Design Collective by Keiran Lovett

design collective

Issue 19 November 2015 $7.50

Inside Apple

Inside the Apple bubble, a giant campus with more than 10,000 employees, lose introspection.

Artist Highlight

Franco Giovanella. a 30 year-old graphic designer based in JaraguĂĄ do Sul, a small town in Brazil.

Bang For Buck

Redesigning the Norwegian banknote from scratch to reflect a diverse and cold cultre.

Designing the new NXOE

Inside Cupertinos Machine: An exclusive interview and essay on the Apple way of designing, conceiving and building its products with Apple Executive Phil Schiller.

Issue #19, nOVEMBER â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;15 1

2 DESIGN COLLECTIVE

Design Collective is an independent magazine about people who use the internet and technology to be creative, solve problems, and build successful businesses. Captured in enduring print, it documents stories of creativity and passion that shape the digital age. PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER Keiran Lovett

EDITOR Ingvild Kaarstad

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Keiran Lovett

MANAGING EDITOR Erick Witting

Hong Kong Publishing Limited. 16 South Horizons Drive, Ap Lei Chau, Hong Kong

SENIOR EDITORS

Sam Black, Marty O’Donnell

Published in association with Savannah College of Art and Design, United States

INTERVIEW EDITOR

SBN: 978-0-572-03222-7 This edition printed in 2015

Lu Wong

HONG KONG EDITOR

Andrew Garfield

The Copyright Act prohibits (subject to certain very limited exceptions) the making of copies of any copyright work or of a substantial part of such a work, including the making of copies by photocopying or similar process. Written permission to make a copy or copies must therefore normally be obtained from the publisher in advance. It is advisable also to consult the publisher if in any doubt as to the legality of any copying which is to be undertaken.

ART DIRECTOR

Hong Kong Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the Hong Kong Library

Keiran Lovett

Printed in Hong Kong

Issue #19, nOVEMBER ‘15 3

CONTENTS

this month

EXCLUSIVE

Inside the Apple bubble, a giant campus with more than 10,000 employees, it’s easy to lose introspection. Yet, when I ask Schiller if Apple does everything well, his answer surprises me. “No, of course not, of course not,” he said. “And we don’t want to sound like we’re perfect. We never are, we always have to get better and always have to listen to where we’re not doing well.” Apple, Schiller said, is also always up for re-examining preconceived notions, whether that...

4 DESIGN COLLECTIVE

ARTIST

My name is Franco Giovanella. I´m a 30 year-old graphic designer based in Jaraguá do Sul, a small town in southern Brazil. I had been working with graphic design for the last 10 years in advertising agencies and other studios, until one day I started to think that I could do it by myself. The idea started with a friend, and step by step it became more real. And that was the point of this transition: I was tired of working just for the final product. Almost always, the...

NEWS

There are few acts of graphic design more daunting than that of creating a new face for an entire country’s currency. Even in a world full of digital payment methods, cash still passes through the hands of essentially every citizen, as well as international travelers. Much like the national flag, it’s a visual representation of a country’s identity. And there are not only political factors to take into account when deciding what— or who—should be represented on bills, but security issues and anti-counterfeiting...

FEATURE How Microsoft Created A New Xbox Experience Click. Then another click. You swipe and button-press through menu after menu to get to your goal: creating a party so that you and your friends can chat while you play some Halo 5 together. Why does it take so much to do something so integral to gaming? It’s like Microsoft wanted you to have an experience akin to the challenge of fighting aliens. Fans have said that the Xbox One has had a convoluted dashboard system, with core functions buried. With the launch of a redesigned interface, what it calls “The New Xbox One Experience,” the company wants to change that. It starts with simplifying the menu system so use

ARTICLES

Inside the Apple bubble, a giant campus with more than 10,000 employees, it’s easy to lose introspection. Yet, when I ask Schiller if Apple does everything well, his answer surprises me.

