The Autumn concept changes the way we think about safety, and about how we interact with the car and the environment while driving.  Autumn was a research project to identify innovative human-computer interaction solutions for driving safety. Envisioning new uses for the latest in sensor and communication technologies, the Autumn concept identified ways that increased information flow between surroundings, vehicle and driver at strategic moments can enhance the driver’s awareness of danger and actively prevent accident situations from arising.

Experientia developed a model of cognition, describing the driving process and where failures occur that lead to accident situations. The research team began by exploring existing models, but then developed a broader understanding of concepts such as “human error”, and the chain of events that leads to accidents. The result was the “Situated model of driving”, which postulates that driving is a system made up of continuous interaction between the driver, the vehicle and the environment, which occurs at a subconscious level in normal situations, and at a heightened level of conscious alertness during unexpected events.

The team then developed the Autumn concept, a system to help prevent accidents from occurring, through a series of advanced feedback mechanisms that aid the driver’s awareness of surroundings and potential dangers before corrective actions need to take place. The concept has been showcased in a first-person perspective video prototype. It was also presented at the Epic conference in Boulder, Colorado, 2011.

Understanding
Road safety is a major societal concern. Most safety developments in the last 15 years have focused on passive vehicle safety, making the car more resilient against accidents. Instead, the Autumn project focused on preventive safety (prevention of accidents) and active safety (recovery in an emergency situation). The research began by asking how can we:
- assist drivers in the driving process from the beginning to end of a route?
- enhance drivers’ perception of their surroundings?
- support drivers to detect potential dangers?
- prevent shock due to an unexpected event?

Developing a cognitive model
The research phase began by exploring the existing models to describe accidents and why they happen. The most important of these was the TRACE (TRaffic Accident Causation in Europe) project’s linear model of how an accident happens, which saw accidents as a chain of events, where the accident was the result of the last action performed in the sequence. Experientia believed that the cause and prevention of accidents could be seen in a less linear way, and instead developed a cognitive model (the “Situated model of driving”) in which drivers, vehicles and the environment are viewed as elements that constantly influence each other. When these three elements are correctly interacting, driving occurs smoothly. When they are incorrectly interacting, accidents result. This focused the design phase on ways in which technology can improve the interaction among the elements, making the system more resistant to failures.

Design
While most current safety automation solutions support correction in critical conditions, our approach focuses on increasing people’s sensing and detecting capabilities. Existing advanced car safety systems focus on reaction time, in the period from an unexpected event occurring until the accident. The car continuously senses the environment, but only provides information, warnings or takes control in the emergency phase, often in a very obtrusive way.  However, the situated model shows that perception and action inform and affect each other continuously, even when the action is performed in a habitual, subconscious way. Therefore, systems should enhance the natural human ability to sense and correct.

Our concept is based on natural, continuous and non-obtrusive interaction.

Autumn concept
The windshield occupies an area dedicated to primary driving tasks, such as controlling the car. Head-up display (HUD) technologies can transform the windshield into an area for displaying information. Products currently in the market merely replicate dashboard information. However, the location is ideal for information about driving activities, rather than entertainment or secondary tasks.

The area of visual comfort, beneath the horizon line, displays critical information, while the upper part of the windscreen displays secondary information, such as current conditions. The driver-side window shows information on passing vehicles.

The metaphor of shadow is used to represent the safety zone of the car. When the shadow overlays a specific external element, it helps identify dangerous situations.  By making the invisible visible, and drawing the driver’s attention to important elements in the environment s/he may have missed, we enhance the driver’s sensory capacity.

Straight cruise helps drivers to verify their position on the road, and be more aware of drifting out of their lane.
Proximity monitoring visualises the distance between the driver and other vehicles on the road.
Side eye enhances the peripheral vision of the driver, visualising the movement of surrounding cars, particularly those in the driver’s blind spot.
Moving objects imagines a future use for the technology in which moving objects around the vehicle, such as people or bikes, are identified, highlighted and monitored, in situations with poor visibility.

Prototype
The practical result of the research was the creation of a first-person perspective video prototype to illustrate the concept in action. Dynamic safety information is shown on a head-up display. The concept aims to demonstrate that a driver trained by continuous and non-obtrusive information recognises dangerous situations earlier and has a faster reaction time, improving safety. It operates at a visceral cognitive processing level.

