Every year, we take a couple of days off to visit a design & tech conference. It's exciting: traveling, networking, listening to inspiring talk panels. But every year, we're left with a slight hangover, a stale taste and a small voice that asks uncomfortable questions: "what did I actually learn?" "was it worth the time and money?" "why, oh why did they take pictures at the afterparty?".

So this year, instead of checking into an overpriced hotel, we decided to keep it intimate and low profile. We booked a conference room in a local coworking space, set up our out of office Messages and spent four days working on a free, client unrelated project.

This is how it went down and what we took away from it.

Day 1 – So, what's next?

A thing we agreed on beforehand, was that we wouldn't choose a topic or project before the Jam had started. That might have been a mistake. We spent a lot of time debating and evaluating all the pros and cons of every amazing idea circulating the room. While we did apply the common "design-thinking-post-it-dot-vote-there-you-have-it" approach, nobody was actually happy with the outcome. In the end, we settled on a different Project then the one we voted on:

The next Quiz Duel
Let's create the next Quiz-Duel. A casual, asynchronous mobile game in which you compete with your friends.

After we finally decided what to do with the three days, the better part of the first had already passed. All while the actual challenge still lay ahead of us: how do you go about making a game?

There is a saying that goes something like "it's better to copy a good product, then to invent a shitty one." We made that our mantra for the rest of the day researching games and mechanics we could use for our project.

After we researched a few games with blueprints that could work for us, we went to the store and bought them. A necessary, but time consuming step. After we got back, we barely had enough time to play a couple of rounds before the first day of our jam would find it's end.

In the evening, there was one decision left to make. Which game would serve as the blue print for our project? We decided to go with "abalone" a game where your goal is to push your opponents tokens off a hexagonal board.

On the first day, everybody went home with mixed feelings. What had we gotten ourselves into?

What we learned from Day 1

• Obvious one, but in this case it came as kind of a surprise: before you get together with people, may it be for a hackathon or a meeting, it'll save everyone a lot of time if you make sure you define the goals as clearly as possible.
• Steal where you can, reinvent where you must. There are few things no one has ever done before. If you're tasked with something, chances are somebody at some point had the same problem. You'll be able to learn from their mistakes without making them yourself. Which will make your life a lot easier.

Day 2 -  Play, Evaluate, Tweak, Repeat

We started the second day with a cup of coffee and a big jug of realism. If we'd keep moving forward at this speed, there's no way we'd finish our project in two days.

We used up a third of the time already, and so far we had nothing but then the knowledge that we wanted to make a "turn based strategy game based off the principle of abalone". We needed to work on the game design, the visual design, sound, a tutorial and on the digital prototype. So for the start we split up into two groups. A game design and a visual design team.

The Game Design Part
We figured the only way to make a game was to play it. So thats what we did. We took the rules of abalone apart and started tweaking them until the game got in a direction that felt like what we wanted to achieve.

Abalone is a strategy game where you think about your move for a long time. Then, after a lot of contemplating, you move your pieces. Problem is, a single turn might feel like it has very little impact. Games can take up to 50 minutes and tend to lose speed and flow as the board gets emptier. All those parameters aren't exactly ideal for an asynchronous casual game.

We wanted a turn to feel like it had a lot of impact, and we wanted the player to spend some time playing, rather then just moving one piece. So that when you pick up your phone, there was something to do. Therefore we set up rules that would let you take another turn when certain criterias where met, like pushing one of your opponents stones off the board.

Also we wanted people to experience a flow when playing, rather then thinking a lot about every single move. That's why we moved from a hexagonal field with 6 movement directions to a squared field, with 4 directions and immensely decreased the board size and stone count. Ending up with a 5 by 5 grid, and 16 tokens total, thus reducing the effort needed for every decision made.

Those two design decisions took the tension off of every single move, making you move your pieces a lot faster, chaining together moves and completely changing the feel of the game.

Finally, there where moments in the game where you felt like there was no smart move to make. This could drag on for a couple of moves at a time, making you feel like having little to no impact on the outcome of the game. We fixed this by adding the stack mechanic. A passive move where you can combine two of your stones to gain a larger one, increasing a players opportunities, and making him weigh quick wins against long term advantages.

