Tag Archives: Surface

Razorfone takes retail from ho-hum to fun

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Recently I discussed how technology helps marketers create experiences that build businesses.  As if on cue, the Razorfish Emerging Experiences team just released Razorfone — an application that shows how multitouch technology can turn the boring process of buying a mobile phone into an immersive experience.

Razorfone uses the Razorfish Touch Framework and interactive 3D technology to make it possible for customers to view mobile phone devices from any color and angle, explore crucial details like carrier service (via an interactive map), and personalize their devices with applications and features — all before leaving the store.

Luke Hamilton, creative/experience lead on the Emerging Experiences team, told me in a phone interview, “Consumers are faced with complex buying decisions in retail, especially considering the wide assortment of products and technologies available.  Razorfone is all about simplifying the purchase decision in the store.”

Hamilton, chatting on the eve of the holiday shopping season, added, “Razorfone gives consumers and store associates an interactive experience to simplify the process of buying a wireless device and plan, but Razorfone can apply to other products.  With Razorfone, customers can easily compare devices and have fun doing so.  One of the major advantages of a solution like Razorfone is that customers can personalize the product with designs and content before they walk out of the store.”

And why is it so important to personalize a device with designs and content in the store itself?  Luke explained: “It all comes down to lowering return rates.  Not only are we giving customers the tools necessary to make an informed buying decision, we are also empowering customers to personalize their devices before they walk out of the store — thus making buyer’s remorse less likely.”

But it’s also crucial that the technology support a transaction.  Luke stressed the importance of the shopping cart feature that employs RFID to enable the purchase of the device while the customer is in the store.

“It’s essential that Razorfone employ complete point-of-sale integration,” he added.  “Marketers in the retail industry are adding digital to the sales experience, but they don’t necessarily know how to make the experience succeed commercially.  Razorfone shows the marketer how to convert a sale through the digital experience.”

So what does an agency like Razorfish need to deliver a Razorfone experience?  According to Luke:

  • Consumer insight — an understanding of the consumer behaviors that inspire the solution
  • Strategy capability to ensure that the experience solves a specific business problem (for instance, simplifying complex buying decisions in a retail environment)
  • Designers to create an elegant experience
  • Technologists to implement not only the front-end technologies but the behind-the-scenes integration (including content management and RFID) to make sure the customer experience works well

The next step for Razorfone?  Implementation for clients.  Luke indicated that Razorfone, based on Razorfish client work, is opening doors already with companies that want to create the right digital experience for their customers.  According to Luke, although Razorfone focuses on the purchase of a mobile device, as a proof of concept it can work in any retail setting where complex products need to be explained — a significant consideration especially among big retailers where staff turnover and constantly changing product features are the norm.

Maybe we can even hope for happier holiday shopping this time next year.

Technology = customer experience in 2010

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AT&T Retail Surface Experience from Razorfish – Emerging Experiences on Vimeo.

Recently my employer Razorfish appointed Ray Velez to the newly created position of chief technology officer — a move that underscores the importance of information technology to the agency business.  As my Razorfish colleague Joe Mele wrote, “You better have devs in your creative department.”  In 2010 you can expect more talk about technology coming from agencies and marketers — but what we’re really talking about creating great experiences that build businesses.

Much has been said already about how agencies need to possess strong “back-end technology skills” in order to compete effectively — as if technology is supposed to be an invisible support tool.  It’s certainly true that the ability to link a web store front to an ecommerce booking engine requires gritty technology lifting skills beneath the surface.  But in addition, technology helps clients create memorable customer experiences in highly visible and innovative ways.

Clients and agencies are at a crossroads.  Customarily agencies have helped clients say things more effectively.  But clients need agencies to help them do things more effectively, like launch new products and services, create great consumer experiences, and participate in the social world.  As Jeff Bezos said, “Your brand is formed, primarily, not by what your company says about itself, but what the company does.”

Technology is essential to empowering brands to do things, especially in the creation of great experiences in the digital world.  For instance, Mercedes-Benz USA and Razorfish applied CGI to bring to life the luxurious nature of the new E-class sedan via a digital campaign and immersive microsite.  Three-D technology was essential to a recent effort to demonstrate the features of the new Coors Light cold activated can on the Project:Cold microsite.  And AT&T has turned mobile phone shopping into a playful experience by applying Microsoft Surface in-store.

To be sure, the real innovation occurs when technology is coupled with customer insight, creativity, and strong user experience skills.  But technology is the catalyst, front and center.

