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Design Strategy, Trends

At the intersection of technology and design lies a huge potential to create meaningful solutions. In last week’s article, we briefly explored some of the new technology that will soon find its way into our everyday lives. Today we examine a few industries where tech and design are already beginning to sit comfortably together and we explore what the future could bring.


SPACE DESIGN

For disciplines like architecture, interior design, process and factory layouts, and other space design fields, new technologies are opening up possibilities like never imagined before. mixed reality tools like Microsoft HoloLens allow all parties involved in decision making to view, edit and participate in the development of designs before execution, resulting in huge cost and time saving thanks to real time interaction, as well as improved customer and end user satisfaction!





With a VR headset, potential users of a space can take a virtual walkthrough in an unfinished project to see what the end result will look like.

Realtor apps like Street Peek already use augmented reality to have information like listing price and number of bedrooms pop up when potential home buyers/renters point their phone at a house.





PRODUCT DESIGN

Virtual and augmented reality improves the efficiency of collaborative efforts – a key element in developing sound and purposeful products.
According the the Microsoft website, “Microsoft HoloLens and Autodesk Fusion 360 are helping improve collaboration across the entire product development process, enabling engineers and designers to iterate together in real-time. Faster prototyping, more confident decisions, and more efficient cooperation are the future of product design.”






MANUFACTURING

Google Glass, which didn’t do as well as its creators imagined it would in the mass consumer market, would appear to be finding a new lease of life in its new avatar – Google Glass Enterprise Edition, or Glass EE as it’s referred to by those in the know.

This version, which was adopted as pilot projects for testing in companies like GE, Boeing, DHL and Volkswagen, is beginning to garner large scale adoption, thanks to the improved quality and productivity observed by these early adopters, where Glass has helped workers improve their efficiency. For example, when workers at GE use Glass EE with a wi-fi enabled torque wrench, the device tells them if they are using the right amount of torque.






Further, research from Forrester indicates that by 2025, over 14 million US workers will be wearing smart glasses at their workplace.

Glass is a good example of innovative technology missing the mark, when its market potential is not properly explored and the product isn’t accordingly modified to suit a latent need. While Glass failed to garner mass B2C adoption, it appears to be redeeming itself in its 2.0 version in the B2B market.


RETAIL

Augmented and virtual reality have the ability to add tremendous value to the world of retail, and are poised to be used more frequently in the future.

We’ve already seen some examples of how virtual reality can offer a more immersive experience when it comes to advertising. For example, Lipton’s 360 VR ad campaign of 2016 allowed viewers to “go on a journey” inside a relaxing cup of tea. Similarly, Oreo’s campaign took their audience through a sweet-filled, tempting journey to promote their new cupcake filled cookie, while Johnnie Walker used VR to create a more realistic viewing experience while promoting awareness around the consequences of drinking and driving.

With augmented reality, retailers have the opportunity to put more information in the hands of their consumers, in a more fun and interactive way, simply by pointing their phone at an object. Imagine a future where you could walk through your supermarket and point your phone at a loaf of bread to have its ingredients, expiry date and such information pop up on your screen – the day when this will be commonplace is not that far away.





Besides educating or imparting information to potential consumers, AR could also offer them a more convenient, pleasurable and time saving shopping experience. Companies like Home Depot, Ikea, Lacoste and Sephora already have apps that do just this.

With Ikea Place for example, you can point your phone at any space and see what an Ikea product would look like in it. With the Lacoste LCST app, users just need to scan trigger images in a Lacoste store and can “try on” an entire product range, as well as interact with additional information. Timberland has even experimented with using AR technology for users to try on clothes, without physically trying them on.


TRAVEL & TOURISM

Augmented reality puts information at the tips of travellers’ fingers, as they explore a new place. From historical information on monuments to nearby restaurants, lodging and other facilities, the improved experience for travellers results in more accurate information dissemination, time saving, better informed decision making and ultimately, happier holidays!





eTips is one company already offering AR enabled apps that turn your phone into you own personal your guide. Their apps are categorised into Landmarks, National Parks, Cities and Museums. So for example, if you were visiting the Louvre in Paris and wanted to know more about a particular painting, all you would have to do is point your phone at the painting and have the information pop up on your screen!
This article from CNN explores ten popular AR travel apps.


