Defining and creating a memorable experience for your customers is no easy task. Product owners and development teams can easily rattle off ideas to designers about what features are necessary to stay competitive. But if you ask them to share their vision for the overall more subtle emotional aspects of the experience, they often get quiet or resort to the familiar old UI clichés of "simplicity, intuitiveness, etc." This means that you often start your design work with less insight than you need to drive visual and interaction design.

Enter the experience workshop - a collaborative meeting and setup where clients can really talk about what a great experience can feel like among a sea of inspirational images, digital interfaces, products, services, brands, cars, textures, and more. Companies that build digital products and services are engaging in a new level of competition; it's no longer good enough to deliver a usable product. Our designs must reach an aspirational vision that elevates the experience beyond mere usability, and a visual, collaborative workshop pushes people to explore and discuss the possibilities.

The workshop helps teams discuss what attributes are inherent in these other experiences that are meaningful to the experience they're defining. After a process of prioritization and discussion, the end result is often a huge cloud of ideas and words that sit on a spectrum from a poor experience to an ideal experience. The examples aren't what's important for our output. We collect insight from the discussion, the words, that help us define the ideal experience.

The workshop brings teams together to learn and collaborate on the experience. What I love most about this activity is the connections made from people across different teams that can relate on a personal level because of their shared experiences. It's not just a visioning exercise for the future; it's a team-building event.

Check out the above video to see a glimpse of the workshop in action. And if you want to learn more about how to conduct a workshop and integrate this new approach into your company, you can sign up for an upcoming Cooper U Visual Interface Design course. In fact, we have just a few spots left in next week's class (May 7-8), if this post left you inspired...

Related links

• Cooper U Visual Interface Design course
• The visual interface is now your brand
• What marketing execs should know about user experience
• Measuring visual designers' strategic value

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At Cooper, we love to share what we learn in our consulting work. We've published and socialized techniques and tools for doing interaction design in our books, at conferences, and through Cooper U. Recently, Apple released the iBooks Author platform, and a few of us have been giving it a test run.

The platform itself has lots of potential. There is much to improve, but the possibilities are interesting and it's too early to critique it too strongly. There's been much talk already about the EULA and whether or not this will disrupt education. It's too early to make that call, though. Our initial impression? It's an accessible tool aimed at a user population that, up to this point, hasn't been equipped to produce engaging and usable interactive educational content.

In our trial run, we produced a look book with some of recent work, including slideshows, imagery and video. It's a little rough in some areas, but we'd love to see what you think. You can download it via the link below and share your thoughts in the comments section.

Download the Cooper iBook.

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Last summer, Cooper partnered with TaskRabbit and Pivotal Labs to design their new iPhone app. The app works with their service to help people who need help with simple tasks—anything from walking the dog, standing in line at the DMV, or moving furniture—with "Rabbits," a network of background-checked and pre-approved individuals who have the skills and time available to complete tasks.

The TaskRabbit iPhone app has been nominated for the 2011 Crunchies and the 2012 IxDA awards. This week, you can vote for the app in both awards and check out the other nominations.

• Vote for TaskRabbit in the Crunchies
• Vote for TaskRabbit in the IxDA Awards

The TaskRabbit project

Posting a Task is super easy

The TaskRabbit service is continuing to expand in new cities, including Austin, and we're excited to see their service evolve and grow. Congratulations to Leah Busque for her nomination as Founder of the Year in the Crunchies also.

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There's nothing we like more than seeing our design work come to life. Last week, Cooper Principal Designer, Stefan Klocek went on stage at Practice Fusion Connect 11 to present a prototype of the company's new iPad app to a room of 1200 physicians. Cooper designed and developed the EMR prototype in close collaboration with Practice Fusion over the last few months.

The iPad app represents a first look at a tool that extends Practice Fusion's free electronic health record platform to a format that is portable and easy for the doctor to use while seeing a patient. The goal of the design is to make it easy to document an encounter, while keeping the focus on the patient, rather than the computer. By leveraging smart defaults, templates, voice recognition, and streamlined workflows, doctors will be able to quickly capture salient facts, make diagnoses, and rapidly order medications, labs and specialist referrals. For the large percentage of patients with common ailments, the iPad will allow charting with little or no typing, and provide a structured guide for the exam which ensures nothing falls through the cracks.

With 25 million health records, Practice Fusion is by far the largest electronic health record system in the country. Adding an iPad app to their offering will help more doctors make the transition from traditional paper-based record-keeping to a digital, cloud-based system that's available from anywhere. An increasing number of doctors are opting for a fully digital office, giving them the efficiency benefits of information technology along with the promise of more accurate diagnosis and personalized treatments.