When he was announced as CTO, Ray Velez discussed the importance of cloud computing at Razorfish.  He was thinking of companies like H&R Block, where Razorfish used an existing cloud infrastructure to create the Don’t Miss It Game (instead of building a video hosting infrastructure).  In February 2010 Razorfish will give a more complete insight into the importance of cloud computing to the marketer at our third Technology Summit in San Francisco.  Throughout 2010, multitouch will continue to play an important role in the work we do, too, shown to great advantage on the Razorfish Emerging Experiences blog.

You can get a better sense of the Razorfish technology vision on the Razorfish Technology blog, hosted by Ray Velez.  And of course through our work throughout the year.

Auto shopping in 3-D

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Razorfish operations in Germany, known as Neue Digitale/Razorfish, have launched the first real-time 3-D configurator for Microsoft Surface — which makes it possible for multiple customers to design their own Audi A4 automobile together.  Consumers can collaborate to design their own car, including adjusting the paint finish and selecting packaging components.  The final configuration is projected on to a high-definition display.

This an experience best seen, not explained — so have fun with the video above.

Razorfish (my employer) and our global network have been employing touch-based environments in industries such as retail and automotive for quite some time.  We strive to show how the art of branding is about building great consumer experiences, not plastering one-way messages.  Check out the Razorfish Emerging Experiences blog for more examples including the Razorfashion application.

Multitouch technologies taking Razorfish by storm

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Multitouch technologies like Microsoft Surface are taking Razorfish by storm.  Encouraged by the popularity of Wii and the iPhone, Razorfish user experience designers are creating new ways for people to communicate with applications on devices through body gestures like a simple tap of a screen.  As my colleague Garrick Schmitt has cited in many blog posts, the esoteric sounding term “user gestural interface” has become part of our vocabulary.  The new Razorfish Emerging Experiences blog shows why.

The blog is the brainchild of the Razorfish Emerging Experiences team, which explores newer user experience metaphors, with a focus on multitouch.  The Emerging Experience blog gives you a glimpse at some of the ideas the team develops for commercial use.  For example, the blog showcases the Razorfashion retail application, which demonstrates how multitouch can enrich retail shopping.

Incidentally, Razorfashion was developed using the Razorfish Touch Framework.  Introduced at the 2009 Razorfish Client Summit, the Touch Framework enables the rapid development of multitouch technologies.

At Razorfish, multitouch is more than a blog.  Amnesia Razorfish just worked with Microsoft and Lonely Planet to introduce Surface commercially in Australia.  Earlier this year, Razorfish and OMD launched for Dockers the first known interactive “shakeable” ad for the iPhone.  The advertisement, which ran for about one month, featured a dancer wearing a pair of Docker khakis.  People who saw the ad between levels of game play on their iPhones were prompted to shake their devices and make the dancer perform various moves.

And as announced in 2008, Razorfish built the first known retail application of Surface for AT&T wireless stores.  Inside select stores, consumers sit down at Surface tables and play with the touch-and-recognition technology to learn about mobile devices. For instance, consumers can review features of a device by placing it on a table.  Surface recognizes the device and displays a graphics-rich overview of features.  Consumers may also use touch-and-hand movements to explore a map that reveals how much coverage AT&T provides in different areas of the United States.  (More about the design of the application here.)

We are grateful that we have clients who want to explore the commercial application of multitouch especially during recessionary times.  Meantime check out the Emerging Experiences blog for a glimpse at the future of user experience.

Art of the idea

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In a recent blog post I mentioned that a recession is the right time to innovate.  Looks like BusinessWeek agrees.  The March 23-30 issue, “Game-Changing Ideas for Business,” highlights breakthrough business ideas that have emerged during tough times when companies need new ways to manage and grow.  In the article “There Is No More Normal,” BusinessWeek discusses how Cisco innovated during the dot-com crash and emerged from the recession “more profitable than ever and went on to outperform many tech rivals.”

You can innovate and deliver results now.  For instance, the Emerging Experiences team from my employer Razorfish is researching ways that computer screens can interpret human gestures like the wave of a hand or touch of a finger (commonly known as gestural interface design).  The latest Emerging Experiences research, DaVinci, explores the application of Surface in commercial environments.  But these are not pie-in-the-sky ideas.  In 2008, Razorfish helped AT&T create the world’s first retail application of Surface at AT&T wireless stores, where Surface helps AT&T sales people demonstrate wireless phone capabilities in a more fun, interactive way.  Following the pilot launch in New York, AT&T now has 50 Surface tables operating in 12 stores.