Issue #19, nOVEMBER ‘15 5

EXCLUSIVE

WRITTEN BY Lance Ulanoff

Apple’s Perfectionism Inside Cupertinos machine: the Apple way of designing, conceiving and building its products. Inside the Apple bubble, a giant campus with more than 10,000 employees, it’s easy to lose introspection. Yet, when I ask Schiller if Apple does everything well, his answer surprises me. “No, of course not, of course not,” he said. “And we don’t want to sound like we’re perfect. We never are, we always have to get better and always have to listen to where we’re not doing well.” Apple, Schiller said, is also always up for re-examining preconceived notions, whether that means selling a large-screen iPad with 6 DESIGN COLLECTIVE

an optional stylus (the Apple Pencil) or creating something entirely new. “When we look at creating each new product, one of the great things about the process is the product teams are free to re-imagine a product any way that would make it better. They’re not tied to a schedule, to force it into a specific time window, not tied to past definitions of the product,” said Schiller. Radically different products put pressure on Apple and its suppliers who are sometime asked to change their factories to support Apples plans. I wondered if anyone within Apple ever vetoed one of these crazy ideas. Ternus, though, told me “no” isn’t a very popular

term at Apple. “There’s ‘No’s’ in some way,” he explained, adding, “There’s ‘No’s’ about what we do, but in terms of how we do it, going and making the best product there really aren’t a lot of ‘No’s.’ That’s one of the great joys of working here. [For] something really compelling. We can afford to make it happen.” Building the new certainly gets you noticed. We were all surprised when Apple unveiled the new MacBook, a laptop shorn of the “Air” moniker as well as all its ports save one: USB-C. That kind of risk-taking can appear both bold and dangerous. It’s a delicate balance not lost on Schiller, who said Apple puts a lot of thought into meeting expectations while advancing the state of the art.

An afternoon with Apples Phil Schiller. Schiller is, for most people, a cipher: A highly knowledgeable Apple spokesperson who can speak as passionately about its products as his late boss, Steve Jobs.

Modular Batteries

“

Teams are free to re-imagine any way that would make it better.

This battery design, spread over six separate pieces connected by flexible wire. Each module has layers of varying sizes, so as the space narrows in the chassis, the battery shape can, too.

“We found that the best thing we could do is push boundaries beyond what’s expected, beyond what’s comfortable sometimes,” he said. Schiller contends that people expect a little bit of daring when it comes to the MacBook. “It’s a little counterintuitive to people, that doing what people don’t expect, ends up being what people do expect. But that is true of Mac.” Radical innovation, though, isn’t possible without the level of intense collaboration Apple currently enjoys, according to Schiller. As I walked through the sprawling Cupertino campus with Schiller, noting how Apple employees hurried past, lost in their own product conundrum

Aluminium Casing

thoughts, perhaps not even noticing Schiller, I marveled at the sheer number of people. During the lunch hour, employees jockey for table space in the lunchroom. That room faces a large quad into which all of Infinite Loop’s building faces. As a result, Apple employees are often spotted walking between buildings, passing by each other, and perhaps, stopping to chat. To some extent, the design may be a reflection of Jobs’ desire for interaction like Pixar’s headquarters designed just for that serendipitous effect.

The MacBook’s anodized aluminum case interior is a bas-relief map of the battery topology. There is, though, a little more extra space removed from the chassis to save on weight. Issue #19, nOVEMBER ‘15 7

ARTIST

tactile toolkit My name is Franco Giovanella. I´m a 30 year-old graphic designer based in Jaraguá do Sul, a small town in southern Brazil. I had been working with graphic design for the last 10 years in advertising agencies and other studios, until one day I started to think that I could do it by myself. The idea started with a friend, and step by step it became more real. And that was the point of this transition: I was tired of working just for the final product. Almost always, the process was hard, long, and painful, and it made me wonder—why not enjoy the process?

WRITTEN BY Lance Ulanoff

Inside designer Franco Giovanella’s bag: A look at artists creative tools and processes

Rendi Studio is a place where things are made with lots of research and manual process. I work mainly with graphic design and whenever possible, make palpable the client’s most brilliant ideas (and mine too). According to Elliot Earls, “If you change the process, you change the product”.

What are the most important tools of your trade?

Why do you make your work manually, as opposed to digitally?

What was the most challenging piece you ever put together?