Stefan presents the iPad prototype on stage, accompanied by Edwin Miller, VP of product management, and Alan Cooper.

The app makes it easy for doctors to familiarize themselves with each patient's condition. Patients are organized by appointment time and a summary view presents the most relevant items from the patient's medical history. A simple swipe reveals more detailed information or tools for quickly updating each record.

When meeting patients, doctors would like to focus on their needs, not keyboard typing. The app includes tools to make text entry fast and accurate, such as dictation and template features.

Credits: Stefan Klocek, Andreas Braendhaugen, Jayson McCauliff, Jenea Hayes, Raphael Guilleminot, Nick Myers, Doug LeMoine

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Alan's interview, Software Alchemy and the Arc of Technology, with Chris Shipley at the Commonwealth Club on September 13 can now be listened to on their website as a podcast.

The Cooper team was busy working on projects this week and playing in the 2011 Bay Area Design Dodgeball tournament. Special thanks to Smart Design for organizing and hosting this year's event. Check out photos of the team in action below. To see more photos check out our Facebook page.

Early in the day the team talked strategy and checked out the field of play.

Karen and Greg looked fierce and played fierce.

No one was safe from Glen's arm and Andreas was there to add more terror to opposing teams.

All the bay area design teams came together to celebrate after a great day.

Peter's force is fine illustration of the effort Cooperistas put into every challenge they face.

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Like it or not, the digital world has changed at a wicked pace, and more and more interactions between companies and their customers now happen via an interface. Software serves us everywhere, and the user experience now shapes these interactions every day. At the center of all this change sits the brand. TV and print advertising now regularly feature digital experiences from the likes of Apple, Google, Toyota, GE, and Amazon. The visual interface has become the new face of your brand. This means that the role of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) is now harder, and their influence must reach further into the organization than ever before.

More customer interactions are now digital, and the brand sits at the center

Expectations are now much higher. My wife, for example, has lost all patience with technology. She hates how TiVo doesn't record her programs on time; her Dell laptop seems to break frequently; her iPhone is too slow. It's not just my wife, though. I see it frequently in healthcare and financial services. Even employees in larger enterprises have lost patience and expect better.

At Cooper, I see clients struggle with traditional marketing practices to deliver software that lacks the deeper level of engagement that customers are looking for. Some of our clients have changed their approach to marketing and product design and are reaping the rewards with a place on Forbes' Most Innovative Companies list.

Products like the flip have changed the way we record and share movies

User experience has improved from, for example, yesterday's clunky camcorders to today's magically simple Flip camera, but the competition to provide better experience grows daily. There are now more than 500,000 apps available on Apple's iPhone and many more for other mobile platforms. It's no longer good enough to have an intuitive interface. The question has become: How can marketers connect customers and brands in the digital era, and direct their organizations to guide products that inspire lasting engagement?

Software is a different experience

First of all, software isn't fashion. While marketing campaigns can change at a rapid pace, software interfaces can live for years, sometimes decades, before undergoing major identity change. Visual interfaces need to express a sense of timelessness, and can't be tied to a brand initiative that's likely to be gone in a few years.

You may remember the sporty line of Sony Walkmans, with their design stuck firmly in the 80s. In contrast, Apple's iPod hasn't undergone a major change in 10 years and still has a modern feel to both its hardware and software.

Sony's Walkman feels far more dated than the more iPod generation

Software has become more complex and we must balance style with usability in interface design. A good interface is a humble servant of information, but this stance means we have less opportunity to show a strong visual identity. Instead, the identity must live in the visual details, and the interactive flow becomes the memorable experience. The brand's identity can still be strong because its power is more than skin deep.

The litl interface surfaces content and remove all sense of complexity

One frequent challenge is the belief that a universal brand- or style-guide should drive the look of all products. But the best digital products focus on a unique set of users and contexts. It's not a one-size-fits-all experience. For example, we recently helped a medical products company redesign a set of touchscreen devices operated by non-technical users. The company's visual standards, developed by their marketing team for all of their products including those for dark room technicians, weren't engaging for our group of users. With our research-backed findings, we convinced the central team to adopt a new set of visual standards for these less technical devices.

Too much rigidity in guidelines can result in products that look the same but speak to no one. Just look across Apple's products to see a diverse set of interfaces. Also compare their products to their own human interface guidelines and you’ll find they often break their own rules in lieu of a better experience. A CEO I work with told his team, "the person's the same, but the clothes they wear can change depending on the occasion." Guidelines can define the person and suggest a wardrobe.