DaVinci (Microsoft Surface Physics Illustrator) from Razorfish – Emerging Experiences on Vimeo.

Similarly, at the Razorfish Living Lab in New York, Razorfish employees have created Carville, which uses Surface tables to show you how learning about automobiles at a car dealer can be fun and educational.  Inside the Living Lab, Razorfish designers experiment with ways in which people and technology interact. Past Living Lab projects have focused on the connected living room and digital youth.  It’s a place where clients can envision how technologies can help them succeed — not tomorrow, but today.


Carville – A Razorfish Surface Application from Bryan Hamilton on Vimeo.

AT&T isn’t the only Razorfish client that’s using gestural interface design to innovate during a recession.  Recently Dockers worked with Razorfish and OMD to design the world’s first “shakeable” ad designed for an iPhone.  On your iPhone, a model appears wearing Dockers khakis, and you can make him dance by shaking your phone.  It’s a good example of where advertising is headed — physically involving the consumer through a playful experience.  Dockers can also track consumer engagement by seeing how long people shake the ad (and then follow up with more content).

At the 9th annual Razorfish Client Summit April 21-23, Razorfish will showcase its Marketing Lab as we do at each Client Summit.  The theme of the 2009 Client Summit is “Art of the Idea,” and the Marketing Lab is one of the ways Razorfish will show our clients what we mean by that.  At the lab, Razorfish will feature three “slice of life” vignettes to demonstrate the impact of digital on everyday life.  For instance, the Home Entertainment vignette will show you consumers can interact with a 30-second ad on TV.  And in the Retail vignette, we’ll demonstrate how consuemrse can use digital to locate goods and services more effectively in a store.

Razorfish clients like AT&T and Dockers aren’t waiting for the recession to end in order to innovate.  Many of them will appear at the Client Summit, and some of them — like Ford, Intel, Levi Strauss & Co., Mattel, McDonalds, Nike, and Terra — will share their experiences on the agenda.

What’s the best example you’ve seen of a company using an economic downturn to innovate?

Amnesia Razorfish: sexy, social and successful

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Recently Australia-based Amnesia Razorfish (part of the Razorfish global network) won the Adnews interactive agency of the year for the third consecutive year. As a Razorfish employee, I’m happy for my colleagues at Amnesia Razorfish (and of course for our clients, as the award is a reflection on them, too).  But I’m equally interested in knowing what the award says about successful marketing in the digital age.  What does it take for marketers and agencies working together to succeed year after year?  After getting some input from Michael Buckley, Terry Carney, and Iain McDonald of Amnesia Razorfish, I see these ingredients for success emerging:

  • Make Social Influence Marketing part of your marketing game plan.  Social Influence Marketing is a third dimension of marketing alongside direct response and branding.  It is here to stay.  You don’t need to make an about-face to succeed through social — but you do need employ it intelligently.  Example: the Cancer Council Australia is working with Amnesia Razorfish to raise money for the treatment of male cancer.  Amnesia Razorfish conceived of Daredallion, a week where people perform dares to raise donations.  The effort includes various forms of Social Influence Marketing, including Twitter and a site where you can dare your friends to to perform stunts.  Another example: Amnesia Razorfish helped Smirnoff employ Social Influence Marketing to build buzz for the Smirnoff Experience Party. The only way to get tickets to Australia’s biggest free party of 2008 was to go digital.  Smirnoff conducted a treasure hunt to give away tickets.  To find free tickets distributed across Australia, you had to find clues released through a blog and a Facebook group.  The campaign attracted global attention and helped Smirnoff pull off a huge promotional coup.  Amnesia Razorfish now employs a full-time Social Influence Marketing staff to help its clients figure out how to embed social into their digital experiences.

Daredallion

  • Get your hands dirty.  An agency must be an active participant in the social world in order to help its clients succeed with Social Influence Marketing.  Amnesia Razorfish certainly lives the social values.  Its blog is a top-ranked agency blog in Australia, attracting hundreds of thousands of unique views in 2008.  Amnesia staff have participated in the Daredallion project cited here and created experimental Twitter applications.  Everyone on the senior staff can be found on Twitter.  But Amnesia Razorfish is getting its hands dirty in other ways.  Amnesia Razorfish wrote Australia’s first Surface application, which recognizes individual business cards when placed on a table and then streams personal social media information from Twitter, Flickr, and other digital properties directly on to the table to be exchanged with someone else (sounds like a new way to exchange phone numbers in a bar).  Amnesia Razorfish also built its own in-house video wall purely for the fun of experimentation.  Dual projectors stream social content on to the wall, which tracks one’s physical movements.