The Visual Design Part
In Terms of visual Design, we were really mesmerized by the shiny, round, physical sensation of the black and white marbles of "abalone". A physicality and feeling we wanted to carry over to the screen.

First thing that came to mind was the skeumorphic design of the original iOS. Shiny, glossy surfaces, shadows and glows, that resemble the real world. The board would need dents for the marbles to lay in, and a physical edge for them to fall off of.

With those parameters defined, we tested different token designs. Do poker chips work better then marbles? Which are easier to read, which give a better feel when stacking?

While poker chips created stacks that where easier to count, they didn't give as much of a sensation when stacking. Also they gave the board a direction in which you had to look at it. Since our prototype was missing the network feature and would be played by two people sitting in front of each other, that meant one player would always look at the board upside down. Which is why in the end we stuck with the marbles.

In the late afternoon the game design parameters where set, and the visual design was at a state where we felt comfortable starting work on the digital prototype. There was still a lot of work to be done, but the second day ended on a way lighter note then the first. Maybe, maybe, we got this.

What we learned from day 2

• Talk is talk but doing is knowing. In the beginning, we would spent a lot of time discussing the possible impact of rule changes without actually implementing them. In the end it became clear that we could spent 15 minutes arguing without gaining any knowledge, or we could play for 2 minutes and know if the rule change was viable or not.

Day 3 - Everything is falling into place

From the very beginning day 3 had a different vibe to it then the other days. Every big decision was made, most of the "if's" and "then's" were tested, and all that was left was executing tasks. The room was a lot quieter and fell into a working rather then a collaborative atmosphere.

We simultaneously worked on polishing the prototype with effects and sounds, creating a little tutorial for our game, and expanding it's brand identity with a custom font, based on the game board. Why would you start designing a custom font before finishing the prototype? Mainly because we thought it would be fun. And let me tell you: that's what jams are all about!

When we tested the prototype in the afternoon, we were amazed by the fact how much the product gained from what most people would declare as "polish" and "gimmicks". Simple effects, like bursting a marble when it leaves the board instead of just vanishing it, didn't simply improve the game. They made it. Effects and Animations are the reason you're naturally able to follow what's happening, when before you had to pay very close attention not to miss anything.

We had to cut a lot of features and awesome ideas we wanted to put into the prototype. But in the end, we had a playable game, on our phones, with sounds, effects, and to be fair one or two bugs. Seeing and playing the product was a lot of fun and, needless to say, made us quite proud.

What we learned from day 3

• A Jam is great for acquiring new skills. Since you're crunching on a product that needs to be finished in a matter of hours, you will lower your requirements for quality and perfection. I cannot stress enough how important this is for learning new skills. The sense of achievement you get from finishing something, anything, no matter how objectively bad the result might be, is incredibly rewarding when starting to learn something. You often deprive yourself of that feeling by setting your goals too high initially. Later you'll too easily be frustrated if they seem impossibly hard to reach. The tight timeboxing of a hackathon gives you the blinkers you desperately need when approaching a new topic.
• Polish, Animations and effects aren't icing on the cake, they make or break a product. Of course this is especially true for games, but even in software you don't simply upgrade the understanding of whats happening with polish, you enable it.

Aftermath

We got together the next day for a little evaluation of our workshop. How did everyone feel the past three days? Was the innovation jam a success? What could we do better next time? Would there even be a next time?

I stated in the beginning that we initially had the idea of a jam as an alternative to visiting a conference. So let me answer those three questions from the start.

"what did I actually learn?"

• The importance of clearly defined goals and milestones
• Stealing where you can, and being original where you must
• The importance of prototyping
• Working with the Unity Particle System
• How to design a two player board game
• The power of polish and animations

"was it worth the time and money?"
To put it simply, yes. If you break it down to hard cash, I'd say that the complete jam, including food, games bought, and the rent for the room, was cheaper then a single conference ticket.