User experience design can transform your organization

Software is determining ever more interaction points between companies and their customers. Thus we see the software-defined user experience having a greater influence on how organizations are perceived. What's more, this now extends well beyond software

We recently crafted a vision for a software suite by closely collaborating with a large Silicon Valley company to establish a set of user experience design principles. Initially, we intended just to improve software development quality. However, the design principles we introduced quickly extended outside of the software domain. In less than 18 months, these guidelines have helped transform them to a far more service-oriented culture. The principles now guide legal teams, appear on employee security cards, improve HR processes, and even support their sales experience. Because of its effectiveness, the company has begun to embrace a design-centric approach to business and product development.

Defining a memorable experience that customers love

To help companies create experiences that better support their company goals, we host popular experience workshops where new ideas and perspectives emerge. This new approach to brand strategy helps teams agree on the feel of their future experiences. The workshops help the conversation feel less abstract by using imagery as a guide. People can draw from their own experiences to support their views. The conversation becomes less subjective and more meaningful with tangible examples to point at.

Output from an experience workshop where images drive ideas in a group discussion

It's often the participants less integrated with their teams who are the most grateful to have participated in what they considered a highly engaging and educational meeting. Most importantly, teams are equipped with more effective tools to guide and evaluate their work with users.

A strong visual experience strategy derived from qualitative user research can help you identify the true value of your product from your user's point of view. Their experience can then be elevated and strongly differentiated in the marketplace. Your focused visual experience establishes your brand more effectively than ever before, enabling you to create experiences that go beyond usable to one your users will fall in love with.

What marketers should know

User experience design can drive users to be more engaged with brands, but behavior is as important as appearance. The visual interface design sets expectations about the experience, but the product's behavior delivers on that promise. And engagement starts with understanding your customers.

A completely consistent experience won't speak to diverse user groups with unique goals and unique contexts. The new standards for software design need more flexibility to connect with users. Experience strategy can be defined for each product while still serving the broader business goals.

A strong experience strategy, derived from qualitative user research and experience workshops, can bring a collected vision to your organization and not only identify the true value of your products but help you transform the way your company does business.

Related Reading

• The visual interface is now your brand
• Take the visual interface design class
• Cooper helps TaskRabbit design new iPhone app for help with chores
• The litl: "a design miracle!"
• Flipshare: "absolutely, positively idiot-proof"

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At the recent Interaction 11 conference, I spoke of the growing importance of visual interface design to both brand and user experience in an increasingly digital world. In this new world, visual interaction designers face big challenges and bigger expectations, from both users and clients.

While designing visual interfaces for dense, complex products, designers can also influence brand perception by creating experiences that are both memorable and useful. In my session, I discuss how to design a unique visual interface that puts the needs of the users first; how to add surprise and delight to critical moments of the experience; and how to use craftsmanship and attention to detail to set your design apart in a visually complex medium. Finally, I talk about how visual designers can effectively frame conversations with stakeholders about brand and experience by using personas, experience attributes, and stories to convey design ideas. Enjoy!

Presentation on Slideshare

You can also view a crisper version of the slides on Slideshare: Slideshare.

Related Reading

• A unified approach to visual and interaction design
• Using research to end visual design debates
• The power of rich visual modeless feedback
• Take the visual interface design class
• The litl: a design miracle!

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We recently hosted an open studio, with presentations about using social media for social good from Jennifer Aaker, co-author of The Dragonfly Effect, and Robert Chatwani, social media innovator and Head of Global Citizenship at eBay. It brought together over 100 people in laughter, tears, and inspiration. Throughout the evening, designers and organizations came together to explore how they could use social media for a variety of initiatives, such as forest preservation, energy conservation, and education. We've posted a few photos here, and we wanted to express our gratitude to the speakers and all in the community who took part.

Designers, social advocates, entrepreneurs, and developers chatted and mingled early in the evening

Robert shared his story about Sameer Bhatia and Vinay Chakravarthy, two friends diagnosed with leukemia

Jennifer spoke about the meaning of happiness, social media, and storytelling

Robert highlighted ways corporations with authentic, core social values that can still be profitable.

The evening was a great success and left many energized and inspired

In case you missed the evening, Robert's original talk at the Stanford Business School is available to watch on YouTube: part 1, part 2, part 3.

Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith are participating in several upcoming events and you can learn more about their book, The Dragonfly Effect, via their blog.