Deliverables
Executive presentation
Conference presentation
Video prototype of concept

(Flanders in Shape/Kortrijk Xpo Centre, Belgium)

What will the trade fair of the future look like? International, networked crowds, connected devices, and all the convenience and comfort that the coolest tools can deliver: the future is definitely high-tech, high speed and high consumption. So when Kortrijk Xpo asked Experientia to help them become Belgium’s most environmentally sustainable trade fair and congress complex by 2020, and one of the top five players in Europe, one of the challenges was to conceive what sustainability will look like in 5, 10 and 20 years’ time – and how to rethink an industry that thrives on international air travel and energy-hungry events.

The Event project was partially funded by Flanders In Shape (FIS), a Flemish design promotion agency, with Kortrijk Xpo itself funding the remainder. Together with Futureproofed, a Belgian consultancy specialised in sophisticated carbon footprint analysis and solution development, Experientia created a people-centred roadmap for the expo centre to become more sustainable, addressing both infrastructural systems and people’s behaviours. It outlined how to modify the organisational, staging and social aspects of expo-centre events to be more sustainable. The project involved benchmarking, carbon footprint calculation, designing a framework for behavioural change, opportunity mapping and idea generation on ways for all expo stakeholders, including attendees, to contribute to more sustainable events.

The resulting environmental roadmap looks not just at the next few months, but at the next decade, showing what needs to start happening now, and how it can evolve and progress over the coming years.

A sustainably competitive edge
Sustainability is an increasingly growing concern, and will only grow more important in the next decade as we approach the 2020 deadline for the EU’s European energy policy (requiring a 20-30% cut of all greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels, and for public buildings to produce a considerable amount of their energy on-site). Companies that start to put progressive policies in place now will have a strong competitive advantage as legislation becomes more stringent for building codes and practice standards. All industries will be affected, but it’s important to realise that any business can reduce its impact.

A roadmap like the one created for Kortrijk Xpo provides businesses with the information they need in their journey of change towards sustainability. It takes businesses from “point A” — not understanding their real carbon footprint, where emissions come from and how to reduce them — to “point B”, where they can recognise and track sources of emissions, involve stakeholders in reducing them, and become advocates and “lead users” of more sustainable practices.

Envisioning and Understanding
Understanding the carbon footprint
In creating the roadmap for Kortrijk Xpo, Futureproofed provided the starting point, by calculating the carbon footprint resulting from Kortrijk Xpo’s activities. CO2 emissions are generally categorised into three scopes.

Scope 1 refers to those emissions that come from sources that are owned or controlled by the institution. In the case of Kortrijk Xpo, these were mostly refrigerants and gas for temperature control, and company cars. Scope 2 refers to indirect emissions generated by electricity purchased and used by the organisation. Scope 3 refers to all other indirect emissions that are caused by the institution’s activities, but not under their control or ownership: for Kortrijk Xpo these included travel of attendees and expo presenters and transport of waste.

When calculating a carbon footprint for an organisation, often only scopes 1 and 2 are considered. This is a rather limited way of looking at CO2 – which is why Futureproofed also uses scope 3 to calculate carbon footprints. This more complete picture of both direct and indirect emissions will give an organisation much more confidence in how to manage costs, limit risks, create new markets and develop brand value. In this project, Scope 3 was particularly important, because the nature of temporary events means that many emissions will be produced by sources not fully under the institution’s control.

As expected, Futureproofed found that once scope 3 was added to scopes 1 and 2, the expo centre’s carbon footprint was 36 times larger – 51,442 tons of CO2 emissions, compared to a much smaller 1,402 tons if only scope 1 and 2 were considered. They also found that scope 3 emissions were clearly dominated by transport, with transport of event visitors accounting for a huge 84.9% of the carbon footprint. From an analysis of the carbon footprint, Futureproofed then identified the biggest carbon emission problem areas, and elaborated reduction targets for the expo centre.

Using the report’s 10 most significant sources of carbon emissions as a guide, Experientia began to benchmark best practices in sustainability in expo centres, temporary events, and large transit buildings (e.g. airports, train stations) all over the world. They investigated the most innovative and effective practices in action today, ranging from technical solutions for temperature control and overall building impact, to innovative ways to reduce travel and the impact of transportation, and fresh and contemporary ways to involve visitors and participants in the solution space. The benchmarking process revealed solutions as varied as on-site power production, native plant rooftop gardens, and remote trade fair attendance using robot avatars.

