Motion design is becoming an increasing part of our work at Automatic Studio. Once considered ‘evil’, animation and transitions are now ‘first class citizens’ in the interaction designer’s toolkit.

Since none of us has formal training in animation or motion design, we’ve had to learn a lot, often by trial and error, as we design and specify our most recent applications.

As such, I decided to pull together what we’re learning, and what we’ve learned from others, into a workshop - which I’m glad to announce has just been accepted for the UX Australia conference in Melbourne in August.

More details to follow, but if anyone has any suggestions or requests for what we should cover, let us know!

Shane

2012 has been a year of growth and recognition at Automatic Studio. It’s worth pausing to reflect on all that’s happened…

Microsoft

In 2012 we continued to work closely with Microsoft. Shane spoke at Microsoft events in Australia and Singapore, as well as speaking about the new “Windows Design Language” at WebDU, Mobile Monday, XDDN, Yow and UX Australia. We also completed a number of Windows Phone and Windows 8 projects for Australian and U.S. clients.

Windows Phone

Our Windows Phone highlight for the year was the release of the Qantas app. Building on our concept of a ‘smart boarding pass’, we worked with Nick Randolph at Built To Roam, Microsoft and Qantas’ design and development teams to produce an app which has gained admirers around the world and which was awarded two Australian Mobile Awards in 2012.

Also released this year were our Windows Phone designs for:

• NAB (with NAB, Built To Roam and Odecee),
• Pizza Hut Australia / New Zealand (with Pizza Hut and Altaine) and
• Dimmi (with Dimmi, Nokia and Built To Roam).
• Joy FM

We also have 3 Windows Phone applications for U.S. clients currently in production.

Windows 8

Of course, 2012 was the year of Windows 8. We were nominated by Microsoft Australia as an official Windows 8 UX Design partner, and we were pleased to have worked on a number of launch applications for Windows 8:

• Online Banking for Westpac (with Westpac, Microsoft Services and Readify)
• Travel booking for Webjet (with Webjet, Possible Worldwide and Readify)
• All the Deals’ deal finder
• SBS on Demand (with SBS and Xamling)
• Jump-In and TV Fix for 9MSN (with 9MSN and Built to Roam)

And we also have two more Windows 8 applications in the pipeline at the moment… Stay tuned!

Cochlear

Of course, not all our work is on the Microsoft platform, and we were delighted to continue providing user experience design services to Cochlear, our longest running client. In 2012 we branched out from on-screen and device design to also help Cochlear with analog experiences, including user support materials, packaging and educational posters.

Unfortunately we still aren’t able to share most of our work with Cochlear, but Matt and Shane were honoured to be selected to present on our design journey at Interaction 12 in Dublin early in the year.

Web

Of course, the Internet is an important part of our work.

2012 saw the launch of our interaction design for South East Water’s Water Quality Website (with South East Water, Soul Solutions and Xamling). We also worked on an upcoming mobile web application for a new Sydney-based client.

Training and Mentoring

Passing on our skills and experience in designing digital products is a key reason clients choose to work with Automatic Studio.

This year we developed two new training courses on user experience design for Windows Phone and Windows 8, which we delivered in Australia and Singapore.

Shane also spoke on the importance of prototyping at Oredev in Sweden in November, on agile UX at Agile Australia, and at the Travel Appy conference in Sydney.

Welcome, too, to our new UX mentoring client: Brisbane-based TSA Software Solutions.

Phew, how do we get all this done?

Despite all this great work. Automatic Studio remains a small team of User Experience designers and researchers. This year’s amazing work was contributed by:

• Shane Morris (Principal Consultant and ‘boss’)
• Matt Morphett (Principal Consultant)
• Jack Hsu (Graphic and UX design)
• Nhung Nguyen (UX research and design, as well as designer of our client Christmas present)
• Stephen Kotz (UX design)
• …with a brief cameo by Matt Magain (UX design)

Thanks!

Thanks to all our clients, colleagues, collaborators and competitors for keeping us at the top of our game in 2012. We look forward to more growth and more client successes in 2013!

I’ll be giving two talks at TechEd Australia this year, both on Microsoft’s Metro design language.

• How I became authentically digital – an introduction to the “Metro” design language

and

• Design and Layout for Metro style apps

I’m also mentoring at the AppFest, in return for which Lachlan Hardy has promised me a hat. Totally worth it.

In the ‘good old days’ (last year) apps were only open or closed. Yes, those were simpler times.

Nowadays apps can be open, closed, dormant and all sorts of states in between. When it comes to user experience it’s our job to understand how an app behaves in various states of open-ness, and how the user experience transfers between those states.

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I will be speaking at Microsoft’s “Campfire” event in Singapore on April 13. I will be talking about the role of prototyping throughout the project lifecycle, and also about working with the Metro design language on Windows Phone and Windows 8.

If you’re in Singapore come along and say “g’day”: Microsoft Campfire

Sometimes it’s hard to know how much up-front research to do when embarking on a User Experience Design project. User Research can sometimes feel “fluffy” and it’s not always easy to point out the links between design decisions made and specific findings from the research phase. Nevertheless, there is an argument for always doing some research – and that’s because every bit of user research makes you into a better designer overall, even if the immediate benefit to any one design project is less clear.

That’s the “UX Research Tax”.

Continue reading →

Mercedes Benz has shown a gesture based UI concept which highlights some important lessons about gestural interfaces. Continue reading →