Our desired outcome for the event was not simply to inform but to encourage people to act. We highlighted a few opportunities for designers, developers and entrepreneurs to use their skills for social good but hope to share a broader scope of ways to get involved in the near future. If Robert's talk about Teams Sameer and Vinay illustrated anything, it's that each of us can have a large global impact given a clear, focused goal.

Thanks everyone for their interest and involvement in our open studio, and we'll keep you posted on our events in 2011.

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What’s been your proudest achievement in life? Think about this for a minute or two. The accomplishments that I hold most dear are those that have occurred mostly outside of my professional career. But are we missing opportunities as designers and developers to contribute directly to furthering social causes? Social psychologist Jennifer Aaker and social media innovator Robert Chatwani say that we are. Cooper is proud to host these two Bay Area thought leaders at an open studio event on Wednesday, November 17th, from 6 - 9 pm at our offices on 100 1st Street on the 26th floor.

Jennifer Aaker and marketing technologist, Andy Smith’s new book The Dragonfly Effect is a must-read for designers and developers. The book details how people using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube beat the odds, made a difference, and literally saved lives. It tells how a former nightclub owner made a way for some of the world’s poorest people to have clean water, how a girl’s lemonade stand inspired fundraising for breast cancer, and how Barack Obama connected with a younger generation to become the first African American president of the United States. It underscores the importance of connecting meaning with social media when trying to create infectious action.

The book begins with a very personal story: In 2007, a friend, Sameer Bhatia, was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML). His one chance of survival was to find a bone marrow donor but his odds were slim: 1 in 25,000. Sameer’s friends, led by Robert Chatwani, used social technology to find a match for Sameer. And that’s just the beginning of the story!

Please join us at Cooper’s studio to meet Robert and Jennifer and to find out more about The Dragonfly Effect and the excellent design principles that were invaluable for affecting change. RSVP to rsvp@cooper.com.

Jennifer Aaker

A social psychologist and marketer, Jennifer Aaker is the General Atlantic Professor of Marketing at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Her research spans time, money and happiness. She focuses on questions such as: “What actually makes people happy, as opposed to what they think makes them happy?” “How can small acts create infectious action, and how can such effects be fueled by social media?” She is widely published in the leading scholarly journals in psychology and marketing, and her work has been featured in a variety of media including The Economist, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BusinessWeek, Forbes, CBS Money Watch, NPR, Science, Inc, and Cosmopolitan.

A sought-after teacher in the field of marketing, Professor Aaker teaches in many of Stanford’s Executive Education programs as well as MBA electives including Designing Happiness, How to Tell a Story, Building Innovative Brands and The Power of Social Technology. She has also taught at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Columbia and is a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award, Citibank Best Teacher Award, George Robbins Best Teacher Award and both the Spence and Fletcher Jones Faculty Scholar Awards.

Robert Chatwani

Robert Chatwani leads Global Citizenship for eBay Inc., which covers a range of technology-driven social innovation across eBay and PayPal. Reporting to eBay’s CEO, he oversees the company’s global social impact and business goals across three areas: entrepreneurship, sustainable commerce, and communities. eBay’s platforms have enabled 25 million sellers around the world, powered the sale of over $100 billion in pre-owned goods, and raised more than $200 million for nonprofit organizations. Robert previously co-founded WorldofGood.com by eBay, the world’s largest marketplace for socially responsible shopping. Prior to eBay, Chatwani was the co-founder of MonkeyBin, an online consumer marketplace for trade and barter. Robert began his career with McKinsey & Company in Chicago and Washington DC, where he served a range of Fortune 500 clients and launched McKinsey’s Globalization practice. Chatwani received a bachelor’s degree in economics from DePaul University and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He was named to Time Magazine’s Top 100 Green Pioneers of 2009.

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We really enjoyed watching the World Cup over lunch here in the Cooper office. The games sparked many conversations about soccer, beloved sporting traditions, and why FIFA is so bloody minded about goal-line technology use (okay, maybe that last one was just from a bitter England fan).

It's also been a time to admire the many new and unusual visualizations used for the tournament brackets, game-by-game breakdowns, and statistical replays. For the fans that wake up in the coming weeks with an empty feeling, perhaps this library of visualizations will provide a glimmer of comfort and distraction until the next tournament. (That is unless you're an England fan.) There are many visualizations to look at here but if I could suggest one to look at closely it would be the Guardian twitter replay. The best of the bunch.

And of course, congratulations to Spain on winning the World Cup!