Framework for behavioural change
Experientia also designed a behavioural change framework, based on the latest theories in the area, as well as Experientia’s own previous work on behavioural change that it developed in other sustainability-focused projects. The framework outlined the process that behavioural change in an expo centre should take, as well as the roles and motivations of the various stakeholders. Existing behavioural change frameworks were adapted to refer more specifically to temporary settings and events and sustainability.

The three ingredients from the analysis phase – carbon footprint, international benchmark and behavioural change framework – offered detailed information on implementing the reduction targets, with appropriate time-frames, and a guide to catalysing organisational change. Then the concept development phase of the project began.

Design
To start the design phase, Experientia led a participatory stakeholder workshop, also including Futureproofed, in which the findings from the analysis phase were presented, together with some initial idea generation. Based on the analysis insights, four strategic focuses were selected: “Travel and transportation”, “Materials and waste”, “Ecosystem”, and “Global perspective”.

During the workshop over 100 solutions to specific sustainability problems that conferences and trade fairs face were generated. These were then mapped onto opportunity maps, and thematic clusters were identified. In consultation with Futureproofed and stakeholders, the four strongest ideas (one from each strategic focus) were selected for further iteration, with Experientia developing them into more robust concepts.

So what does the sustainable trade fair of the future look like?
The selected concepts envisioned a trade fair where both exhibitors and attendees could take responsibility for their carbon footprint, and implement simple actions to reduce it, while sharing these actions and values within the wider urban context, and with a global network of ecological event venues.

Virtual Xpo
The travel-focused concept, Virtual Xpo, allows people to attend Kortrijk fairs remotely – possibly at a reduced rate – without compromising the richness of the direct experience of the events, even offering platforms to participate in Q&A sessions with exhibitors and presenters. Social media solutions extended on-site experiences and networking into trend spotting from afar. This was a direct answer to the overwhelming issue of the high footprint of travel.

Booth Dashboard
Focusing on materials, as well as raising people’s awareness of their carbon impact, the Booth dashboard idea aims at engaging exhibitors in CO2 and energy reduction by making their consumption information transparent, publicly available and comparable with their peers’ consumption. This includes making the carbon footprint of booth creation, design and production explicit, as well as emphasising how much each exhibitor has saved through more sustainable sourcing and construction techniques. It also visualises the energy consumption of the booths during the event. The concept focuses on local carbon production, and aims to catalyse behavioural change through making companies more responsible for their own impact.

Living in Kortrijk
The Living in Kortrijk scenario takes a city-wide perspective, highlighting how changes at the expo centre could impact the future of the local ecosystem. It sets out how sustainable tools, facilities, information and services available to people at the trade fair can be made available to the entire city, thereby allowing good practices to spread from their original context, and become embedded in people’s daily lives. This concept looks beyond the fair, imagining the full experience of a person visiting the city for the fair. In order to be fully sustainable, the expo should involve a set of local stakeholders and create a co-ordinated infrastructure, which extends sustainable principles across the whole range of activities a visitor might participate in.

EcoFair network
Finally, looking at the global scale, the EcoFair network envisions an international network of expo sites that agree on shared eco practices, and which actively promote their vision and initiatives and deliver their services to the users. Travel is also addressed here, as the community of attendees can explore alternative, lower-impact ways to reach the event venue. The concept is based on the idea that behavioural change can be triggered, facilitated and reinforced through gradual adoption of new behaviours and collective action, leading to new values and norms at community levels. In this case, a community of EcoFairs creates a forum within which best practice can be shared, comparisons can be more easily made, and reinforcement can be mutual.

Putting Kortrijk Xpo on the map
The environmental roadmap for Kortrijk Xpo provides detailed information on implementing the reduction targets within the staged time-frames. It acts as a guide to catalysing organisational change, and to triggering change in event attendees. It takes the organisation through all the milestones of the process, from carbon reduction targets, to strategies for achieving them, supporting Kortrijk Xpo on its way to becoming the most environmentally sustainable trade fair and congress complex in Belgium by 2020, and a top five player in Europe.

This will be a considerable achievement for the expo centre, but it is our conviction that in spreading these values to other exposition centres and eventually becoming a standard for what event venues can achieve in terms of sustainability, Kortrijk Xpo will really put itself on the map as a far-sighted leader.