The tool I can’t live without is the scalpel— which isn’t all that surprising for anyone who’s worked with paper. However, people are usually shocked when I tell them the second tool I use most often: a metal dentist’s rod. Leaving her office once, I noticed these rods and saw a huge potential. Now, I use them to make markings and creases, and for fixing small parts. My scratched fingers can tell some stories about working with tight deadlines.

The uniqueness is what makes the difference—the imperfectness says to us that we are humans and this can be beautiful. So I work with paper, plasticine, wood, leaves and all sorts of materials that can be manipulated.

So far the most difficult or at least challenging project I’ve had was to create paper animals for a fashion editorial. There were 10 animals, each with an average height of 40cm at the highest. One of them, the rabbit drove me crazy, with his little feet, and left me awake a whole night—I had to redo it twice.

I can’t deny that my workspace is generally a mess, but it’s a very pleasant space that makes me want to work; it inspires me to try out new processes.

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Almost every project that comes to my e-mail is a challenge. The vast majority of customers are not used to this kind of stuff, and can´t imagine the process parameters. At first I even got a little confused, since I didn’t have much experience with these new materials. It was like discovering a new world that I need to now take to customers, so that they could understand what it is.

It’s very frustrating when you get halfway through a project and have to decide whether to throw it away and start again, or try to fix it. I learned that it is easier to start over as hard as it is. Despite the sweat and tears, it is great to see the finished product exactly as you want it.

Issue #19, nOVEMBER ‘15 9

NEWS

Bang for buck A peek at the design of Norway’s beautiful new banknotes. There are few acts of graphic design more daunting than that of creating a new face for an entire country’s currency. Even in a world full of digital payment methods, cash still passes through the hands of essentially every citizen, as well as international travelers. Much like the national flag, it’s a visual representation of a country’s identity. And there are not only political factors to take into account when deciding what—or who—should be represented on bills, but security issues and anti-counterfeiting measures to consider.

10 DESIGN COLLECTIVE

WRITTEN BY SHAUNACY FERRO

Shackled with countless constraints, Snøhetta’s design for the new banknotes turns cash into an abstraction of ocean winds.

All of which makes it particularly impressive that Norway’s brand new currency design manages to be not just passably interesting, but beautiful. (“The world’s best money,” even, to quote one of many laudatory headlines.)

on the design, called “The Beauty of Boundaries.” These horizons served as the inspiration for the pixilated pattern that will appear on Norwegian banknotes starting in 2017 (though the exact design may change slightly as the process moves forward). This

food. Norway is a country defined by a lengthy coastline—one of the longest in the world at 64,000 miles—and it has centuries of cultural and economic ties to the ocean, from the Vikings to the fishing industry to the new oil drilling.

In a competition between eight teams, the central bank of Norway, Norges Bank, chose designs by Oslo-based graphic designers The Metric System and architecture and design firm Snøhetta for the front and back of the banknotes, respectively. Snøhetta’s design, an abstract, pixelated artwork inspired by ocean winds, looks like no other money in the world.

Where sea meets air or land, interesting things can happen.

Colors were chosen based on the currently used color scheme of Norway’s bills, so as not to present Norwegians with too much confusion as they switch to the new bills. And the central bank wanted to upgrade the security level of its currency, meaning the designers had to be conscious of how their designs would eventually needed to incorporate anticounterfeiting measures (which according to Gran, they are not allowed to disclose.) “You have to take into consideration all the security elements. There’s a template for

“Where sea meets air or land, interesting things can happen,” says Martin Gran, a partner in Snøhetta’s Oslo office who worked

Shackled with countless constraints, Snøhetta’s design for the new banknotes turns cash into an abstraction of ocean winds.

was a project particularly driven by rigid constraints. Norges Bank gave each of the design teams a common theme to work with: the sea. Each denomination was also given a sub-theme, such as the ocean as a source of

where all the numbers should be,” Gran explains. “You kind of feel it’s a little bit hard to ideate and to be creative when you have such strong guidelines and direction,” he tells Co.Design. And yet, here, constraints proved to be an engine of creativity, forcing the designers to come up with something unique within the confines of numerous fixed parameters.Though the pixelated design is undeniably modern, the root of the design in antiquity. “It’s very common design thing from the mosaic tradition from 3,00 years ago,” Gran explains. Abstracted mosaic motifs, like an oil rig and a harbor beacon, play into the sub-themes dictated by Norges Bank. Rendered in the pixels that make up digital images today, the design links past and present. And though each of the bills