As for time invested: it is hard to measure the value of newly developed skills and the sense of inspiration tingling through the team with an hourly rate. All I can say is, I'm positive that we'll see the results of the time invested, in the output of the projects to come.

"why, oh why did they take pictures at the afterparty?".
We didn't.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, my bank has recently upgraded the software on their ATM machines – from UX-Nightmare to UX-hell. Therefor I want to release this piece, hoping that maybe somebody responsible for this mess will read it. And thus allowing myself to strike off one big fat item, from my long list of first world problems.

So, what happened?

Up until now, every time I was in need of some cash, I hit the ATM, navigated through a strangely structured menu, pushed the button for "100€" and got my dollar dollar bills y‘all! These were always neatly split down into:

• 1 - 50€ bill
• 2 - 20€ bill
• 1 - 10€ bills

What a joy life was. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago my bank decided to change the way their machines work. Now, instead of the nice variety of dineros, all I am left with is a big green 100€ bill.

Why is this a problem?
To understand why this sucks, you first have to understand that Germans are weird when it comes to paying cash. When you buy something in Germany, there’s an unwritten social code underlying the transaction. You can’t just go out and buy yourself a nice brezel or currywurst, hundies in hand. Oh no! Common curtesy requires you to match the amount asked, as closely as possible. And to do so without wasting time, while retrieving the shekels from your wallet.

appropriate_seconds = abs(1.5*((YourAge-20)/2))

As a good citizen of Deutschland, I try to obey the social code in an exemplary manner. So, after receiving the big bill from the ATM, I found myself in line for the bank counters, along with two elderly women. The dames had both also been blessed, one with a single 100€ bill, the other with a two. We all needed smaller bills! In the end this ordeal extended the usual 30 seconds at the ATM, to something around seven minutes!

How it works right now

So how does the user flow at the ATM work currently? How many choices do I have to make before I end up where I want to be, and how comprehensible are they?

Sorry for the shitty pics, but I felt a bit thuggy while taking them, with the security dude eyeballing me the whole time.

Step 1

First, we have to choose what we'd like to do. Because, why would you visit an ATM at the first place? Maybe you'd like to change your PIN? Transfer money to you prepaid cellphone contract? No? Just Cash? Alright then, have it your way.

Step 2

Secondly, we have to decide how much money we'd like to withdraw. I personally, never exceed 150€, and I will withdraw 100€ most times I use this machine. And every time I’m in front of the screen, I marvel at the sight of the 1000€ button … and ask myself: Am I super ballin today? Then I realize that I'm not Jeff freaking Bezos, and target my usual 100€. This however will result in the intolerable 100€ bill, so now, I divert to the button labeled "Different amount & bill selection".

Step 3

Step 3 consists of two smaller decisions: First we need to enter the custom amount of money we'd like to get, and then we have to decide if we'd like to define the exact selection of bills, or just take whatever the machine throws at us.

Step 4

And here it is! The pinnacle of ATM interface design: the custom-bills screen. Even though it's supposed to be custom, the ATM will suggest a certain configuration of bills. I’m definitely not pleased with the proposal put forward by this devilish machine! And so, I just have to add a 20, and fiddle with the 10s. All of this tampering is now interfering with the amount I had entered initially. I feel like a 70 year old playing fortnite, slightly disturbed, until I have everything in place again. Finally I confirm my business on the num pad.

Step 5

Lastly, I'm asked to enter my PIN, after which the old machine clanks out my hard earned cash.

How it should work

Here is my proposed flow for an ATM machine: The way I ASSUME it would be fastest, given there aren't any reasons (legal or technical) that make this flow impossible.

This solution is based on the hypothesis that the most common action performed at an ATM is the withdrawal of money. In that case, the first decision a user should be confronted with, is how much money he would like to get. Not what he would like to do. All those other options, changing PIN, transfer money to a mobile phone etc., come second.

Step 1

By making the amount selection more visual, and giving the user the chance to select the bills he'd like, the action becomes more transparent, and what I see on the screen, is what I'll hold in my hands later on. I'd even go as far as to say that it makes it more accessible for people with reading difficulties or with a different language background, as all one has to read are numbers/pictures and mathematical signs.

