Behaviors of work/life balance

Teachers: Dario Buzzini & Cordy Swope - IDEO (www.ideo.com)

Facolta’ del Design / Politecnico di Milano
November 02-09 2009

Introduction & Brief:

In the context of the ‘Product/Service System’ final synthesis design studio, the students will be asked to focus their
research learnings and design activities around the behaviors and interactions that define hybrid situations of work and
life balance in the specific environment of the Campus Bovisa.
In more specific detail, the students will be required to analyze and understand the technology tools and processes that
populate the Campus Bovisa and start designing for an improved and richer experience in context.

The design challenges we would like the students to pick, should be focused on either improving some efficiency tools
(for example: room booking, vending machines logistics, faculty-students communication) with focus on the qualities
of the man/machine interaction; or on the creation of some specific digital product/service application to fill a gap
encountered in the previous research phase.

In the following pages you will find some examples of what we think are interesting product/service examples in this
context.

Assignment:
For the workshop kick-off on November 2nd 2009:
After the teams are formed, we will ask you to briefly agree in an in promptu presentation of the insights collected in
the ethnographic research phase.
Each team should have a 5 minutes presentation ready to illustrate some initial thinking on the given topic.
Previous deliverables, images, videos and/or anything that can help explaining your thoughts is welcome.

Goals & Deliverables:

We are looking for a tangible series of outcomes. During the week you will be asked to deliver and present a series of
iterations on your ideas. A variety of media and embodiments is welcome and encouraged (think objects, storyboards,
videos, interactive prototypes, etc.). All the reviews during the week will be in an informal manner. No formal
presentation is required until Monday November 9th.

Agenda:

Day 01

Monday November 2nd > 14:00 – 18:00

What is IDEO? // How this week is structured // Briefing // Power Synthesis
Break into teams of 5. Goal will be for each team to create a common POV about what research they have done so far.
This POV should result in opportunity areas around specific issues of Work/Life Balance at the Bovisa campus.
(IDEO will show some examples of opportunity areas for clarity).

Day 02

Tuesday November 3rd > Morning 9:30 – 13:30

Present Opportunity Areas / Brainstorm Topics / Each team will present its main opportunity areas.
These should be agreed on by the team and expressed in a simple sentence and picture and supported by insights.
Develop brainstorm topics and HMW’s (“How might we…?”).

Tuesday November 3rd > Afternoon 14:30-18:30)

Brainstorming (Possibly experiment with smaller teams vs. larger teams doing this) / Voting / Idea Clustering /
Concept generation / Scenarios / Use cases
Day 03

Wednesday November 4th > Morning 9:30-13:30

Ideas Prototyping + Iteration (with users) Refining the design based on feedback from quick prototypes.
IDEO will show some examples of prototyping. Informal review at desks.

Wednesday November 4th > Afternoon 14:30-18:30

Ideas Prototyping + Iteration (with users) Refining the design based on feedback from quick prototypes.
IDEO will show some examples of prototyping. Informal review at desks.

Day 4

Thursday November 5th > Morning 9:30 – 13:30

Ideas Prototyping + Iteration (with users) Refining the design based on feedback from quick prototypes.
Building & Refining - Complete whatever models and artifacts that embody the idea.

Thursday November 5th > Afternoon 14:30-18:30

Communicating – IDEO will show examples of how to communicate concepts.
Fake ads, brands? Context of purchase and use.

Day 5

Friday November 6th > > Morning 9:30 – 13:30

Informal Review at tables– Teams will show their concepts + how they plan to communicate these concepts.
The rest of the day work on production for final presentation.

Friday November 6th > > Afternoon 14:30-18:30

Informal Review at tables – Teams will show their concepts + how they plan to communicate these concepts.
The rest of the day work on production for final presentation.