“

stands alone, the image itself is designed to connect—colors bleed from one bill to the other, creating echoes of continuity throughout the system. Each bill “steals a little color from [the others],” Gran says. “We wanted to make a symbol of the long coast, and everything is obviously connected to the coast.” Gentle waves run through each of the horizontal stripes, representing the wind. The patterns of the waves and the length of the rectangular pixels of color are based on the Beaufort scale, a measurement of wind speed that gives a precise categorization for everything from a gentle breeze to hurricane-force gales. The 50 kroner note features a soft wind, with short cubes of color and a long, gentle wave pattern running within the pixelated pattern. The 1000 kroner note, by contrast, portrays “almost a full storm,” Gran describes, with long stretches of color and short waves to represent a strong, fast wind.

Issue #19, nOVEMBER ‘15 11

REGIONS

WRITTEN BY Lance Ulanoff

USABILITY INSTABILITY Usability, in the broad sense, is key to everything from IT systems, tech products, and digital services to public sector services and architecture. It’s how designers turn raw technology into the products and experiences that we rely on daily. But when usability gets ignored, everyone suffers. Think about the last time you waited in line for hours at the airport. Or your daily ritual of fumbling with packaging. We are in the throes of a usability crisis. Just consider how many solutions are not human-shaped (designed to make experiences easier, pleasant, and even magical), but humanproof (built in a way to make them impossibly complex and confusing):

So many of the products, services and systems that we interact with on a daily basis are envisioned and developed based on a “system first” approach. The general philosophy is, “Let’s make the tech work first, then the end-users will follow and adapt afterwards.” Look at the automated call centers, which major banks and utility companies use, and which force users to sit through endless recordings before dispatching a human voice through. If we continue to focus on analyzing project specifications, as opposed to understanding user expectations, we will continue to take steps in the wrong direction.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Apple helped raise the bar for usable and enjoyable technology, developing a line of products that is beautiful, functional and easy to use (though as the eminent usability experts Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini point out, the company has slipped some). The same can be said of Airbnb, which provided a simple, easy-to-use solution to a complex problem. And we need to continue moving in this direction. Here are four ideas that can help us shift focus from simply developing and designing more stuff, to designing better stuff.

So many of the products, services and systems that we interact with on a daily basis are envisioned, designed and developed based on a “system first” approach. 12 DESIGN COLLECTIVE

Inside designer Franco Giovanella’s bag: A look at artists creative tools and processes

Issue #19, nOVEMBER ‘15 13

NEWS

ASKED BY Louis B,

Each month Design Collective pick a reader submitted question and open up the forum to our readers for their advice.

Community I live and work in London and I really want to relocate, which I think is quite common, especially to the places I want to move to (San Francisco, Portland, NY... ) but I’m already stressed out at how hard it seems. I’ve got 5 years under my belt, I freelance as well as work full-time, I’m a jack of all trades and master of few... Has anyone done this successfully or have a similar story? Just looking for advice on how to go about things. I’ve done it, specifically from the UK. It took me roughly 3 years to successfully immigrate and I tried a variety of ways. One lawyer even told me I didn’t stand a chance of getting one.I have Standard Grades from the Scottish high school system and nothing more. I left school at 16 and never went to college or university. This is the bit that tripped me up during the process. Not having a degree of some sort seems to be the easiest way for them to ignore your application.I ended up getting the L1 visa, which is where you work for a company from their UK office for 12 months then they can apply for a visa for you in order to move you to their US office.

Greg Cooper Buddy of mine just did this. He was on the H1B visa and got sponsored by the company we work for. It took him 3 years in the lottery to get accepted to come here and work after he was sponsored then another 2.5 to get his domestica acceptance card. He says it was well worth it! The issues were great harrowing though, and he wouldn’t recommend others try this method unless they’re very certain.

