Using opposites to emphasis experience

A burning contrast

It would be a disservice to Flash Art to describe their work as "firework displays" - they combine fire, lasers, water and music in world-class spectacles, like the closing display of the 2006 World Cup final. Here's a great tip from Flash Art pyrotechnics wizard Markus Katterle, interviewed in Focus.

"If I want the audience to experience the colour red in the sky especially intensely, I first need to colour the sky green for one minute."*

Those of you who played with a colour wheel at school will remember that red and green are traditionally considered complementary colours - perfect opposites. Mixed together, they give a dull sludge, but they can placed in opposition to dramatic effect.

Contrast is a vital tool in experience design, and Markus' quote can be applied to much more than just light. Any loud chord seems louder if it crashes out of silence, and we all enjoy that cup of piping hot cocoa most when we are truly frozen.

One of the best uses of contrast in experience design I ever encountered is in the German National Museum in Nuremberg. The lobby here is very light, warm and airy, with acres of glass and glaring white walls. At the back, you pull open a heavy door and step - Pow!- into a cold, dark medieval cloister. The contrast is quite simply startling, and the feeling of time travel inescapable. Great stuff.

Contrast need not always be extreme, and it need not always generate a feeling of surprise. Use it to draw attention to your experience's best aspects, and to provide variation in your customer's emotional curve.

Where could you use contrasting light in your customer experience? And what about sound? Texture? Temperature? Aromas? Activity? Price?

* Focus magazine, 31.12.07 pg 83. Translation by Adam.

Colour wheel from jasmic at flickr.
GNM pic from bsnu.

Artful Making

A Work•Play•Experience book review

I’ve been writing about parallels between theatre and business for a while now, and of course I am not alone. When “Artful Making” fell into my lap a few months ago, I was immediately curious. Aha, says I. A book by a Professor of Business and a Professor of Theatre, subtitled “What Managers Should Know About How Artists Work”. Right up my street.

It’s clear that the parallels between – for example – a software company working towards product release and a theatre company heading for opening night go deeper than the dangers of divas distaining decaff as the deadline draws nigh. Profs Austin & Devin emphasise several aspects of “artful” (it’s mostly theatre, as it happens) work processes that are of interest to managers – especially managers in the knowledge industry or where innovation is in the foreground.

In the Profs’ words: “Artful managers begin a project with some idea of the outcomes they desire, but without controlling preconceptions. They set up a low-cost, iterative process that facilitates exploratory production (aka rehearsal – Ed.) . They coach their performers on a journey that they themselves cannot take, using earned trust to influence the focus of the group. They believe that good ideas will emerge from an impeccable process, and they moderate a complex, multi-layered interaction in which many elements converge over time, though they never lock in on exact replication. Artful processes elicit innovation in every iteration, hence they are never perfectly consistent. They are, nevertheless, reliable and precise when it comes to the requirements that must be met.” (Artful making pg 161)

As you can see, Austin and Devin know that art-work is often seen by “real” business people as lax and freewheeling, are they are at pains to emphasise that this approach to work is actually disciplined, reliable, financially responsible and able to produce extremely precise results. They also press home that an artful making approach is not always appropriate, especially where production requires serious capital investment in advance.

Besides a bunch of enlightening parallels, perhaps the most useful contribution made by this book lies in offering a different wordset to talk about business process in the knowledge industry and elsewhere. The language used to describe many business processes is drawn from industry and the last century – and it often fits poorly. In Artful Making, Austin and Devin offer an alternative metaphor and model for conceiving business processes, and one that is more fitting to many service industries than the current vocabulary.

It’s a serious book – the final score is Graphs 4, Pictures 0 – but there are sufficient anecdotes and case studies to provide variety for luvvy-airheads like me, and the writing style is light and easy so the pages keep turning.

I recommend Artful Making highly to anyone working in, or interested in, new business fields, the knowledge industry or service design.

.

Step 1. Steal Underpants

The Big 3 Strike Again!

It's a well known fact that there are three essential components to any hit. They are:

1. Sex
2. Humour
3. Death

The excellent KnickerPicker site combines the Big Three in a great online experience.

(The site may be NSFW if your work environment objects to underwear being sold in public. If it does, get a new job.)

At KnickerPicker, a trio of virtual ladies will model top brand underwear for you, helping you choose just the right set for your own self, or your better half. You can change the outfit, get the girl to turn round, even come closer. There is an online shop and delivery service, of course.

Go on, try it.

Here's why I like it:

1. Sex: the site uses sexy girls to sell sexy undies. Nothing new there, but it's nice that the girls come in three sizes from "ouch!" to "real woman". And the fact that you can influence the models' actions makes it a little sexier somehow. (Blush).

2. Humour: it's good clean (?) fun making the girls walk up and down and turn round, and their expressions seem beautifully ironic at times. The ladies find it fun too - Marie Claire made it their "favourite new website". Best of all, though, is the "Boy's Buying Guide" for men faced with the terrifying task of finding out her size...

3. Death: let your lady catch you spending too long with the wrong sized model, and you are in big trouble.

KnickerPicker: a great site, combining a fun experience with a genuinely useful service.

Vintage undies photo from antiques.about.com.
More about the importance of stealing underpants here.