Day 6

Monday November 9th > > Morning 9:30 – 13:30

By 10:00 AM, all the work need to be uploaded in the presentation computer.
10:30 -13:30 Final Presentations (15 minutes per team)
13.30 - 14.00 Conclusions

Criteria for success:

The work executed in this week will be evaluated with the following criteria:

50% concept and execution

50% presentation skills and communication.

We would like to encourage students to be thorough in both the creation of the idea, its level of definition and in the
way it’s communicated. All by respecting the constraints of timing, formats and requirement that will be provided
throughout the week.
Bibliography:
We recommend the following books and readings as a compendium for the class:

Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge

Publisher: The MIT Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0262134748
ISBN-13: 978-0262134743

Change by Design by Tim Brown

Publisher: HarperBusiness (September 29, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061766089
ISBN-13: 978-0061766084

Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley

Publisher: Broadway Business (October 18, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385512074
ISBN-13: 978-0385512077

Free: The future of a radical price by Chris Anderson

Publisher: Hyperion (July 7, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1401322905
ISBN-13: 978-1401322908

Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects by Anthony Dunne

Publisher: Birkhäuser Basel; 1 edition (September 1, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 3764365668
ISBN-13: 978-3764365660
About the teachers:

Dario Buzzini

Dario Buzzini is Interaction Design Lead at IDEO in Europe.

Dario’s day to day work is focused on consulting and helping Fortune 500 clients in addressing complex interaction
design products and services challenges (from telecommunication, to financial services, to automotive & consumer
electronics).

Dario is a Product and Interaction Designer and in the past eight years he has been working and collaborating
with several international companies like Artemide, AT&T, Fiat, Ford, Eli Lilly, Motorola, Novartis, Philips, Prada,
Ravensburger, Tecno and Telecom Italia.
Great part of Dario’s personal work instead, is focused on design speculations on what he calls Behavioral Objects:
objects that explore, challenge or emphasize specific interactive ‘modes’ or behaviors. This specific focus highlights
his core Interest that are physical grammars, formal languages, design technology & social interactions.

As educator, Dario has been teaching and lecturing in different universities around Europe amongst which, Politecnico
di Milano, Interaction Design Institute Ivrea & Umea Institute of Design.
Dario holds a Master of Science Degree in Industrial Design from the Politecnico di Milano and a Master of Science
Degree in Interaction Design from the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea.

Cordy Swope

Based at IDEO Munich, Cordy Swope focuses on bringing to market new ideas for product, space, service and
organizational design on inspirations gained from human insights. He draws on past careers as a writer, singer/
songwriter in his work – often experimenting with different methods of human inquiry and storytelling.

He has developed and delivered strategy and market-facing solutions for clients such as, Andersen Windows, BASF,
BMW, Eli Lilly, Fujitsu Siemens, GE, Herman Miller, Masterlock, Moen, P&G, Mercedes Benz, Novartis, Renault, O2,
Orange, Sunbeam and Timberland.

Prior to joining IDEO, Cordy co-founded the design strategy practice at Continuum. He was previously a design
researcher and product planner for Toyota North America. He also designed and taught a course in research techniques
in the graduate program of Industrial Design at Pratt Institute, from which he holds a Master of Industrial Design.
Cordy has won IDSA and Red Dot awards for design research, and communication design respectively. He also holds
several utility patents, which arose from user research. His work has appeared at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

If asked nicely, Cordy can roll a €2 coin (or half dollar) on the fingers of his right hand.
Technology references and Interesting work:

Google SMS

Google SMS in Africa general info:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/extending-google-services-in-africa.html

Google SMS Health Tips:

http://www.google.co.ug/mobile/sms/#6001

Google in Africa:
http://google-africa.blogspot.com/

Google launched a new service called Google SMS that is geared towards Africa. It’s an SMS based service that does tips,
search, and a trading application all by texting to a short code with a set of queries.

Layar

http://layar.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64_16K2e08
http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/augmented-reality-real-estate-valuations

The World’s First Augmented Reality Browser. Layar is a free application on your mobile phone which shows what is
around you by displaying real time digital information on top of reality through the camera of your mobile phone.