Lucas Cobb

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I’m literally looking into it this month, currently sitting in LA trying to find an attorney that specialises in it. Whilst some that have made the transition (not necessarily designers) claim marriage as the easiest/only approach, there are options for creatives as long as your recognised in your field. One place I came across that has potential is - http://www.o-1artistvisa.com/

Working in Dubai is much easier. They have public relation officers at the agency, which are ppl who takes care of your work permit and visa. Mind you, Dubai is all expats so their built for it here. Where as EU already has enough people but its still possible to get a working visa anywhere.

Clayton Needham

Stuart Crawford If it takes so long for sponsorship to get approved, why do US companies hire designers from overseas? I can understand hiring developers due to the skills shortage in US, but surely it’s not the same case for design professionals?

Duncan Russell I’d assume it should be as “easy” as finding a job, with the added challenge of the company needing to sponsor you. So If you do find a company that is really interested in you, as long as they’re willing to shell in the extra yearly, you should be able to get a working visa. I might be totally wrong though.

Antonio Prattas

Check out Science Park and Cyberport to read up about it. I also feel that I should mention the pay isn’t anywhere near what you’d get in the U.S. or E.U. but I’d take the pay cut to live there again.

Nathan Sux The pay is not good, its not as strong as what most counties in Europe have but often (and in my case all the time so far) you’ve had express control over the direction of design. Which is great. The absolute worst for Norway is the work culture - its not 9 to 5 we joke, but 5 to 9. You’ll get very extreme requests and deadlines and be expected to do considerable unpaid overtime. So you get a lot of creative freedom, but not much actual freedom.

Ingvild Kaarstad

Design tips 1. Empathetic with a twist of business-savvy

2. Open and respectful, builder of relationships

3. Selfless advocate, communication bridge

Traditionally, designers advocate for user experience, and product managers lobby for business requirements. Exceptional designers take an empathetic approach to not only understanding the person they are designing for but also the mindset and requirements coming from each stakeholder in the process. Designers who can blend the two, in my experience, are the most successful. They wear multiple hats — regardless of their position in-house, at an agency, or working for themselves—to filter through various perspectives coming from bosses, clients, coworkers, users, and more.

Building relationships and respect are a bit like the story of the men and the elephant: A group of men in the dark touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement about what they’ve found.

Designers are the visual voice for customers. They make a product beautiful and user-friendly, but an experience that is only skin-deep will not sustain a product or a user base long-term. Exceptional designers put themselves in the shoes of the person they are designing for. In doing so, they become the communication bridge between the user and the business requirements, and they listen to both to find the best solution. Exceptional designers help transform business and product development into a human-centered endeavor rather than a numbers-based one.

Exceptional designers not only reveal parts, but illuminate the whole. They build relationships across product management, marketing, and engineering.

Issue #19, nOVEMBER ‘15 15

FEATURE WRITTEN BY KEVIN OHANNESSIAN

How Microsoft Created A New Xbox Experience

Click. Then another click. You swipe and button-press through menu after menu to get to your goal: creating a party so that you and your friends can chat while you play some Halo 5 together. Why does it take so much to do something so integral to gaming? It’s like Microsoft wanted you to have an experience akin to the challenge of fighting aliens. Fans have said that the Xbox One has had a convoluted dashboard system, with core functions buried. With the launch of a redesigned interface, what it calls “The New Xbox One Experience,” the company wants to change that. It starts with simplifying the menu system so users have an easier time.

can hold an app that isn’t the main one on screen. In the past, if you wanted to see which friends were online playing, if you were in a game, you would have to press the Xbox button to go in the dashboard. If you were already there, you would have to move to the home screen by pressing several buttons. Then you click over to your social profile and click in to see the list. Now, no matter whichever page you are at on the main dashboard pages, clicking to the left while at the top brings up the guide, where the friends list is the first icon and automatically expanded. The other solution to alleviating the quagmire of the old design was to add verticality to the menus, making the dashboard feel more like a set of webpages rather than a never-ending series of static screens. The ability to press the trigger buttons on the controller to jump up and down the pages speeds up navigation. And though there is a lot going on with each of these vertical pages in the new design, just like going to a new website, a sense of being overwhelmed fades.