HEALTHCARE

According to HackerNoon, by 2025 the healthcare revenue from augmented and virtual reality will be around $5 billion. Here are a few ways the medical world has already adopted the technology:

Using the Augmedix platform with Glass, a ‘scribe’ or real time assistant is able to remotely experience what a doctor sees and hears, thus freeing him up from the task of having to fill in information and leaving him more time to focus on his patient.
In one study, the total time spent on data entry went down from 33% of the day to just 10%, while patient interaction rose from 35% to 70%.




Another example is AccuVein. According to the company, 40% of IV injections miss locating the vein on the first attempt. Accuvein uses projection based augmented reality to make vein location in patients far more accurate it and has been found to improve the likelihood of first stick success by 3.5 times.

The AED4EU app used in conjunction with the Layar reality browser could potentially save people’s lives by helping them locate the nearest defibrillator.


EDUCATION

Virtual and augmented reality in education allow one to experience something without actually having to be present at the place. For example, with Google Expeditions students can explore places from the Great Barrier Reef to Mount Everest, without having to ever leave the classroom!





AN EXCITING FUTURE FOR DESIGNERS

We’ve only really covered just the tip of the iceberg in this article. While we’ve highlighted the major tech trends that are going to impact us, we’ve examined just some of the possibilities in just a few industries. That’s because the potential is enormous. We would have to write book-sized article to explore it all completely in depth.

The idea is to get us all, as designers, thinking about where we could find a place in this landscape that will soon be upon us.

As a designer where do you think you will fit in in the future?

Do share your thoughts in the comments below and don’t forget to check out Part 1 of this article.




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Design Strategy, Trends

Twenty years ago we sat on the cusp of the mobile phone revolution. The advancement in technology at the time opened up endless possibilities for designers from various fields. From new possibilities for existing design disciplines – product designers for example – to entirely new design job profiles, like application designers, the design world was headed towards a new era.

Today we sit on the cusp of another revolution. Advancements in technology today are paving the way for virtual, augmented and mixed reality to become a part of everyday life. Where does this leave designers? What is the current scenario and going forward, what are the new roles where designers will be able to add tremendous value? What are the skills that designers should begin to hone?

In this article, we take a look at the overall scenario, and in the following week, we will take a specific look at certain industries, to see what the future could hold. If you are a designer, perhaps the time is ripe to ask yourself – Am I ready?


WHAT’S WHAT

In case you’re not absolutely familiar with the terminology, here’s a succinct explanation from Wikipedia that sums it up nicely:

Virtual Reality (VR) immerses users in a fully artificial digital environment.
Augmented Reality (AR) overlays virtual objects on the real-world environment.
Mixed Reality (MR) doesn’t just overlay, but anchors virtual objects to the real world and allows the user to interact with the virtual objects.





Besides our smartphones and tablets, hardware such as Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens present us with a whole new range of possibilities. Coupled with this, is the soon-to-be-ubiquitous 5G and the yet-to-be-realised potential of IoT, which push the boundaries even further.


WHERE DO DESIGNERS FIT IN?

The obvious roles for designers are in the more areas of traditional design, like graphic design, user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design.
But beyond this, more and more designers are finding a spot at the biggest decision making tables across organisations, and not just at those within the design sector. With design thinking as a process gaining more popularity, the huge value a designer can add in helping to arrive at truly impactful and viable solutions is being recognised.


Companies are putting designers at the head of the table…The user’s experience of technology these days is even more important than the tech itself. The UI is what distinguishes a product; a company. That’s one reason why designers are being employed across industries.

– Scott Belsky,
Chief Product Officer, Adobe
Co-founder, Behance


Venture design services that incorporate the design thinking framework, where problems are looked at from a macro level, and proposed design solutions are crafted from end user insights along with other factors in their environment, will come to play an important role.




An interdisciplinary approach that views the problem from various angles and seeks the inputs of experts from different disciplines will lead to the most comprehensively designed solutions. For example, when planning a commercial building, an architect would create a more effective design if he clearly understood the market segment he was designing for, the demographics of the area and the needs of each specific age group of the end users.

This would require intensive research and an in depth analysis by the architect, requiring him to go beyond his domain and should ideally be a collaborative effort with other experts, such as a social anthropologist or social psychologist.

Furthermore, venture design enabled through design thinking, allows the business to discover and tap into latent needs that the end user might not even realise he has, leading to a more comprehensive solution. With technology evolving at a speed that’s hard to keep up with, organisations will have to integrate new solutions rapidly. Venture design helps firms focus on the right thing at the right time, to take advantage of opportunities when they arise and to constantly deliver meaningful solutions. It also addresses the need for adaptability and answering the “what ifs”, by providing pivot strategies that enable the business to move or change the direction of their solutions to better fit the end user’s requirements, as they evolve.