  • Be accountable.  Amnesia Razorfish measures every single click that end users make.  The company uses analytics to be fully accountable for every interaction a person has with a client online.  Sometimes improving the consumer experience means more effectively optimizing the performance of a website, not designing a new one.  Using optimization tools, Amnesia Razorfish has increased sales by as much as 300 percent for ecommerce clients and increased time spent on clients’ sites by as much as 450 percent.  Amnesia Razorfish is also playing with a new tool developed by Razorfish U.S., the Generational Tag, to measure social influence.

  • Design experiences, not advertisements.  What’s the difference?  Ads are one-way messages — often great for the analog world, but not sufficient for digital.  Experiences engage audiences through interaction. Example: Lynx, produced by Unilever, is a line of male personal care products such as body wash.  (In the United States, Lynx is known as Axe.)  Amnesia Razorfish won a Webby for helping Unilever build awareness for Lynx through The Lynx Effect.  The target audience consists of young men, and the Axe/Lynx brand employs an in-your-face risque approach to connect with them.  The Lynx Effect is no exception.  Basically the message is this: guys, Lynx will make you more attractive to women.  But in the digital world, we convey that message through the experience.  To even navigate the site to learn about Lynx products, you select from a choice of provocative looking women.  Once inside, you can play amusing games, participate in polls, and download content on to your desktop.  (Now we know what “engagement” means Down Under.)

The Lynx Effect

  • Challenge your clients with ideas that build their businesses.  Lipton wanted to build awareness for an amino acid ingredient in Lipton tea — theanine — that stimulates alpha brain waves.  The proposition sounded like an educational campaign.  But Amnesia Razorfish came up with the idea of imagining Lipton’s product and benefits as a game.  Hence, the launch of Brain Train, a series of online games that test one’s mental alertness with subtle brand messaging from Lipton about the power of theanine.  Amnesia Razorfish also conceived of an integrated roll-out with radio, print, and outdoor.

Innovation rooted in the big idea is what will spur an economic recovery from the global recession, not better analytics or user experiences (although those things are important, too).  In April, leaders of Amnesia Razorfish will join executives from the Razorfish global network to discuss how we can more effectively take big ideas to our clients.  We’ve been conducting these summits, which we dub “A Seat at the Table,” since 2007, and each meeting gets better as more participants from outside the United States attend.  I can’t wait to see what we’ll learn from each other — better yet, I cannot wait to learn how our clients are benefiting.

Congratulations to Amnesia Razorfish for setting the gold standard.

The Razorfish Doodle Wall

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Razorfish employs the kinds of people Forrester Research describes as “creators,” or individuals who actively contribute to social media communities through their own blogs or other uploaded content.  You can find many creators in the Razorfish Chicago office (where I work), home of the Doodle Wall.

The Doodle Wall, adjacent to the 4th Floor break room, is a community mural where employees can express themselves with free-form doodles.  Val Carlson, a Razorfish Creative executive based in Chicago, explains that the wall lets employees “express themselves, blow off steam, take a break to clear your mind, meet people, and get inspired.”

The wall has inspired some rather striking art (my favorite is the apocalyptic looking “choose or not” image that looks like something right out of the book of Revelation).

Val explains that the Doodle Wall has its origins among a Chicago-office client team with a “very 80’s style corporate looking table in their area that they started doodling on about six or eight months ago.  It evolved into a work of art.  They took a piece of heavy, stodgy, dated furniture and turned it into a reflection of their team and our culture.  They ran out of space, and we decided that it would be great to have a wall similar to the table so that everyone can participate.”

She tells me she is pleased with the results — and surprised at how many people outside the creative or design teams have contributed their doodles.

The artwork currently adorning the Doodle Wall is being painted over now.  The next version of the Doodle Wall will be dog-themed.  Razorfish recently won some work with a pet industry company that will soon come to the office for a collaborative session.  We can’t wait to show the client our dog-related doodles.

The Doodle Wall impresses me because of its usefulness as a collaborative tool among employees.  And although my Razorfish colleagues operate in a largely digital world, they’ve capitalized on a simple social format in an offline environment.

In 2009, I believe we’ll see more Doodle Walls take hold in the digital realm thanks to the uptake of multi-touch technologies and formats like Surface (developed, of course, by Razorfish owner Microsoft).  Digital spaces like Surface make it possible for people to create content together in offline environments like retail stores, bars, and museums.  (The 2008 Razorfish Client Summit featured a Surface application where event attendees could swap information and bid for a guitar signed by Sir George Martin.)  We’ve barely tapped into the potential social applications of multi-touch.

