Lessons learned from San Yen's sharing

Today, San Yen, If Isobar's Creative Director came to have a sharing with us on creative effectiveness. I had learned a lot from this talk. Below is a summary of his sharing on creative effectiveness:

Strategy + Creative = Effectiveness

4 tips to stay creative
1. Seek your voice, be different
2. Embrace uncertainty, get out of comfort zone
3. Go for quantity, get a lot of ideas in a short time
4. Break the rules, don't do things the normal way

4 tips to stay strategic
1. Be empathetic, move at the speed of the consumer, think as though you own the brand
2. Unite data and creativity, pull numbers+narrative (Planner) and concept+craft (Creative Director) together by joining narrative+concept (Creative Strategist)
3. Live the media, B.O.E (Bought Owned Earned)
4. Be simple, do not complicate your solutions

He also pointed out that justlife's brand image is friendly, family-like and values human-human interaction. This contradicts to what we were required to propose to justlife, which is to create a multimedia platform. I had to seriously reconsider my proposed idea now...since it sort of replaces the role of human shop assistants. We should have had this sharing earlier! It's kind of late for me to realise that there is a big flaw in my proposed idea...

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Interface design

Below is the main interface design I did according to the revised mood board:

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Mood Board

Below is the mood board for JusJus application:After a tutorial session with Sweii, she pointed out that justlife's colour choice is more down to earth and not commonly percepted colour choices which I proposed in my moodboard above. I did a major change in the colour scheme of my moodboard.

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Interaction flowchart 2.0

Below is the revised and digitalized interaction flowchart:

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What I have learned after reading "Mobile Commerce Overview: why mobile is changing the way business happens"

I've speed-read Mobile Commerce Overview, and this is what I had learned from the important points which are related to my project.

1. Personalization is where mobile marketing is moving forward to. Creating a mutual dialogue between the marketeer and the consumer will create trust.

2. Personalized mobile marketing should include 4 key factors: permission-based, targeted, "live" and two-way.

3. Store location, In-store navigation, and Information & Extended Packaging creates convenience for users in store and also outside the store.

4. Using mobile phone to pay seems like a very convenient and useful function. But I don't think my application needs this function.

5. Reordering and delivery confirmation are important so that it is easier for customers to order the same products again, and confirmation of delivery helps customers keep track of their order.

6. Ensure that consumer receives clear info on how to use mobile application, and how info can be accessed via mobile app.

7. Legal aspects should be well researched to achieve trust from consumers so that they will use the mobile app.

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Tutorial meeting with Sweii

Showed the interaction flowchart to Sweii. Sweii suggested that my application could follow up on users' health. She also suggested that I do some research on mobile commerce. Besides progress review, Sweii also gave me her comments on my performance during the 2nd client meeting last week. I did not really do well, and presented myself more like a student than a young designer. I knew that I am not good in communication and presenting myself, so I should really focus on communication and presentation skills to improve myself.

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Personal Statement

After meeting with the clients about the initial ideas I had came up with, I had chosen my idea of a virtual personal health advisor as the solution to the clients’ problem. Both accessible through in store computer kiosk and iPhone application, this virtual personal health advisor is a digital character named JusJus, and its service ranges from product information searching to educating users about organic products. It has a vast variety of functions, which includes advising users on health issues, giving users solutions using JustLife’s organic products, providing healthy organic recipes, aiding users in product searching and locating, letting users to shop online, and most importantly, educating users on how JustLife’s organic product is produced and how special and different are JustLife’s products. There is also an area where the users can comment about a certain product or remedy, allowing for an alternative platform for customers to communicate with each other through JusJus. Besides than just creating this application, it is also important to come up with a branding strategy to make JusJus become a reliable and friendly personal health advisor. As suggested by the clients, an in store theme could be created to tell customers to “ask JusJus” about additional information or for any queries.

I had chosen this idea because having a personal health advisor can give the company a brand image that JustLife cares for their customers, instead of just being a typical shop that runs an organic product business. JusJus can replace existing shop promoters as JusJus will be more effective in providing accurate and detailed information compared to shop promoters. Besides that, users can also access to JustLife’s massive amount of information whenever and wherever they wanted to using the iPhone application, thus reducing the time and petrol for users to get answers for their queries. JusJus’ wide variety of functions allows for more flexibility for users to use the product, making JusJus a reliable health advisor-cum-shop promoter in the size of their palm. Moreover, JusJus can make customers feel attached to JustLife as JusJus can be personalized in its health advising and online shopping experience, as well as in its online community experience.

This idea can benefit me in researching deeper into personalized marketing and how it can benefit JustLife in its branding image and its service. I can also build upon my existing content management skills in managing the database of the chosen idea for a more effective presentation and searching of information. Other than all the above technical benefits, I can gain more knowledge towards leading a healthy lifestyle and the benefits of organic products.

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Interaction flowchart

Below is the interaction flowchart I sketched in my sketchbook:

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2nd client meeting

Today we had our 2nd meeting with the clients to talk about our initial ideas. After explaining to them my initial ideas, they seemed to prefer my 2nd idea which is the personal health adviser app.
They also pointed out some important features which I should consider adding in for better user experience.
1. Provide health tips other than just selling products
2. Give advice and reminders to users
3. Better shopping experience
4. As a customer, what would I want to get from this application?
5. Use posters and promotions to lead customers to ask the avatar

Although it was a long day of waiting and traffic jam, I had learned a lot from this meeting. But I am not satisfied with my performance today as I stuttered a lot and I don't think that I presented myself well enough as a designer to the clients.