Step 2

Enter Pin -> Get Money

Well, that was quick. Who'd have thought that something as complicated as getting cash could be this simple?

Certainly not my bank.

Every once in a while someone wakes up and starts to challenge a fundamental concept of everyday life. Karl Benz probably layed down his morning newspaper one day and said something like "I've just about had it with these horses." Thomas Edison was like "F*** Candles." And apparently the team at Tydlig, seems to have had a very similar thought about the common calculator App. What's so great about Tydlig, and what can we take away from it's spot on design? Here are my thoughts:

1. It's a complete overhaul of a widely common concept

Skimming humanity's to-do list, one would argue that "inventing the calculator" has a big fat checkmark behind it. They exist, we know how they work. They come in all forms, shapes, sizes, and price ranges. I mean hell, somebody build one in Minecraft. Why make a new one? Never change a running system, right?

Except what if, the very way a calculator works could be so much smarter than it is right now? Most calculators that come preinstalled on our devices do nothing more than replicating the calculators we owned physically for decades. They emulate the buttons, they emulate the functionality, and worst case, they emulate the 7-segment LED-display look.

Thankfully, the team at Tydlig remembered, what elswhere staggeringly often is forgotten: software creates so much more possibilities, than simply depicting the physical world.

So instead of seeing a calculator as a given concept, Tydlig reinvented it. They let you keep your results, use them as variables, label them, update them in real time and draw graphs with them. They let you undo stuff and export pdfs and screenshots to show your thoughts to friends. All while beeing as familiar as that 10 digit brick you used to have lying around in your desk drawer.

2. It's so. much. fun.

If a new app has the ambition to make it into my every day work flow, it has to do a lot more then simply work well. It has to make me want to use it. It has to make me think about it when I'm not using it. Going: "this would be so much more fun if i was doing it in this other app instead of the one I'm, using right now."

As any other article likes to cite at one point or another: humans are creatures of habits, which, kind of proofs the very concept itself. Besides the big chunks of work that I spend most of my time on, my average day consists of countless side tasks, and I have tools for almost all of them. Those tasks are so small, that often I'll be done with them before thinking about how I'll takle them. So unless an app is fun enough that I actively think about it the moment such a small task arises, it will never make it into my everyday work flow. Ultimately ending up in the "holy shit what is this and why is it on my phone"-folder.

Somewhere between the average calculator and excel, there was a space that had the potential to make everyday math fun for the average joe. And Tydlig filled that void.

It let's you label your calculations with plain text, but also with emojis, which makes calculations for a holiday trip not only fun to set up and share, but also surprisingly clear.

If you delete a number, you get a particle animation so sublime, it's literally a firework triggered by your thumb. The last time i had so much fun triggering an micro interaction was when twitter redesigned their fav button.

Graphs and sliders which let you view your results and edit your inputs in new ways, make you actively want to play around with whatever you are currently calculating. You're not simply calculating your spendings from the weekend anymore. You're starting to ask questions like "How else could I present this" and "What impact would it have, if this number was a little lower". With interactions like those, Tydlig is actively changing the way you're tackling mathematical problems and thereby adding real value for math-phobes like me.

The app manages to trigger my sense for adventure and exploration, which I'd say is a hell of a thing to do for a calculator.

3. It's WYSIWYG

Last but not least there is the way Tydlig presents itself on the appstore that makes it all the more charming to me.

Just like most users, I don't spare a second thought if it comes to paying 4€ for a beer. But 1,99€ for an app, hold on a minute! Somehow, the Appstore page of Tydlig is so well crafted that I didn't need not think twice before buying it.

Within the first 5 seconds of the promotional video the whole idea behind the app is sold and understood. What follows are 10 seconds of features that explain the additional value of the app, while deepening the understanding of it, all without using a single word.

There is no screen in this video, that couldn't have been captured out of the app. And a few seconds later, when I opened Tydlig for the first time, I felt like I was using it for years.