Will something like the Doodle Wall flourish in the digital world?  You can bank on it.  Razorfish is.

Thank you to Dan McBride for the lead image of the Doodle Wall pictured in this blog.

Two lessons from the Avenue A | Razorfish Client Summit

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On May 14-15, I helped my employer Avenue A | Razorfish organize its 8th annual Client Summit in New York. Each year at this event, company executives, guest speakers, and clients discuss the state of the art in digital marketing. The theme of the 2008 event was “Rock the Digital World” (an homage to guest keynote speaker Sir George Martin, the fifth Beatle, who gave the audience an inside glimpse at the making of the seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). At this year’s Client Summit, Avenue A | Razorfish wanted to challenge the audience of digital marketing executives to think of their roles differently — more as leaders, not just developers of successful digital marketing programs. Here are two take-aways for me now that I’ve had a moment to reflect on those hectic two days:

1. Social media hits the mainstream. More than once, our guests noticed the number of times our agenda speakers discussed social media. I was asked whether Avenue A | Razorfish was trying to make a statement about its importance. Well, yes and no. On the surface, there certainly was an impressive line-up from the social media realm: Charlene Li of Forrester Research drew upon her book The Groundswell to deliver an insightful keynote about the ways social media are changing the conversation between the consumer and marketer. My colleague Shiv Singh hosted a panel on applying social media as part of Social Influence Marketing. Megan O’Connor of Levi’s demonstrated how the Levi’s 501 Design Challenge used a social community to build brand with female consumers. Ted Cannis and Olivier Pierini of Ford Motor Company showed how Ford embraces social media inside and outside the company through efforts like the Ford blikinet and the Ford Global Auto Shows blog. And Andy England, CMO of Coors, touched upon social media several times (e.g., the Coors Light MySpace page) as he described the ways that Coors has embraced digital in its marketing. But here’s the thing: we did not deliberately set out to pack the agenda with social media. All we wanted to do was find some cutting-edge content to make marketers think of new ways of embracing the digital world, and the social media examples like Levi’s and Ford bubbled to the surface organically. This story just goes to show how social media is becoming a natural part of our lives, regardless of our intentions.

2. The importance of marketing as an experience. Avenue A | Razorfish CEO Clark Kokich discussed how the future of marketing is creating experiences that engage the consumer, not plastering marketing messages across the digital world. (Example: the Post Cereals Postopia website doesn’t push messages about Post Cereal; it’s an immersive world, hosted by Post Cereals, that families can enjoy.) Two Client Summit speakers showed what Clark meant. John McVay, the Avenue A | Razorfish client partner for AT&T, performed a live demonstration of how Microsoft Surface table technology can make the purchase of mobile devices fun through a touch-screen experience. (By the way, to pull off the demo, our production team needed to mount a camera in the ceiling of the ballroom of the Sheraton New York.) Then Terri Walter, Avenue A | Razorfish vice president of Emerging Media, and David Polinchock of the Brand Experience Lab performed an audience participation game that’s best described through this blog post by my colleague Iain McDonald of our Sydney office (which operates locally under the name Amnesia). Basically Terri and David made us think about how an an advertiser can create a branded game experience for any large gathering people — say a theater full movie goers waiting for a movie to start. Why sit around watching cheesy ads in a theater when we can interact with the movie screen and each other through a game that employs a webcam? I would happily do that if an advertiser will participate.

So, to summarize both ideas from the 2008 Client Summit in one sentence: the future of marketing is tapping into the social and immersive nature of the digital world to create engaging experiences, not to push messages.

By the way, many thanks to Deidre Everdij and the team at Highlight Event Design for producing our most demanding Client Summit ever. Deidre and her team saved our butts many times throughout the show. Talk about rocking the digital world! You can read more about the Client Summit here and here.