Final Deliverables
Carbon Footprint Analysis (by Futureproofed)
Benchmark study
Behavioural change framework
Opportunity maps
100 initial concepts
4 in-depth concepts, illustrated with storyboards and visualisations
Video presentation of 4 best concepts

(Italian digital solutions provider)

Digital signage is a new means of communication that can improve communication between brands and customers, within store environments. Although not widely used currently, its usage is expected to grow within Europe by 30% in the next year.

Experientia conducted a research study to understand people’s real information needs when shopping in large supermarkets, through a mix of secondary research, contextual observations and qualitative research. From our insights, we provided recommendations on how to use the technology to meet specific business goals.

Understanding

The desk research explored digital signage not just in the Italian context, but also in the international market, where a wider range of rich and sophisticated solutions are implemented. This included 12 case studies of best practice. From the findings, Experientia identified trends and themes which characterised the most successful examples.

The contextual observations followed 8 people inside a supermarket as they completed their grocery shopping, to understand their information needs and particularly to investigate their behaviour when they encountered problems, such as whether they searched for a shop assistant or tried to solve problems by looking at packaging and available information aids. We looked at what motivated people to select a certain product, their navigation and orientation within the store, and their relationship to the signage and communication present.

Each participant was also interviewed in their home before and after the supermarket shopping, to better understand their lifestyles and general buying behaviours. We explored whether and how people created shopping lists, or planned weekly menus, as well as how they prepared for their grocery shopping. The closing interview gained insights on the motivations behind specific purchases, such as what was planned and what was an impulse buy.

We found that the current digital signage offer is overly focused on the technology itself, with little attention paid to the contents being presented. Our findings suggest that in the future, businesses should concentrate on content and information, interaction and experience, bi-directional communication and co-creation.

Envisioning

Based on the research insights, Experientia created an opportunity map that illustrated the ideal path for the evolution of digital signage, and then created five future use scenarios that addressed the themes and problem areas that emerged during the research analysis: understanding information; perception of experience; orientation and movement within the store environment; complications in the purchase process; and extension of the experience.

Each scenario used sophisticated digital signage to create a highly differentiated commercial offer, which would lead to an enduring competitive advantage. Finally, we made a series of recommendations for considerations when creating a new digital signage strategy.

Final deliverables

The final booklet detailed the outputs from each research phase. This included benchmarking results and case-studies; in-depth summaries of interviews and observations; high-level insights and opportunity maps; future scenarios; and strategic recommendations on how to accommodate the technology to identified business goals.

Europe
• Aalto University Finland
• Alcatel-Lucent France, Spain
• Area Association Italy
• AVIS Italy
• Banca Fideuram Italy
• Barclays Italy UK
• Blyk UK
• Cittadellarte Italy
• City of Genk Belgium
• Condé Nast Italy
• CSI-Piemonte Italy
• Design Flanders Belgium
• Deutsche Telekom Germany
• Expedia UK

• Facem Tre Spade Italy
• Fidelity International UK
• Finmeccanica Italy
• Flanders InShape Belgium
• Foviance Italy
• Fredericia Denmark
• Fujitsu-Siemens Germany
• Gruppo Banca Carige Italy
• Idean Finland
• IKS-Core Consulting Italy
• Istud Foundation Italy
• Kortrijk Xpo Belgium
• Last Minute UK
• Logitech Switzerland
• Max Mara Italy

• MPG Ferrero Italy
• Nokia Denmark, Finland, France
• Philip Morris International Switzerland
• Phillip und Keuntje GmbH, Germany
• Pronto Seat Italy
• Romagna Noi Italy
• Samsung Electronics Italy, Korea, UK
• Sitra/SRV Finland
• Swisscom Switzerland
• Syneo Italy
• Toncelli Italy
• Torino World Design Capital Italy
• UPA Italy
• Vodafone Germany, Italy, UK
• Whirlpool UK

Asia
• Haier China
• Hewlett Packard India
• Samsung Italy, Korea, UK

Africa
• Village Telco South Africa
• Confidential Kenya

Industries
• Banking & Finance
• Consumer products
• Fashion
• Public sector
• Health & Wellbeing
• IT & Software
• Media & Entertainment
• Telecom
• Travel & Tourism

Winner award – Italian National Prize for Innovation in Services

As part of a team made up of Arup (a global 6000 person engineering and planning firm), Sauerbruch Hutton (an acclaimed Berlin-based architecture studio) and Galley Eco Capital (green building finance specialists from San Francisco), Experientia won an international competition to develop a building block called Jätkäsaari, in the city of Helsinki, Finland, which will have low or no carbon emissions.