We always wanted to reduce the number of steps to at least half. In some cases, we have gone from seven steps to one step

“We always wanted to reduce the number of steps to at least half. In some cases, we have gone from seven steps to one step,” says Richard Irving, Partner Group Program Manager for Xbox One, who lead the team behind the design and engineering of the core platform shell on the new Xbox One UI, as well as the platform of the original Xbox One UI back in 2012 and 2013. The main way of bringing down the number of steps you need to take is “The Guide.” A column of six simple line symbols on the left of the screen, simply pressing to the right in any of the dashboard pages takes you to a menu where a whole set of functions are at your fingertips rather than being found five screens deep. You can see what friends are online, send them messages, check system notifications about downloads or installations, change settings and preferences, or open up the Snap Center, which is the right sidebar that 16 DESIGN COLLECTIVE

Of course, the redesign wasn’t just about menus. It was also about new functions. The backend was rewritten on top of Windows 10, which means you can now stream games over your network to the Xbox app on your PC running Windows 10. Players can now chat between Xbox One and PCs. There is also a new Community pages with various social content, including videos and screenshots developers and other players are sharing. Game hubs give titles individual destinations for everything related to that one game. And backwards compatibility comes to Xbox One, allowing about 100 Xbox 360 games to be played on the Xbox One, with hundreds more being added over the next year. But despite all these new functions, the design team had to start with fixing what was already

there. “No one is going to take a new UI with a bunch of promise for the future if it doesn’t solve the problems they already have. Knowing that there are some really important things for us to do down the road. It has to stand the test of time,” says Irving. The UI team had been keeping an eye on the Xbox Feedback site, where gamers can post an idea for features the Xbox should have and others can then vote on them. The team saw that it would become increasingly complicated to add some of the suggestions into the original Xbox One dashboard, so in July 2014, when some were working on a simple update to the existing interface, others began looking ahead. Some users requested the ability to send your game DVR clips to friends via message and the changes needed in the old UI to allow that were included in the next update; for the new UI, both the messages interface and the game DVR interface were redesigned. Irving says,”As we got more fan feedback, we went into this dual design model. We wanted to address the feedback we got in the September 2014 update, so we went hard at work to make it fit into the UI model that we had. But then we had another group of designers that were testing it in a new model. And we evolved that design until we had a system that would accommodate all the new things that you would throw at it.” As Irving puts it, the main pillar of the redesign was to improve the basic usage of the dashboard, including speeding up user interactions. “Speed from UI perspective, could mean quite a few things. Speed can mean the time it takes to load a particular scene of UI. It also means the numbers of steps I have to take to perform a certain task. But it also means the number of things I have to comprehend on the path of doing that task. So we looked at all three of those things,” says Irving. By January of 2015, it had some mockups done and began paper testing, bringing test users in to take a look at the print outs and see if they can figure out basic tasks. “We would get them in the lab and ask them the most basic of questions. ‘If you wanted to invite a friend to play a game with you,

where would you go?’ Very specific, directed things to just test out whether the system made as much sense to real users as it did to those of us working on the team,” says Irving. In March 2015, the testing had moved on to actual prototypes that could be played on Xbox One hardware. The testing was done in Microsoft’s user research lab, where the team would watch subjects through a two-way mirror. Cameras would record not only what was happening on screen, but how subjects were using the controller, and their facial expressions. The team wanted to record everything the subjects did. Irving says, “We went from a directed task to a more indirect approach that we call experience outcomes. It’s very general, rather than stacking the deck in our favor. Rather than saying, ‘Launch a game from your games and apps section.’ We just say, ‘Launch a game that you own.’ And then you watch the user and the path they take. Where do they expect to find their stuff? How do they expect launching to work?”