Layar is available for the T-Mobile G1, HTC Magic and other Android phones in Android Market for the Netherlands.
Other countries will be added later. Planned roll-out dates for other countries are not known yet.

By holding the phone in front of you like a camera, information is displayed on top of the camera display view.

For all points of interest which are displayed on the screen, information is shown at the bottom of the screen.

On top of the camera image (displaying reality) Layar adds content layers. Layers are the equivalent of webpages in
normal browsers. Just like there are thousands of websites there will be thousands of layers. One can easily switch
between layers by selecting another via the menu button, pressing the logobar or by swiping your finger across the
screen.

Augemented ID

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb0pMeg1UN0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/augmented_id_augmented_reality_facial_recognition.php

AugmentedID uses facial recognition and tracking technology from a company called Polar Rose, a photo tagging
startup. A few months ago, Polar Rose made the news when they released a tool that lets you tag your friends on flickr
and then alert them that they were tagged via Facebook Connect integration. Although hyped as “facial recognition for
flickr,” the technology isn’t a part of the photo-sharing site at all (although if Flickr was smart, they’d soon find a way to
make that happen). Instead, Polar Rose, at its very core, is simply a facial recognition algorithm which pulls in photos
from flickr to its site for tagging. It can also be integrated into any web site you own via a javascript widget. Apparently,
it can now be integrated into mobile devices, too.

RoomWizard

http://www.wizardwebsigns.com/

The first product in Steelcase’s Wizard Web Signs family of information appliances, RoomWizard is a web-accessible
touch-screen display that provides real-time status of shared meeting rooms, simplifying the process of reserving and
managing those spaces. All of a company’s RoomWizards, each connected to a single room, are managed from a single
source to avoid the conflicts and interruptions that commonly occur in the workplace.

Each RoomWizard is physically located on a wall outside a meeting room and connected to the organization’s network.
By visiting a single corporate website, people can reserve a space or discover the name of an existing meeting’s leader
or topic. Using the touch-screen interface, people can grab an unused conference room at the last minute without being
disturbed, and the new reservation is immediately visible on the website. In addition, the RoomWizard features red and
green lights that allow users to see the status of a room at a glance.

Cmode et al.

http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2009/10/01/paying-with-your-cell-phone-rather-than-using-a-credit-card-or-cash/
http://www.1800mobiles.com/mobile-commerce.html
http://www.cmode.jp/

TextPayMe: Simply allows you to send and receive money by using text messaging. It’s currently advertised to pay
friends back for movie tickets, split restaurant bills and even purchases from Craiglist. There is no software to install.
All you need is a text messaging enabled phone. You simply write a text message on your phone to sms@textpayme.com
as in the format provided below:
“pay 25 2125551122” where 25 stands for $25.00.
After you send the message, you receive an automated phone call from textpayme asking you for your PIN #. (Feel free
to lose your phone, then; you are still protected). You need to open up an account first in order to deposit money, either
by wire transfer or check.

Obopay: The model is similar to a debit card. You deposit money at Obopay, by creating an account first. Then you
can use your mobile phone to make or even receive a payment. Each account is protected by a unique PIN code. After
the account set up is completed, you need to dowload onto your cellular phone the Obopay mobile application (which
currently requires a Java 2 enabled cell phone). Now a customer can make any transaction to any SMS enabled cell
phone. If the receiving person does not have Obopay service, they will still receive the instant message confirming the
transaction, but they would need to download the same application to collect the funds. It may seem like a lot of work,
but this is no different than adopting any other payment methods, like we all did with Paypal. You can even collect
money by using an Obopay companion debit card. The card is provided at set-up.

Other Companies we have been observing include: M-Enable, which allows merchants to charge their customers by
SMS or a WAP enabled phone; Mytango which allows for text messaging transactions with selected list of merchants
(California only for now); BillmyCell, which allows for payments by calling an 800# from your cell phone to pay for cab
rides or tickets.