Based on the understanding that sustainable buildings require sustainable living practices, Experientia brings its unique perspective as an innovative experience design company to the project. While other team members concentrated on the architectural, engineering and financial strategies for the project, Experientia’s responsibility in the winning team is to address the delicate theme of how to initiate behavioural change to support a sustainable style of living in this completely new urban district.

Starting with the concept that people, their contexts, social networks, habits and beliefs are crucial tools for creating sustainable change in behaviour, Experientia is exploring ways to offer people control over their consumption and to see the effects of their actions on the environment.

Starting from 2010, and continuing over the next 6 years, the Jätkäsaari district will be designed, constructed and opened to inhabitants. From there, the sustainable ideals that govern its day-to-day life will act as a model and example for the rest of Helsinki, Finland and the world — thereby also supporting Helsinki’s commitments as 2012 World Design Capital.

www.low2no.org

Envisioning
Experientia’s competition proposal, entitled “C-LIFE, the City as a Living Factory of Ecology,” began as a vision shared by a team made up of Arup (an engineering and planning firm), Sauerbruch Hutton (architecture), Galley Eco Capital (green building finance), and Experientia.

The team created a proposal to construct a city block in the new Jätkäsaari district in Helsinki with low-to-no carbon emissions, which soon evolved into C-LIFE: a vision of a centre of innovation and experimentation for reducing energy consumption; a vibrant and participative community, with sustainable planning and architecture; and a world-leader for low-to-no carbon projects.

The proposal was the winner of the Low2No design competition that over 70 planning groups participated in. (Download our winning proposal as a PDF or from the Low2No website.)

The project is run by Sitra, the Finnish innovation agency, and is currently in the design phase.

Understanding
People and their contexts, social networks, habits and beliefs are crucial tools for creating sustainable change. Technology plays an important role in this change, but by itself it is not enough to lead to true planetary recovery. For change to really be embedded in our world, it needs to be a part of our lifestyles, with action and commitment starting from the grassroots, community level.

With this understanding, Experientia began to outline what was necessary for behavioural change to take place in Jätkäsaari. We identified four arenas in which change must occur:

• Physical, things such as infrastructure and the objects that surround us;
• Personal, including our beliefs and behaviours;
• Social, such as shared values and identity; and
• Cultural, such as commitment from public and government bodies.

Within each of these contexts, Experientia developed strategies to empower people’s change, including engagement and awareness programmes, through services aimed at creating social actions based on green values; using technology to assist people in making decisions, such as smart energy metres and dynamic pricing systems; producing positive reinforcement loops (with incentives and benefits) for people who live, work and visit Jätkäsaari; and using the community as a knowledge network to share best practices.

In order to create our behaviour change concepts, we drafted profiles of the people who might inhabit the area and the kind of lifestyles they might live. Looking at the day-to-day movement of these people, we generated ideas around the type of needs and attitudes they might have, the type of services and products they might want, and how their behaviours should and could change for them to become more sustainable.

See Framework for behavioural change (PDF) article published in the UPA’s UX Magazine (pre-publication version).

Design
Experientia designed fifty initial ideas for tools and services that could facilitate behavioural change in Jätkäsaari, encouraging people to participate in designing more sustainable living conditions. These concepts included technological solutions such as smart metres, dynamic pricing systems, and data on cost and peak usage; participatory solutions, such as games, competitions, workshops and websites for community involvement; public installations, such as artworks that give information about, and encourage people to reduce energy consumption; and business initiatives to encourage private and public entities to get involved in the quest for a low-to-no district.

For each persona considered in the understanding phase, we developed an individually tailored smart metre that would help that person to monitor and control their energy consumption and CO2 production in the way that suits them best.

Final deliverables
From winning proposal, C-LIFE in Jätkäsaari will now become a reality by 2012 — coinciding with the celebration of Helsinki as World Design Capital.

For Experientia, the first stages of project development involve ethnographic research, participatory design and concept development of smart metres and services to reduce our carbon footprint. We will listen to the needs, desires and behaviours of the real people who will live in the district, and utilise participatory design methods, so that the final concepts and solutions will be designed with and for the people who will be using them.

Secondly, we will conceptualise solutions for carbon demand management (smart metres, tools and services) to influence behavioural change on individual and community levels: to create energy consumption knowledge and awareness. We are focusing on replicable, innovative solutions and fostering Finnish entrepreneurship.

