand is neatly guides us to the post-PC era by providing something functional for the mouse and fingers to operate on. One thing that everyone should agree upon is that Windows 8 did one thing right: it revolutionized the way we operate our computers. Touch screens are becoming a standard feature on new laptops, ultrabooks and external monitors.

While Windows 8 is spearheading the software revolution, another kind of revolution is surfacing from the hardware side and it started with Microsoft’s Kinect. By default, the Kinect was engineered to recognize and interpret the posture and movements of the whole human body, but at the hands of individual hackers its possibilities were immediately expanded into digital sock puppetry and 3D modeling. At the same time a number of companies wanted to bring these gestures closer to the traditional laptop and desktop environments. It now seems that there’s a “floating” gesture-based technology invading our PCs, in addition to the touch screens.

With these new input models, we need to think what they are good for and where should we use them. Read more »

Benefits of user-centric concept design in a large online service renewal

Posted by & filed under Press releases.

Helsingin Energia is one of Finland’s largest energy companies. It provides electric energy to about 400 000 customers. Its external web service Helen.fi is a busy portal used by hundreds of thousands of customers and several hundred of Helsingin Energia’s employees. In June 2012 Helsingin Energia began a renewal project, which aims to significantly improve the user experience of the Helen.fi web service. Following the tender organized in summer 2012, Idean was chosen as Helsingin Energia’s partner in redesigning the service’s UX concept and strategy.

“Idean’s designers emphasized that our web service should serve as a meeting point for our business’ and our customers’ needs. The user experience should be clear and intuitive to all users equally. It’s not necessarily easy to be enthusiastic about a large utility company, but Idean’s designers’ iterative work was top quality”, says Jukka Helin, Project Manager from Helsingin Energia.

”First we did a comprehensive mapping of the needs of different customer groups and of Helsingin Energia’s internal units. This gave an excellent basis for designing. When the needs were known it was easy to start building the concept.  We then defined the cornerstones of the concept, meaning how the concept should support the known needs. During the iterative project we compared the outcomes to these cornerstones to make sure that all needs were answered to. Our Designer Heikki Sarkkinen gave a lot of thought to the navigation to ensure that all user groups would find their own sections as easily as possible”, comments Idean’s Lead Designer Elina Uusimäki.

The redesigned service will be launched in late 2013.

More information:

Maria Kuosa, Business & Experience Designer, Idean
Tel. +358 400 775 408, maria.kuosa(at)idean.com

 

Are You Our Future UX-Star?

Posted by & filed under Careers.

If you are a Digital Activist with a passion for the future of digital services and with a fresh diploma in your hands, you are invited to apply for Idean’s UX trainee program!

Idean is a global design agency dedicated to delivering the best possible User Experience. We create world-leading applications and platforms for web, mobile and integrated industry systems.

We are now to hiring 3-6 junior designers to form a trainee team and to become a part of our community of 60+ designers. The trainees will work under the guidance of Idean’s designers and team leaders, in a group as well as individually. The trainee program takes place at our Helsinki office, and runs from September 2013 until May 2014. We hope that in addition to fluent English, you are able to speak, write and understand the Finnish language fluently.

Read more »

Infographic: Start-ups yearn for print media coverage but won’t pay for it

Posted by & filed under Trends.

Start-ups’ have a high need for all kinds of publicity and media coverage but they generally avoid paid advertising channels. Instead they focus on their own and earned channels. This is no surprise considering typical start-ups’ limited marketing budgets. Conversely, they still value traditional media coverage, especially newspaper coverage.The infographic findings are based on a summary of six case studies of start-up companies’ media purchasing patterns. Idean prepared the study with Project Manager and Doctoral candidate Timo Ketonen from Åbo Akademi University.

In addition to the advertising spending, the infographic looked at the total marketing and communication mix. A typical mix included newsletters, company blogs, press releases, SEO, seminar presentations, social networks as well as coverage on newspapers, magazines, online news and video sharing services. We found that search engine marketing and display advertising stood out from paid channels, although the company’s focus was still on own and earned channels.

We also asked which channels had the strongest influence on each company’s success. The start-ups were most united on their own company websites and newspaper coverage’s impact on their success. If the companies would have the power, money and time then they would typically focus more on newspaper coverage, company blogs and seminar presentations.

All in all, this is again bad news for the traditional media sales executives. If and when these currently young and small companies are one day the wealthy engines of our economy then traditional advertising will not be among the first options in their channel mix.

Download the infographic (pdf)

Kalle Snellman
Senior Strategist – Idean

Timo Ketonen
Project Manager and Doctoral candidate – Åbo Akademi University

Using Open Space Technology for team building

Posted by & filed under Backstage blog.

Have you heard about Idean Soap Box, our team building days when we take the whole company somewhere nice, like Berlin, Saint-Petersburg or Hawaii? In the following blog post our CX Design Lead Harri Klemetti discusses the methodology behind it.

When I first heard about the “Open Space Technology” theory, I was quite skeptical about it working. The whole philosophy of a self-organizing seminar without any predefined presentations sounded like too big of a risk to take. My thinking was that if you invite people to a seminar, it is certainly your responsibility to be sure that the seminar is successful. And theoretically, the more you plan and prepare then the better the seminar will be, right?

On the other hand, I do agree with Harrison Owen, the founder of the method, as he stated (funnily enough) that often the most inspirational parts of a seminar are the discussions with other participants during coffee and lunch breaks.

Read more »