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Final year MM project idea (old)

Ask any high school students in Malaysia what is the subject they hate the most in school. About 90% of them would have answered "SEJARAH!", meaning history in Malay. What makes them hate this subject so much, that they rather pass up blank exam papers during SPM(O-Levels)?

For myself, I wouldn't say that I hate history. In fact, I love history since young. But, my interest in history had been drastically reduced during my high school times as the textbooks were VERY VERY VERY BORING. 80% of the books are text, while the remaining 20% are small, low definition, monotone images. It cannot suck me into the realm of the book as storybooks can, and very soon, learning history became a chore rather than enjoying the historical stories of our past. This kept me thinking, what could be done to make learning history as fun and as enjoyable as reading storybooks?

After some thought, I've decided that introducing interactivity and narrative into the curriculum is the main ingredient to keep readers interested. We can learn better through stories, and we definitely can learn better through interactivity. My idea for my project is to create an interactive film with a series of short clips posted on Youtube, which tells the story of Kapitan Yap Ah Loy. Each short clip tells a segment of the story and by the end of the clip, users will be able to make decisions. Each decision they made will direct them to another short clip, and this process continues on until a story path is completed. The reason I chose Kapitan Yap Ah Loy as the main character of my interactive film is because he was an important figure in shaping Kuala Lumpur to how it is today, yet his story was not elaborated in the History curriculum in high school education. I believe that it is essential for younger generations to know about his achievements since Kuala Lumpur is the heart of Malaysia. If we Malaysians do not know a single thing about who brought glory to Kuala Lumpur, are we worthy to tell others that we are Malaysians?

P.S. This is the old idea for the execution of my final project. Currently the execution is no longer an interactive narrative. For more info in my newest execution of my final project, please read the newer posts =)

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What I have learned after reading "Hamlet on the Holodeck"

I've came across this book during my 2nd year studies in Degree in Multimedia Design, but never had the time to read it. After 2 weeks of starting my 3rd year now, I finally realized the importance of reading as I could never write a good 6000 words essay without a bank of media theories at the tip of my fingers. So I rumaged in the library book shelves and grabbed this book --- thanks to Anderson's help for borrowing this book as this book is only for lecturers to borrow --- as a research material for my essay as well as for my 3rd year final project.

I would say that this book is not a difficult read. The author, Janet H. Murray, had included in some of her personal experiences with interactive narratives as interesting examples of her arguments and I've learned quite a lot from reading this book.

Murray's analysis on both optimistic and dystopian perspective on the idealised form of interactive narrative - immersive, hyperreal simulations of narratives - intrigued me to think about how human values can be questioned by technology. The human values here are love and faith, as shown in the example in Star Trek whereby Captain Janeway's lover, Mark (disguised by enemy) questioned her about her faithfulness towards him about she having a "virtual affair" with a virtual character named Lord Burleigh whom she meets everytime she enters the holodeck. Does kissing a virtual character means betrayal to your lover in reality? If the answer is yes, that means that the fine line between virtual and reality has vanished. Virtual characters can actually be as real as, or more real than real life people. If the answer is no, does this suggests that cyberspace is a platform for people to express their inner desires, fantasies, or what not?

Computer games and the internet were under constant blame for the unhealthy phenomenon --- from short attention span to obesity --- of kids nowadays. It is true that the instant feedback provided by the cyberspace pulls users away from the slow, and visually and audically unexcited collection of text printed on papers. Instead of pointing fingers and playing a tug-o-war with the cyberspace, why not assimilate the values of novel reading into computers? As Murray stated, what we look into are values and meanings rather than on the medium. Function over form.

Murrays explaination on immersion and agency is also helpful for the content planning of my project. To achieve user retention and keep them excited throughout the process of an interactive narrative, immersion and agency is important. By having the fourth wall (could be an avatar or rules to adhere by), only can users be immersed within the plot of an interactive narrative. The fourth wall draws the fine borderline between virtual and reality, enabling users to feel that they are part of the interactive narrative while not disrupting the flow of the narrative. It marks a set of rules to follow within the cyberspace, which in turn adds the users' believablity towards the narrative. If the fourth wall is removed, and users were to be invited into the cyberspace to roam freely in the narrative, users will not feel attached to the story itself and will bore out easily, or maybe worse, destroy the whole narrative structure of a particular interactive narrative. Agency, however, empowers the users and letting the users feel that what they do has a certain impact within the gamespace. A simple click could trigger a nuclear explosion within the gamespace. It is the feedback system which keeps users hooked on to the game/interactive narrative.

This book gave me more confidence in developing my final project on educating high school students on history through a narrative in the form of interactive videos on YouTube. Overall, this book really do benefit me by keeping my brain juices flowing.

A thought for my project --- to make my project appeal to my target audience, immersion and agency is a must. Probably the user can be the main character of my narrative, and each choice the user makes at each decision point will affect the storyline and reach to different endings.

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Initial idea revised

After meeting with Sweii today, she pointed out some key points regarding this project and I did some minor changes to my initial ideas.
1. Focus on educating the user instead of making it just like a product catalog.
2. In-store experience is important too. Consider adding in functions like QR code scanning.

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