Since our aim is to create an area that will not only reach its goal of becoming a zero-carbon district, but which will enthuse and motivate the rest of the world to follow its lead into a carbon-free future for all, we will help Sitra and SRV to set up and implement a participatory communication strategy to support the design work and position Finland as a global leader in sustainable building

See Experientia news item on Low2No

Partners
Low2No
Sitra
Arup
Sauerbruch Hutton
Galley Eco Capital

Downloads
Experientia Low2No presentation

Testing
Nokia asked Experientia to conduct usability studies on a new mobile phone for watching television. The goals of the research were:

• To assess how people moved through the interface and made sense of it
• To understand people’s expectations regarding the scenarios and see if they were satisfied
• To assess how the global experience of watching TV on mobile was experienced

The tests involved 24 participants in Italy and Ireland, who each took part in a sixty minute individual session. All participants were people who watched over 15 hours of television per week, who had a lot of down time, due to travelling, commuting or their kind of job, and who used this down time for media consumption.

Through a handheld hardware and software (Flash) prototype, usability tests of the mobile TV interface were conducted, involving use cases and scenarios. People’s interactions were recorded and a qualitative analysis of the results was carried out.

The findings were also discussed and negotiated with the Nokia design team, to discuss possible implications of the recommendations for the final product release in the European market.

Final deliverables
Experientia’s executive report detailed the findings, including overall reaction to the platform, descriptions of the task performance by participants, usability observations, expert opinions, and recommendations for specific improvements. The recommendations were prioritised into High (recommendations should be implemented), Medium (recommendations could be implemented) and Low (recommendations might be implemented).

Most of Experientia’s recommendations were accepted and included in the first release of the product in the European market.

Understanding
The idea of presence is based on the Internet Messaging Services technology platform, which enables a person to be more aware of on which devices and at which times another person is available, and their level of availability to engage across different mediums, such as voice, SMS, email and so on. The aim of the project was to inform Swisscom’s innovation strategy and product development of multiple device (terminal) IMS solutions from a user-centric point of view, consistent with Swisscom’s managerial vision.

Experientia’s role was to develop interaction design concepts on how to present presence information on different devices and different channels from a people-focused point of view, addressing the problem of display and control of information and ideating appropriate interface concepts.

Working with Swisscom’s own ethnographic research data, Experientia explored concepts around vital presence issues, seeking to address needs such as:

• Be reassured your beloved ones are OK — How can you find out if your kids have arrived home safely, without always having to call them?
• Communicate feelings in a subtle, non-intrusive way — How can you tell your partner more often that you think of him, without disturbing him?
• Maintaining weak ties in a very efficient way — How can you easily maintain contact with friends who have moved away?

Experientia first focused on defining and illustrating what presence is, what needs it covers, what the potential usages of presence are, how it can be managed (interface) and what its potential impact might be. We considered presence in its different manifestations from non-intrusive communications to very intrusive, from not engaging for the recipient to highly engaging, from very efficient to less efficient means.

We also explored how people think and feel about different media, based on a map of communication needs. What constitutes an intimate channel of communication for most people? What channel do they use to feel closer to someone? To coordinate something? To extend their social network? To exchange information? Based on the results of this exploration, we identified areas of growth and opportunity that Swisscom should focus their efforts on.

Design and prototyping
Based on these insights, we then developed a series of scenarios and design ideas to enable people to choose the right communication channel for different situations. Using Flash, we prototyped interfaces for the presence paradigm and for different communication channels.

The prototype demonstrated the overall behaviour and look and feel of three selected design opportunities. The prototypes were used to convey the usefulness and ease of use of possible realistic applications and to show the importance and potential of user interfaces.

Final deliverables
The end-user focused usage scenarios and application prototypes designed for Swisscom were used to inform the development of Swisscom services. These high-level behavioural concept visualisations vividly illustrated the research done and visualised the near future (two to three years out) for top Swisscom managers and marketing product managers, to inspire them in their strategic choices with the opportunities provided by a user-centric vision.

Experientia carried out a comparative benchmark, as well as participatory design sessions in which users contributed to the definition of user requirements for the site, and the design of the information architecture and navigation flow.

Experientia then designed and prototyped the site, providing a full set of templates for implementation, which were validated through further user testing.

