design stories in everyday things
Another example of NFC application with Docomo Osaifu Keitai (Wallet Mobile) that allows you to easily join a membership club of a chain restaurant by tapping your phone to the sensor, and then earn points every time you visit the store and tap your phone again.
The character in the picture has a name called タッチワワ “TACHIWAWA” which sounds like TOUCH+CHIWAWA. This is a campaign from Hottomotto, a chain fast food store in Japan.
Posted in Experience
Traditional airline ticket with a touching twist: ANA’s marketing campaign “SASOU Drama” (誘うドラマ/Invitation Drama) ask you to invite your long-distance lover to get away with you for a trip, by sending him/her a flight ticket printed with your customized, unique invitation message.
The cinematic TV commercials (CM) is pretty touching. Instead of hard selling the ANA airline brand, they use a story to illustrate a scenario where you can project yourself into and hope to take a get away trip. One of the CM goes like this:
Late in the evening, after a long day of work, she finally left her office, walking home quietly and exhausted. She arrived home and entered the dark, empty apartment with a pile of letters on her hand. The sound the keys hitting the table is the only noise that echoed in this cold room, in which nobody is waiting for her. Seemed that the pile of letters were just all bills and advertisements. Are those the only thing left in this world that care to send her mails?
Wait, something’s different. “Your name is in this letter”, one envelope read. Curious what it was, she immediately opened the envelope and pulled out a letter.
“From a person who wants to invite you.”
“Sorry for not being able to meet you for a long time.”
“I would like to bring you to somewhere during the next vacation.”
She paused. The picture of her boyfriend immediately rushed into her mind. They couldn’t meet each other for quite a while due to their own busy job with long hours. She missed him very much.
“I have always been hard working.”
Tears of love and joy escaped from her eyes. She was always on his mind. In the envelope, there was a flight ticket for a vacation trip for two. Couldn’t hold her emotional any longer, she jumped out of the chair and ran to her boyfriend.
Here is another version:
Background music on website to create mood — In both the CM and website, the song 春夏秋冬 by NIKIIE creates an emotional atmosphere. In the campaign website, the piano solo keeps looping in the background while you navigate through the pages.
Music is a powerful medium to convey emotions, and has long been used in movie, radio, etc. It is ideal for rich web browsing experience. However, background music was not very common nor practical in web design due to technical limitations. It is especially problematic to keep the same music playing while loading different pages in the browser. Some designs, like this ANA campaign site, take a workaround approach by using a big Flash animation to build the whole site. But with modern HTML5 and AJAX, it is possible to achieve the same goal with better cross-browser / backward compatibility and mobile device supports. For instance:
Use stories to tie your brand with emotions, not specifications — Apple’s ad campaign for FaceTime uses a series of stories and scenarios to illustrate the joy of sharing the moments with video. It doesn’t tell you the technical specification, data plan or screen resolution, nor is video call a new technology, but most people would immediately visualise themselves in these situations, and crave to buy the iPhone 4 as a consequence.
Posted in Design, Experience
Adidas adiVERSE is a giant touchscreen wall that shows interactive 3D models of Adidas’ hottest footwear. You can navigate, manipulate, view additional information and marketing materials on the huge screen, all by touch gestures. When customer is happy with the product, he/she can send it to a virtual shopping cart, then later on check out with a salesperson using iPad-like touchscreen tablet.
image from Fast Company
Comparing with the previous TEAMLAB Interactive Hanger, I believe this Adidas system is more a 3D touchy gimmick than an actually sustainable and user-friendly retail system. My thought is that, when people go to a retail store instead of online store, they would want to hold and feel the real product in their hand, or randomly pick up stuff on the shelf to try them on. Going to a retail store for flat interactions from in to out (touch to browse + see product detail + checkout) just doesn’t make sense to me.
Suggestion: instead of focusing on total touch interface and virtual models, I think it’s more relevant to put the focus back to the tangible physical shoes on the rack. With simple RFID, proximity sensors and 3D motion capture like Kinect, it’s possible to create many intriguing interactions that crossover the physical and virtual world.
For example, when you pick up a F50 soccer shoe and rolling it in your hand, a dissected 3D model will move, roll, or zoom in/out actually the same way on the screen.
Another idea is that, you can put on the soccer shoes and stand in front of a Kinect, then the system will cast you to a 3D soccer field in which you can match with famous stars or overlay onto important goal moments. How about if you actually purchase the shoes, Adidas will upload the video to Youtube tagged with your name as a courtesy?
video from lenseffect
Read more: http://www.fastcompany.com/1715933/intel-adidas-virtual-footwear-wall
Adidas adiVERSE is a joint project of Adidas and Intel.
A while ago I also blogged about the Acure touchscreen drink vending machine in Japan, which displays attractive and customizable visuals, mounted with a camera to detect customer’s age and gender, and offers dynamic drink suggestions. See the blog post here: Acure Touchscreen Vending Machine.
Posted in Experience
TEAMLAB Interactive Hanger is an experimental project that provide interactive retail experience using RFID technology.
When a customer picks up a clothes from the boutique rack, the RFID equipped TEAMLAB HANGER will notify the boutique computer to immediately shows a video of the corresponding clothes on a screen that is closest to the customer.
The idea of TEAMLAB Hanger is to use common customer behavior as an interface. Not only the TEAMLAB hanger doesn’t obstruct with the normal shopping experience, but make it informative by providing relevant information on screen. The system aims to eliminate boring static mannequins, and create an interactive experience such as combination of light, ambient music, video. The system works equally well in small space.
From the store’s perspective, the hanger can collect valuable customer behavioral information, such as number of pick-up per item, duration, location, etc.
original video from calvin-c.com
video from TEAMLAB
Posted in Experience
暗闇食堂 (クラヤミ食堂/KURAYAMI SHOKUDO) 是間給你不一樣體驗的餐廳，客人會被安排和陌生人一起，以視覺以外的感官用餐，讓你重新用心認識食物和身邊的人。
客人一到餐廳外門，便會被要求蒙着雙眼，職員會小心亦亦領客人到餐桌旁，和互不相識的人坐在一起用餐。當所有客人就坐後，職員便端上食物到客人面前，不告訢你菜名，不管你用嗅覺、聽覺、觸覺和味覺去欣賞美食，偏偏就是不准用視覺。你可以和旁人討論到底現在大家在吃甚麼，又或者聊聊天，互相認識一下，試着不以外表去感覺他人。
由於暗闇食堂並不是經常舉辦，如果大家有興趣参加的話便需留意網誌、Twitter (@kodomogokoro)或加入Mailing List。
當被蒙着雙眼時，可能我們能見到更多色彩呢！
此篇文章是為日本國家旅遊局JNTO贊助的香港推廣活動「日本新発売」而作。請按此看更多相關網誌。
欲知更多詳情，請參考日本新発売官方網頁。
Posted in Experience, Travel