If you are a UX Designer, buy this app now

As the time of this writing, Tydlig is 2,99€ on the Appstore, which is a more then fair price, considering most Apps nowadays are free, unless you want to use them, in which case a subscription will cost you 6€ a month.

So if you haven't already, I advice you to go and get Tydlig. May it be to calculate how much shipping costs you're saving with your prime subscription, or your yearly spendings on avocado toast, or simply, to support outstanding design.

Team behavior lessons learned from playing League of Legends.

If you know what League of Legends ( abrv. LoL) is, you'll understand the irony of a game, that has established the reputation of having one of the most toxic player-communities, teaching you social skills.
If you aren't familiar with the pitch-black, time sucking hole that are MOBAs like LoL, those next paragraphs are for you. I promise to keep it as brief as possible.

League of Legends is a game of the MOBA genre (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena). Your team, that is you and four other friends, or complete strangers, try to win a highly complex game against five other players. Every person on a team has a specific role, and matches take anywhere between 20 – 60 minutes. Balance in these matches is fragile, and teams with even one bad player, will have a significant disadvantage. Since matchmaking times and matches themselves are long, the time committed, and thus the stakes in every game, are high.

Even with this in mind, social behavior in League is still baffling. It can seem like people are on the edge of rage at most times and the slightest thing will set them off flying. New players who aren't familiar with the very complex etiquette of the game will get insulted, asked to uninstall the game, or get told to stop playing as their team will be better off without them.

To make this clear from the start, I'm not very good at League. I usually prefer games that tell good stories over competitive play, but the depth of the game and the social component of meeting friends i wouldn't meet in real life is what keeps me coming back.

It was only lately that i started playing ranked games with one of my friends and got to tap in the (even) more competitive parts of the game, where communication with your team isn't an asset but a necessity to win a game. This is where the game unveils it's ugliest, and to me, it's most challenging sides.

What loses me most of my games isn't a bad performance by me or another player on the team. It's a team tilting, and starting to turn against each other, when a match is far from over. Since I already coped with the fact that my mechanical play won't improve to any more significance, (pro players are considered "old" at 23) I decided that the skill that would improve my game the most, was team management. Keeping the spirits up, and helping a team communicate can be the tip on the scale of any match.

So if you ever worked in a team under high pressure, those tips might be for you.

Ping!

In League, Players use pings to tell other players where they're headed, if there's danger on the map, or if they need assistance. A player that doesn't ping, is a closed book to the team. The same thing applies in real life. The worst form of miscommunication is not communicating at all. It's also the most easiest to avoid. Let your team know what you're up to. What your plans and thoughts are. Put everything on the table. TMI is better to compensate then too little.

gj

Least players hesitate to rage when something goes wrong. But most of them remain silent if everything works out. If a situation ends up in your favor, or even if somebody is simply doing his job right, be sure to acknowledge it. I like to think of this acknowledgment as a safety net the team can fall into when shit goes south. If the bulk of communication is negative, communicating itself will become a negative experience. Which will lead to less communication, and by that, to more miscommunication.

mb

Teams in League start turning on each other pretty easily. Make one mistake and it's likely you'll end up as the teams scapegoat. One way of avoiding this is taking responsibility for your mistakes. Every time I fuck up in league, which happens fairly often, a simple „my bad", let's my team know, I'm aware of the fact that i made a mistake. At the same time it communicates that i know how to do better and that I'll try doing so next time. It's difficult to put the blame on someone, if he already acknowledged his mistake.

"muted"

You can try all you want, sometimes stuff just won't work out. Some team members may just be too toxic, sometimes you missstep too many times and your mates just aren't able to forgive you. When that happens, it's important to know when to cut the chord. Don't let the downwards spiral continue. Don't let them push your buttons. Unproductively unloading on each other never leads to better results. When shit hits the fan, muting communication and letting everyone cool off for a while should be your last resort. Silence is a virtue after all.

why digital assistants failed before and what could be different now

Since Siri got introduced for the iPhone 4S back in 2011, digital assistants are back on everyones agenda. We've come a long way since then, from hype, to anger, to bargaining, depression, and soon, maybe, acceptance. Or maybe not.