The site is now online at www.jobville.it

Understanding
Experientia began the project by benchmarking both national and international employment search sites, with the aim of identifying best practice in the sector, the use requirements for a new portal and critical factors of success, helping to define an ideal model for the Italian market.

Following this, a formative evaluation testing session was carried out with 15 users, to analyse the usability and experience of various sites. This also helped to identify which user needs the new site would have to satisfy. Card sorting exercises were conducted with a large sample of users, to define the information architecture, and the navigation experience of the future website from a participatory viewpoint.

Design and prototyping
Two alternative prototypes of the concept layout for the new portal were developed, with wireframes of the interaction, and a design of the look and feel of the interface. Both information architecture and graphic interface were then evaluated through usability tests which compared the new site concepts with the three most popular sites in Italy. From these test results, the final design was created, and an advanced prototype of the principle areas and pages of the site developed.

Testing
In addition to the user testing carried out in the understanding phase, Experientia carried out additional testing on the final design of the portal, to verify the design and make any necessary alterations.

Final deliverables
The client received the analysis of the understanding phases, together with the concepts and prototypes of the design phase. To carry out the implementation, they were provided with a functioning prototype, with complete wireframes for the specifics agreed upon in the final design. The website is now online at www.jobville.it.

The study, which compared Wind Infostrada TV (which uses the Microsoft Platform) with Fastweb TV, involved 90-minute sessions with thirty participants and focused on task performance in eight common tasks, overall user preferences and key usability issues.

Testing
Microsoft hired Experientia, in partnership with Amberlight, to assess the qualitative user experience of its Digital TV Mediaroom (MR) software (also known as MSTV) and to compare it with the leading pay TV competitor in Italy, identifying potential improvements to the overall user experience.

Microsoft wanted to utilise the research data to help articulate the Mediaroom value proposition, position Mediaroom publicly, and to gain directional guidance for internal product planning, identifying consumer desires relative to competitor experiences.

Experientia identified four main objectives to be achieved through the research. To:
-Compare task performance on MR and key competitor on 8 common tasks
-Compare user preferences for MR vs. key competitor
-Capture key usability issues with on-screen display and remote control
-Provide local usability expert view of end-to-end user experience

The participant sample involved 30 users, each of whom was a satellite TV customer and contributed to household decisions about TV consumption. In 90 minute one-on-one sessions, participants were asked to complete 8 tasks, with both Mediaroom and a key local competitor. Experientia observed and measured the task performance, and carried out pre- and post-test surveys.

Final deliverables
Microsoft received a report in which Experientia detailed the reasons participants preferred a given IPTV platform, overall preferences, including ranking and performance against competitors, outline of the task performance by participants, usability observations, expert opinions on the platform, possible areas of intervention/improvement and recommendations for specific improvements.

Experientia analysed the results, and provided Red Hat with opportunity areas for further research and improvement, with the aim of fully leveraging the potential of the Partner Center. The research and analysis also considered the different cultural backgrounds and different organisational cultures that impacted upon the way in which companies made use of the Partner Center.

Understanding
Experientia conducted a series of field interviews and observational studies with three Red Hat partners in two regions (Asia-Pacific, North America) in an effort to better understand current Red Hat Partner Center (RHPC) experiences.

Experientia employed typical ethnographic methodologies, aiming at exploring people’s real behaviour by means of observation and inquiries in their own work environment.

Contextual interviews: involved people answering questions while sitting at their own desk or in front of their own computer. This inquiry session aimed at exploring not only individual roles and motivations in using the RHPC, but also the specific tasks performed on it, and the resulting experience.

Card sorting exercises: participants in each contextual interview were asked to discuss the content of the RHPC that was relevant to them. Subsequently, content organisation and labels were discussed.

Group sessions: a group discussion around specific topics contributed to understanding more general dynamics that could be leveraged to improve Red Hat’s relationship with their partners.

Based on the data gathered in these exercises, Experientia analysed and described each partner’s current RHPC experience from the point of view of one or more employees currently using the RHPC. For each company, Experientia considered factors such as company size, location, and age of the company.

Final deliverables
Experientia provided specific comments and suggestions for improving the RHPC from the point of view of each profile described in the research. In addition, Experientia provided more detailed user requirements, considering factors such as the typical jargon and language of the users, the training they had received, their media literacy, and finally, organisational and country cultural differences.

Experientia also devised a “Road Map”, outlining directions for future research, by describing the critical areas of the RHPC experience that need review in order to lead to further and more advanced implementation.