Two lessons from the Avenue A | Razorfish Client Summit

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On May 14-15, I helped my employer Avenue A | Razorfish organize its 8th annual Client Summit in New York. Each year at this event, company executives, guest speakers, and clients discuss the state of the art in digital marketing. The theme of the 2008 event was “Rock the Digital World” (an homage to guest keynote speaker Sir George Martin, the fifth Beatle, who gave the audience an inside glimpse at the making of the seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). At this year’s Client Summit, Avenue A | Razorfish wanted to challenge the audience of digital marketing executives to think of their roles differently — more as leaders, not just developers of successful digital marketing programs. Here are two take-aways for me now that I’ve had a moment to reflect on those hectic two days:

1. Social media hits the mainstream. More than once, our guests noticed the number of times our agenda speakers discussed social media. I was asked whether Avenue A | Razorfish was trying to make a statement about its importance. Well, yes and no. On the surface, there certainly was an impressive line-up from the social media realm: Charlene Li of Forrester Research drew upon her book The Groundswell to deliver an insightful keynote about the ways social media are changing the conversation between the consumer and marketer. My colleague Shiv Singh hosted a panel on applying social media as part of Social Influence Marketing. Megan O’Connor of Levi’s demonstrated how the Levi’s 501 Design Challenge used a social community to build brand with female consumers. Ted Cannis and Olivier Pierini of Ford Motor Company showed how Ford embraces social media inside and outside the company through efforts like the Ford blikinet and the Ford Global Auto Shows blog. And Andy England, CMO of Coors, touched upon social media several times (e.g., the Coors Light MySpace page) as he described the ways that Coors has embraced digital in its marketing. But here’s the thing: we did not deliberately set out to pack the agenda with social media. All we wanted to do was find some cutting-edge content to make marketers think of new ways of embracing the digital world, and the social media examples like Levi’s and Ford bubbled to the surface organically. This story just goes to show how social media is becoming a natural part of our lives, regardless of our intentions.

2. The importance of marketing as an experience. Avenue A | Razorfish CEO Clark Kokich discussed how the future of marketing is creating experiences that engage the consumer, not plastering marketing messages across the digital world. (Example: the Post Cereals Postopia website doesn’t push messages about Post Cereal; it’s an immersive world, hosted by Post Cereals, that families can enjoy.) Two Client Summit speakers showed what Clark meant. John McVay, the Avenue A | Razorfish client partner for AT&T, performed a live demonstration of how Microsoft Surface table technology can make the purchase of mobile devices fun through a touch-screen experience. (By the way, to pull off the demo, our production team needed to mount a camera in the ceiling of the ballroom of the Sheraton New York.) Then Terri Walter, Avenue A | Razorfish vice president of Emerging Media, and David Polinchock of the Brand Experience Lab performed an audience participation game that’s best described through this blog post by my colleague Iain McDonald of our Sydney office (which operates locally under the name Amnesia). Basically Terri and David made us think about how an an advertiser can create a branded game experience for any large gathering people — say a theater full movie goers waiting for a movie to start. Why sit around watching cheesy ads in a theater when we can interact with the movie screen and each other through a game that employs a webcam? I would happily do that if an advertiser will participate.

So, to summarize both ideas from the 2008 Client Summit in one sentence: the future of marketing is tapping into the social and immersive nature of the digital world to create engaging experiences, not to push messages.

By the way, many thanks to Deidre Everdij and the team at Highlight Event Design for producing our most demanding Client Summit ever. Deidre and her team saved our butts many times throughout the show. Talk about rocking the digital world! You can read more about the Client Summit here and here.

The inside scoop on Microsoft Surface

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On April 17, AT&T worked with Microsoft and my employer Avenue A | Razorfish to launch the first retail application of Microsoft Surface touch-and-recognition table technology at a limited number of AT&T wireless stores. Surface promises to improve upon the often-confusing process of buying a mobile phone in a retail store, and even make learning about mobile devices fun. Until its public launch, though, most consumers hadn’t even seen a Surface table. Few user experience designers had, either. So what was it like to create a user experience design for the launch? Superhype sat down with Rich Bowen of Avenue A | Razorfish to find out. Rich is a user experience lead dedicated to the AT&T account. He lives in Denver, and his work supports AT&T digital advertising and website design across the agency’s Atlanta, Austin, and Seattle offices. His job was to work with a team to design how consumers would interact with Surface tables in the stores. Here is his story.

Superhype: Rich, most consumers haven’t even seen a Surface table. Why are they important?

Rich Bowen: Surface can make the buying experience a lot more fun, especially for products that require high levels of consideration before purchase. With Surface, a salesperson does not need to explain how a mobile device works or whether AT&T can provide coverage to your area of the country. Instead, the consumer and salesperson can sit down at an interactive screen and see the information they need. For instance, using Surface, consumers can review features of a device by placing it on a table. Surface recognizes the device and displays a graphics-rich overview of features. Consumers can also use touch-and-hand movements to explore an interactive map that reveals how much coverage AT&T provides in different areas of the United States.

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