2008
Traffic congestion. What can the designer do but despair?
Joannes Vandermeulen, Namahn (BE)
jv at namahn.com
Transport delays are most often caused by insufficient capacity of the train, road or flight infrastructure. You get caught up in congestion because too many others are trying to move around at the same time, at the same place. The lead time to expand the capacity of a transport infrastructure is high; it takes a long time to plan and build a new rail line, highway or airport.
During this talk, I explore how human-centered design and its bag of tricks can contribute to the design or remodelling of transport infrastructures in order to alleviate congestion. A lot of congestion is wholly unnecessary and avoidable, if only the design of the interface was right. Aren’t traffic signs the user interface between the driver and the road infrastructure?
Travel Experience: Brussels Airlines case study
Audrey Benoit, Brussels Airlines (BE) & Raphaël de Robiano, Emakina (BE)
rro at emakina.com
This is the story of a total user experience mission for Brussels Airlines. The mission consisted to live the experience users make with the product of our client. Than, we have made all the steps the user made in general (to take information, to compare, to book, to checkin, to take the plane, etc). During the mission, we were not only testers, but also observers and analysts.
We told it the “global user experience” because it’s more complete than what Information Architects & usability consultants make in general. Indeed, in general they work on pages and sitemaps without thinking on what’s around. Some conceive websites in successfully placing it in its web ecosystem (interactions with other online services like extranets, with search engines, etc). Here we went further because we analysed it in its global system (interactions with online but also offline services like call center, airport desk, mobile services, etc) because we consider that each touchpoints has an influence on the others and on the global experience user have with a product.
This experience helped us to conceive and design the new website of Brussels Airlines. From the best practices benchmark to wireframing & user tests, we will present our methodology and some illustrations of a website that will be launched soon.
Digital identity and self-representation in social networks
Amandine Feix-Villain, Groupe Reflect (FR)
amandine.feix-villain at groupereflect.net
When one speaks of social networks, we necessarily think about people who interact and try to find a meaning for themselves and the community in which they evolve and structure their digital identity. Having a digital identity means that you deliberately manage several facets that corresponds to specific objectives, needs and self-valorisation. Nobody shows a same identity to his family, his friends, his professional relations or his interest groups and, more and more, social networks aim at creating interfaces that puts in evidence the best way one can develop a particular aspect of its identity. Facebook focuses on self valorisation and individual fame, LinkedIn on professional values and individual abilities, etc.
The number of facets one can manage is unlimited, but it supposes that one user is able to control fully each facet he creates. This will is linked to the fact that more and more users feel at ease with the management of their informations. Nevertheless, this sudden confidence can lead users to show more and more aspects of their personality and then erase an existing gap between digital and full identity.
Building Social Web Experience
Laurent Goffin, Emakina (BE)
lgo at emakina.com
Social network aren’t only Web2.0 start up kind of site and we can use it is many different kind of application for companies : intranet employee social network, customer & supplier network, communities, customer care initiative, knowledge management tools, etc.
In order to deliver this kind of experience, information architects have to develop new skills and techniques. I have worked on five different social networks and I d like to share my experience in developing social web experiences in different context.
Through this presentation, I’m presenting critical elements to take in account during social network conception and answer to different questions : what are the specificities of information structure for social networks? what are the specificities of a social network user interface? what are the specific user behaviours to handle? Through my experience, I have identified some kind of behavioural patterns based on data observation and data mining How can we develop user interface and architecture ensuring network will grow? What is the strategic approach we have to develop during the network lifecycle? How to go further in developing a ubiquitous social network experience taking in account the full web ecosystem and also the offline environment?
This presentation will be explained though very visual elements and I’ll interact with public. I’ll show some deliverable used during those different stages. Last, “Building social web/network experience” doesn’t aim focusing only on social networks. I wish showing to all IA community how important it is to think our conception approach within a broader scope of skills and analysis.
Planning and building user experience requires certainly user centric approach must also use web analytics & business intelligence, marketing and communication skills, persuasive interface technique, entrepreneurship, etc. I really dream of a very very big IA.
Building Social Web Experience - Euroia 2008
Global Social Networks
Peter Van Dijck was going to speak but had to cancel unfortunately. His talk was “an evolved and adjusted version of the global social networks talk I gave at the IA Summit in Amsterdam”. You can consult his slides on his blog.