Like most will recall, there was a time before alexa, where digital assistants where found on our devices. Just like there was a time where we had touch-screens, or VR, or 3D. The first encounters with new technology aren't necessarily all too satisfying. And so it happens that even though we remember digital assistants like clippy, we really wish we wouldn't.

After another decade with a new generation of digital assistants and google showcasing videos where an AI places appointments via telephone, it might be time to ask a couple of questions. Why did digital assistants fail the first time around? What is different this time? And is it enough, to make the little helpers stick with the masses?

What went wrong?

One thing we all too easily forget is written down in the title and lyrics of a popular Bob Dylan song. "The time's are a changing" and because they are, the world the first generation of digital assistants where born into, looked very different then the world we live in today.

In 1997 only 36.6% of American households owned a Computer. In 2014 we where up to a whopping 85.1%. So, while Computers where already a big thing back then, it is save to say that they where still new to most people.

Thats why the role of agents was a different one as well. While today you use them mostly when you have your hands full, back then they where first and foremost a really annoying tutorial to the world of computers. Microsoft for example, used them to make their products feel more human, and thus raise their acceptance.

via GIPHY

They even build an entire operating system around the concept of making it seem more familiar to new users. This OS was called "Microsoft Bob" and brought to life all time favorites like the font "Comic Sans" and "Rover the dog".

Why didn't that concept work out as intended? As it turns out, the line between beeing helpful and beeing patronizing is a very thin one to walk. If you don't stick the landing, the action you took to increase acceptance of your product, might just have the opposite effect.

Beeing unable to turn of an assistant, or activating it accidentally, quickly takes away all the magic an helpful assistant might have build up and makes the software feel dumb and annoying instead. It evokes the feeling of beeing the only customer in a store and having the sales person breath behind your neck, waiting for something to help you with. It's the difference between that waiter you never see, unless you need something in which case he's already at your table, coffee in hand, and the one that tried to take your order for the 4th time while you're still working yourself through the menu.

Here's the catch though, the amount of help that feels right, highly differs from user to user. While one might appreciate the calender event automatically generated from the contents of an e-mail, another one might feel intruded and patronized. That's why learning and remembering a users preferences plays such an important role in the acceptance of software.

Clippit the friendly office clip popped up E V E R Y time you started writing a letter. And that's exactly why he doesn't pop up any more.

via GIPHY

What is different today?

As already stated, the role digital assistants take today is very different from their first coming. Where in the past they had the role of teachers, today they have the role of, well … slaves.

Beeing tought, espacially from someone or something you deem less intelligent, is hard to accept. Giving orders however, actually gets easier the less humanity you attribute to something, or sadly, someone.

This leads to the fact that, wheras Clippy tried to be on the same level as us, and failed miserably, we view Siri more as a housefly with benefits, in which she succeeds.

In his Article on Wired, Joi Ito explains that he sees this behavior as wired in our western civilisation and says shinto religion leads to a different view of robots and AI in japan. I strongly reccomend reading this piece once you're finished here.

We can say that digital assistants today, became better and more complex, while also trying something way less ambitious. That's why they're growing in acceptance, and will continue to do so, as they get better in what they're already good at: fulfilling tasks we'd feel uncomfortable tasking humans with, unless, you belong to the 1%. Maybe.

Right now, there is no need in making digital assistants more human, to make them more broadly accepted, because it actually feels more comfortable interacting with them, when they're not.

Will Digital Assistans find broad acceptance this time around?

Now, I don't need to tell you that this is an opinion piece and not a scientific research paper, so what's next is nothing more than my humble guess. But yes, I think digital assistants as we see them today are on the hot streak right now.

The little helpers will keep conquering our living rooms, as voice control gets more precise, functionality increases, and the ability to control third party apps spreads. All this however, is based on the assumption that digital assistants keep playing their role as mindless work horses.

This is not the generation of digital assistants we view as equals, like Cortana in Halo, or the kind we fall in love with, like Samantha in Her. That's a challenge for the next generation of bots, or maybe one for the next generation of humans.