ExperienceLab

Keep it simple

An interesting Ted talk (TedxO'Porto) by Sandra Fisher-Martin about keeping documents simple and easy to understand. If you've got time watch the video (it's 15 minutes long and in Portuguese with English subtitles).

Her aim is to simplify the language used in contracts and other official documents so that they are easy to understand by everyone, rather than only by experts. The main message of the talk is to ''write for your grandmother'' by following these 3 rules:

1. Your 'grandmother' is busy and doesn't have time to read loads of pages so start with the most important message
2. Use short sentences so your 'grandmother' doesn't forget the point you're trying to make
3. Use simple language that your 'grandmother' already knows

The idea of having a particular audience in mind when writing is a useful practice and helps you to focus your writing. Legal and business documents tend to focus on getting very exact and precise points across to defend a position or state a claim upon which a lot depends. However, this often comes at the cost of clear, concise language - making these documents appear less "human".

However, Sandra clearly believes that the two aren't mutually exclusive, and we'd agree with her. For example, when we write our reports we strive to make sure that they speak our clients' language and are as usable as the practices that we preach. We feel that we've failed if a report isn't easily understood by our clients. There's no reason that other businesses shouldn't adopt this exact same belief.

 

 

Sticky fingers

Gelupo describe themselves as ‘the finest artisan gelato experience this side of the alps’ and I definitely agree. I love Gelupo! Since it open last June I’ve been through at least 9 loyalty cards and I go there so often that my friends describe it as my local pub.

The ice cream is delicious and the sorbets are so good that you can just count them as part of the normal ice cream selection (rather than the boring low calorie relatives) but it’s not just the ice cream that is good. The whole experience of eating at Gelupo is great.

 

Android stop-motion video (all in a lunch time)

After a few months of using my Sony Ericsson XPERIA Android phone (which I haven’t been at all impressed with- but that’s another blog entirely) I heard about a stop motion app. I love making stop motion clips and normally just use my camera, a tripod and a simple video editing program. Although this is straightforward enough, the idea of being able to make quick little videos straight from my phone sounded great. So, I downloaded the free version of the app (Stop-Motion Lite) and went about making a little lunch time stop motion video:

 

 

Enamoured with Inamo?

After a hard week of testing Mark and I decided to get something to eat at Inamo. Inamo is a restaurant where “the control of the dining experience” is placed in the diners’ hands. Instead of customers being given a traditional paper menu and ordering with a waiter or waitress, they use an “interactive ordering system” to browse and select what they want to eat.

  

iPad Launch: The Queue

On Friday the 28th of May, at 8am, the iPad was finally available to buy in the UK. On Thursday evening I went to the Apple Store to see who was already in the queue and to find out why they were so excited about getting an iPad. There weren't that many people waiting but when I returned on Friday morning the queue had turned the corner of Regent Street and hundreds of people were waiting, eager to buy an iPad.

Watch the video below to see what people thought of the iPad shopping experience and why they couldn't wait to get their hands on the iPad.

(Watch this space for part 2 of this blog, where we'll be reviewing our very own iPad!)

An appetizing idea

It all started in one corner of the office, but after sending around a free trial code “grazers” have sprung up all around the office. So what is grazing? Well we haven’t started eating grass and walking around the office on all fours, if that’s what you’re wondering. Grazing is the new office snacking. Graze boxes are a type of cool, hip lunchbox and the best part is that they are delivered straight to your desk.

   
 

Seesaw - some nice touches but still room for improvement

Seesaw is a new online TV service that provides catchup content from the BBC, Channel 4 and Five, as well as some additional on demand content from other sources.

Having played around with the new service both in beta and post launch, I have to say I quite like it. Generally it's reasonably easy to use, visual and nicely laid out. It's handy to be able to go to one place to access content from various different sources (channels or otherwise) - although I admit I still go to BBC iPlayer to access BBC content - and the 'turn lights down' feature is a particularly nice touch. The easy links to other episodes in the same or previous series is well implemented too. 

Could Pivot be a new cure for information overload?

After watching a TED talk by Gary Flake about Microsoft Live Labs’ Pivot I felt compelled to download it and test it out.

 

Pivot is a new tool (currently only available to PC users) which aims to make it easier to deal with information overload by doing something that, according to Gary Flake, is “not quite browsing and not quite searching”. Pivot puts information into collections combining images and text. These collections can be arranged, sorted and filtered in many different ways, allowing users to see how information is linked. Users can also zoom in and out, choosing to see all the information at once, or only a portion of it.

 

   

From many images to just a few, Pivot can help you sort through huge amounts of information.
 

Cinema anyone?

Last Sunday, after having lunch with some friends in Soho we decided we wanted to go to the cinema. There were various films we wanted to watch and so we got out an iPhone to see what was showing at the cinemas nearby.

There are five Odeon cinemas less than 10 minutes walking distance from the restaurant we were at. So, the obvious choice was to go onto the Odeon Cinema website. However, this obvious choice was definitely not the most efficient choice.