Designers who wish to be at the forefront of pathbreaking designs, will have to engage in continuous learning and experimentation, to be able to understand, manipulate and employ new technology optimally.

The designers of the future need to look beyond just their field of speciality and also remind themselves to understand things from the point of view of a layman using that product or service. Design, be it of a product, space, user experience or of an organisation can no longer be looked at in isolation, if it is to be truly impactful.

As a designer, are you ready for the impending revolution that is upon us?

What are your thoughts – we’d love to know in the comments below.


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Design Strategy, Space Design

“As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable.
In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you and climate change is one of those exceptions”

– Al Gore


Our landscapes are changing rapidly, and it is imperative, now more than ever, to inculcate a strong set of principles that define impactful and positive output.


COLLABORATION




Without collaboration, there is no progress. We can no longer rely on the conventional team structure (Client, Architect, Interior Designer, Structure, MEP, and Landscape Designer) when providing inputs towards holistic space design solutions to develop a thriving community.


Progressive teams today include professionals from a multitude of disciplines, from psychologists, social anthropologists and eco consultants to traffic consultants, geologists and disaster management consultants – a group of professionals you would have never imagined on a round table discussing space design. Breaking away from conventional ways of working, and inviting collaboration and encouraging participation from such diverse disciplines assures a more robust solution, one that is more structured, adaptive and more importantly, responsive to our current plight.


SUSTAINABILITY




This sits at the forefront, for we as humans have the sole responsibility (and rightfully so!) of reversing our own doing. We are solely responsible for the depletion of our natural resources and our environment, and apart from us damaging our own future, we are responsible for affecting the survival of other species as well.

The key here is that we address this not to survive but to thrive, and our approach needs to go beyond “patch-fix” solutions to such problems, only to add a few more years to the inevitable; but instead must provide a holistic solution that actually stops if not reverses the damage. The fact is that in order for species to thrive (not survive) there is an interdependency between all living things and whether we are willing to accept it or not, that time has come! So how does this apply to design, specifically, within the realms of space?

The key areas that need addressing are urbanisation, waste generation – solid and water waste, and energy (generation, consumption and wastage). We also need to work with government authorities to redefine building bye-laws and urban development policies to at least protect the environment from any further negative impact.

Firstly, we need to move away from centralised civic support systems and treatment solutions to localised systems and solutions, thereby developing the motto, “at source”. Our communities, homes and buildings must be designed such that we produce what we consume. Those that practice this are referred to as prosumers, and this in itself will tremendously change our relationship with our environment. This further applies to construction material, i.e. sourcing localised materials and using local labour. In addition, looking at recyclable building materials and using fast growing trees for furniture such as acacia and bamboo, which are excellent substitutes to teak and rosewood.


AFFORDABILITY




Land is no longer an affordable commodity for the masses. Addressing the needs of the masses is key to the successful development of our ecosystem. And it’s not just servicing the need for shelter, but to providing solutions to uplift their lifestyle at an affordable cost.


COMMUNITY




Remember you’re as strong as your weakest link. Designing for the community is crucial to ensuring holistic development. This also helps bring affordability onto the table. Designs today need to incorporate a multitude of facets into the living ecosystem developing it laterally. A lot of futuristic designs incorporate co living, co working, parks, open spaces, sports centres, malls, libraries and any such activities that foster community development and engagement.


TECHNOLOGY




Today technology sits at the forefront of progressive design. Deep learning, IOT and systems design are driving companies into the future, creating efficacy and improvement to already existing business models. Newer business models are emerging with embedded technologies for a competitive advantage in global markets.


IN CONCLUSION



The final piece to the puzzle is government support, to allow design thought initiatives the liberty to execute and flourish, keeping in mind the predicament we have put ourselves in.

Furthermore, it requires you to go beyond your conventionally defined scope and not just think about the project at hand, but more importantly, the relationship and responsibility it shares in context to its immediate surroundings, community, city, and the world at large.

In essence, designing for the future means taking an inclusive approach, using a multitude of perspectives from various disciplines to achieve a holistic solution that keeps the user at the center – what we call the design thinking framework.




Raoul Parekh
Founder & Chief – Design Management


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