Game Schedules & Results

The classic visualization for the World Cup is the table breakdown and brackets. For any hardcore fan this is the most exciting visualization where supporters can see their team's road to the final and victory.

MARCA World Cup calendar One stadium visualization received plenty of attention for it's beautiful form and elegant interaction but, for me, it failed to illustrate the future match-ups. I never could understand the rationale of the order of the teams either.

World Cup radial bracket poster While just a poster, this visualization gives a very quick glimpse into potential future opponents. It also is beautifully designed with bright colors and typography. Sadly, it isn't interactive. Game tracker from Positive This beautiful visualization was good for the early tournament rounds and arranged game schedules on a circular arc. The smooth rotation allows for a wonderful spin of the wheel but fails to offer deeper information.

BBC Sport brackets The classic tables and brackets are the best way to see the World Cup schedules and results. The BBC news site does a great job of presenting table data and brackets on one screen.

ESPN Soccernet brackets ESPN also presents the brackets in a condensed manner. Both ESPN and BBC provide easy access to team data through these visualizations.

Analysis

Supporters can follow match statistics during and after games to get a sense of the player performance, team possession, and game commentary.

New York Times The New York Times has an interesting analysis visualization for each game. Probably the most interesting of these visualizations is their heat maps that represent the action from minute to minute. Passes are also illustrated by the minute. Sadly there's no composite representation for the entire game for each of these visualizations which would provide additional data for the match. One minute increments also don't accurately portray the flow of the game. It might be better to summarize information in five minute chunks that tend to represent possession more clearly. The overview displays a nice breakdown of stats in a sparkline view.

Mint Digital iPad challenge Mint Digital's iPad application shows one of the best illustrated maps of possession. The size of the player squares indicates influence and the possession line shifts to reflect the balance of play. Other screens are filled with stats in a very simple, sleek visual design.

Visual sport Visual sport shows match stats and key plays on the field. Some of the visualizations are interesting but the data is hard to grasp and minuscule in size. The player portraits are a nice touch and comical, but the visualization reflects a dry feel for what is a more dramatic event.

ESPN Soccernet commentary The better analysis tools tend to be accompanied by live commentary from skilled journalists. Again, I look at the BBC and ESPN sites for best analysis coverage. ESPN's visualization is not only very well rendered but allows for visitors to instantly access video replays and see in-depth coverage of stats, conversations and photos.

Social Spectating

Twitter has had a larger impact on the World Cup than any other technology in 2010. There are many instances where twitter technology has been put to good use to bring supporters together from across the globe.

Guardian Twitter replay My favorite visualization of the tournament by far has been the Twitter replays on the Guardian news site. This replay tool lets visitors see how Twitter reacted during every game. The animation feels very reactive during key moments in the game and it's almost as if the animation behaves like a crowd.

CNN Twitter CNN's Twitter buzz map presents each country with the most buzz in order and size priority. You can also see player and topic buzz. The visualization is current and changes often on some feeds but is not as compelling as the Guardian's site. It is most interesting to watch during a game as is the Twitter World Cup match live tweet.

Recaps

These examples are not strictly visualizations but highlight some interesting ways that game highlights are viewable.

LegoFussball A humorous slant on game replays was illustrated by the site, Lego Fussball. The major highlights of the game were recounted with original commentary using lego bricks.

ESPN 3 video replay One of the most unique interactions exists in the ESPN 3 video interfaces. Key moments in the game are marked on a timeline that can be selected to view the replay. This happens while regular video play continues as an added benefit.

Miscellaneous

These additional visualizations don't service supporters' major goals but are still worth a look.

Estadio Estadio is a rich visualization that maps international players to the different professional leagues they play in. Rolling over the visualization clarifies some of the relationships by filtering out some of the noise. Interesting note: that the German, English and Italian players all play in their national leagues.

Google search results The visualizations on Google's search results appear when users search for relevant information and it's a pleasant surprise to be presented with such specific and relevant information. Very thoughtful, goal-directed design.

New York Times Facebook player mentions And finally, the New York Times recently added a new visualization representing player mentioned on Facebook by day. The size of each player represents their general popularity for that day. A nice, fluid, and visually interesting diagram.

FusionCharts While not the most visually stunning example from the bunch, this visualization from FusionCharts paints a larger picture using multiple visualizations together. The illustration of the countries, match total, and Fifa World Cup trophy are all very simply presented.

Umbro Infographic This beautiful and dense visualization represents passes, shots, and goals throughout the tournament for every game. The information is presented as sparklines and there are some nice details not to be missed such as overtime, penalties, and the world cup winners.

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