As part of the dual model scheme, some tests began in September 2014. On the then 9 million or so consoles out in the wild—Microsoft does not share exact console sales totals—the team began doing studies on the Xbox One’s digital store. “We actually experimented with the ordering of information on the game details pages to help you make a decision most effectively,” says Irving. “You either Issue #19, nOVEMBER ‘15 17

FEATURE

Where do they expect to find their stuff? How do they expect launching to work? bought the game or you went to look for another game as quickly as possible. “It was an A/B test on multiple facets of the store. Whether it was that top-level browse: ‘Would you rather see new releases versus games that your friends play, versus stuff that’s popular on Live?’ All the way down to the details page: ‘Would you rather see a trailer for the game or a Twitch broadcast of the game, or game DVR clips of the game in order to decide what to buy most effectively?’” As Irving puts it, the main pillar of the redesign was to improve the basic usage of the dashboard, including speeding up user interactions. “Speed from UI perspective, could mean quite a few things. Speed can mean the time it takes to load a particular scene of UI. It also means the numbers of steps I have to take to perform a certain task. But it also means the number of things I have to comprehend on the path of doing that task. So we looked at all three of those things,” says Irving. By January of 2015, it had some mockups done and began paper testing, bringing test users in to take a look at the print outs and see if they can figure out basic tasks. “We would get them in the lab and ask them the most basic of questions. ‘If you wanted to invite a friend to play a game with you, where would you go?’ Very specific, directed things to just test out whether the system made as much sense to real users as it did to those of us working on the team,” says Irving. In March 2015, the testing had moved on to actual prototypes that could be played on Xbox One hardware. The testing was done in Microsoft’s user research lab, where the team would watch subjects through a two-way mirror. Cameras would record not only what was happening on screen, but how subjects were using the controller, and their facial expressions. The team wanted to record everything the subjects did. Irving says, “We went from a directed task to a more indirect approach that we call experience outcomes. It’s very general, rather than stacking the deck in our favor. Rather than saying, ‘Launch a game from your games and apps section.’ We just say, ‘Launch a game that you own.’ And then you watch the user and the path they take. Where do they expect to find their stuff? How do they expect launching to work?” As part of the dual model scheme, some tests began in September 2014. On the then 9 million or so consoles out in the wild—Microsoft does not share exact console sales totals—the team began doing studies on the Xbox One’s digital store. “We actually experimented with the ordering of information on the game details pages to help you make a decision most effectively,” says Irving. “You either bought the game or you went to look for 18 DESIGN COLLECTIVE

another game as quickly as possible. “It was an A/B test on multiple facets of the store. Whether it was that top-level browse: ‘Would you rather see new releases versus games that your friends play, versus stuff that’s popular on Live?’ All the way down to the details page: ‘Would you rather see a trailer for the game or a Twitch broadcast of the game, or game DVR clips of the game in order to decide what to buy most effectively?’” While the testing of prototypes on hardware began in March 2015, the team expanded it via dogfooding, or testing on its existing product. After revealing the new interface to the world at the E3 conference in June, it then went to about 100 Xbox team members, and not just design folks, in July. That would soon expand to a thousand Xbox users in the larger Microsoft organization. After that, the team launched a preview program in September where several hundred thousand users would use a Beta version of the new dashboard. Months of updates followed, all leading up to the launch today. Irving says, “In the depths of the preview program, it was just day by day release of new builds. You’re trying to solve one problem, but then you cause a new problem in this other area. Or, as your preview users have spent three weeks with a particular feature, do you need to revise or tweak it to make it more effective? So it’s just the daily iteration, getting to November 12th, where the product is going to be where it is going to be.” The team also started doing what it called “Golden Path” testing, a process it had devised back in 2008 for the update of the Xbox 360 that came with the launch of the Kinect motion controls. With Golden Path, the team takes a user through a whole Xbox initiation: The entire testing process left its mark on the new interface. For instance, the list of recently used items on the lower half of the home screen went through changes. Games listed have contextual buttons presented beside the logo to start the game. The buttons get you to the game hub, or show you friends currently playing, or you can get to your game DVR clips and screenshots. Fans asked for similar items with apps, such as Netflix or ESPN. Now you can just load the app or maybe jump to Sports Center on demand or a live

