...then devise a plan to rectify it, propose a solution and implement it. Review whether it meets its users’ needs, simply and elegantly. This covers exactly what I do, in a nutshell, but every situation and solution requires a different toolset, so flexibility is the key.

Some projects require a data-driven approach, some are led by blue-sky design-thinking, some little issues can be sorted with a paper prototype and a group session, some must be extensively mapped as part of a much larger process.

Time and budget have a measurable impact, so some solutions must be swift, with short iterative cycles, and others (with the luxury of both) begin with deep research; then a prototype, plan, build, measure & learn flow can be utilised.

There are so many variables presented to the designer, from media channel, parent branding and campaign style, to fashion, colour choices and type styles - the list is endless. Making the product look lovely is extremely important but...

...the secret is in marrying usability with delight. User-love is earned by thoughtful use of pleasing micro-interactions married to an easy flow; fun and charming wherever possible, with gravitas when trust is important, but always satisfying and beautiful. Tone is everything.

Design fails when it becomes wooden and stiff. We have to design for users, humans who are warm and squidgy. Cold programmatic frameworks and robotic copy don’t give users the feel-good fuzzies. Navigating the way between client and user needs, or creative desire and commercial reality is a tricky path to tread. And I LOVE IT.

Your users do too. What’s worse than marketing or service comms being delivered at the wrong time, or in the wrong place? We’ve all experienced this, right?

Noisy middle-of-the-night alerts and emails, well-after-the-fact lame notifications, services which demand WiFi when all you’ve got is patchy cell-coverage, your networked baby-monitor jumping all over your roaming data to tell you it requires a firmware update, when you’re abroad on holiday. If content is king, context is emperor of the universe.

We want our stuff to ‘just work’. Knowing where your users are and how your service can help them right at that moment, when they need it, is half that battle won. Being invisibly amazing is the other.

( h/t @ TMA for the pitch work collabs )

Hearables, wearables, AR, AI user-agents, personalised chat bots, VR avatars, nano-computing, distributed micro-networks, robotics, implants, cybernetics? Probably all of it! The interesting thing is that none of these emergent technologies will require the user to be staring at a little screen to interface with them.

Computing will become invisible, as technologies become convergent. The Internet of Things will become the Internet of Everything, from your location sensitive ear-bud, to your always-on smart home, through to your context-aware car. Your experiences of and interactions with brands, their products and services – will change too.

The future of experience is here and now. Your clients need to be wherever it’s headed next. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s already happening.

Give me a shout.