football game on ESPN3, as hypothetical examples. But initially, it didn’t work out quite as planned. Irving says, “The way we did it was frustrating initially. We just had them in the big tile. Users were confused about where the focus went. And they were annoyed because it was one more click to get to things. So we pulled that out from the launch for the New Xbox One Experience. It’s something we are going back to the drawing board on.” So after more than a year of tests, of redesigns, of bug squashing, of user feedback, a more functional system is now in the hands of Xbox One users. Of course, it doesn’t end here for Irving and the rest of the UI team. It is still getting feedback online. And it’s building the next small update. And there will be another sizable update coming in 2016, to bring Cortana, the Windows voice-controlled assistant, to Xbox One.“There’s a lot of expectations based on how Cortana works on the desktop and on the phone, with how Cortana should work on Xbox One. So we actually made the decision that we need to do a longterm preview program for Cortana,” says Irving. So after more than a year of tests, of redesigns, of bug squashing, of user feedback, a more functional system is now in the hands of Xbox One users. Of course, it doesn’t end here for Irving and the rest of the UI team. It is still getting feedback online. And it’s building the next small update. And there will be another sizable update coming in 2016, to bring Cortana, the Windows voice-controlled assistant, to Xbox One. “We can’t redesign the UI when Cortana comes out. It has to withstand that. We have other things in our long term list of things that we want to, or even stuff that fans have been wanting to do. It has to withstand those tests as we bring new things in. It has to be just as fast, just as easy to use, just as discoverable for new content.” The team also started doing what it called “Golden Path” testing, a process it had devised back in 2008 for the update of the Xbox 360 that came with the launch of the Kinect motion controls. With Golden Path, the team takes a user through a whole Xbox initiation: The entire testing process left its mark on the new interface. For instance, the list of recently used items on the lower half of the home screen went through changes. Games listed have contextual buttons presented beside the logo to start the game. The buttons get you to the game hub, or show you friends currently playing, or you can get to your game DVR clips and screenshots. Fans asked for similar items with apps, such as Netflix or ESPN. Now you can just load the app or maybe jump to Sports Center on demand or a live But initially, it didn’t work out quite as planned. Irving says, “The way we did it was frustrating initially. We just had them in the big tile. Users were confused about where the focus went. And they were annoyed because it was one more click to get to things. So we pulled that out from the launch for the New Xbox One Experience. It’s something we are going back to the drawing board on.”We just had them in the big tile. Users were confused about where the focus went. And they were annoyo get to things. So we pulled that out from the launch for the New Xbox One Experience. It’s something we are going back to the drawing board on.”

First Iteration, Launch 2014

NXOE Reveal June 2015

Issue #19, nOVEMBER ‘15 19

design collective

Issue 19 November 2015 $7.50

Inside Apple

Inside the Apple bubble, a giant campus with more than 10,000 employees, lose introspection.

Artist Highlight

Franco Giovanella. a 30 year-old graphic designer based in Jaraguรก do Sul, a small town in Brazil.

Bang For Buck

Redesigning the Norwegian banknote from scratch to reflect a diverse and cold cultre.

Designing the new NXOE

Inside Cupertinos Machine: An exclusive interview and essay on the Apple way of designing, conceiving and building its products with Apple Executive Phil Schiller.

20 DESIGN COLLECTIVE

design collective

Issue 19 November 2015 $7.50

Inside Apple

Inside the Apple bubble, a giant campus with more than 10,000 employees, lose introspection.

Artist Highlight

Franco Giovanella. a 30 year-old graphic designer based in Jaraguรก do Sul, a small town in Brazil.

Bang For Buck

Redesigning the Norwegian banknote from scratch to reflect a diverse and cold cultre.

Designing the new NXOE

Inside Cupertinos Machine: An exclusive interview and essay on the Apple way of designing, conceiving and building its products with Apple Executive Phil Schiller.

21 DESIGN COLLECTIVE

design collective

Issue 19 November 2015 $7.50

Inside Apple

Inside the Apple bubble, a giant campus with more than 10,000 employees, lose introspection.

Artist Highlight

Franco Giovanella. a 30 year-old graphic designer based in Jaraguรก do Sul, a small town in Brazil.

Bang For Buck

Redesigning the Norwegian banknote from scratch to reflect a diverse and cold cultre.

Designing the new NXOE

Inside Cupertinos Machine: An exclusive interview and essay on the Apple way of designing, conceiving and building its products with Apple Executive Phil Schiller.

22 DESIGN COLLECTIVE