Surface Media Blog - Filed under 'event'

November 15, 2010

Can you draw the internet?

So you think your pretty creative? Here we have people who work within creative industries, with all their experience, competing against a bunch of free thinking young kids, to illustrate 'the internet'. This is a great source of ideas and inspiration if your looking for something to get the creative stuff flowing.

http://www.canyoudrawtheinternet.com

Filed under // cool stuff design event

Posted by Surface Media

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August 23, 2010

Surface Media EOFY drinks

It's taken us a while to get some pics up from our end-of-financial-year drinks held in July, but here is a small sample.

Thanks to everyone who came along! We had a great time and we hope you did too.

(download)

Filed under // event

Posted by Leah Cunningham

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June 3, 2010

It's a QR Code scavenger hunt extravaganza! Who knows what you might find...

I love QR Codes. I think they are awesome - both because they look cool and because of the potential marketing uses they hold, particularly with regard to the possibilities for greater integration of digital and offline marketing.

For those who don't know, QR codes are like barcodes - they are funky looking black and white coded squares that store data and are also called 2D codes (see image below). QR Codes can hold a great deal more data than a standard barcode and can be read by most current mobile phones via the camera. You can also create your own QR Codes by using various free online applications.

You may have come across QR codes before on posters at bus stops, on take-away coffee cups or in magazines. Most of the time they contain a URL so that when someone uses their mobile to view the data in the QR code, the browser on their mobile will launch the website (this is called a a hardlink or a physical world hyperlink).

Despite their potential, QR Codes haven't really taken off in Australia to the extent that I think they should (they're widely used in Japan). However, finally the QR Code is starting to getting the recognition it deserves thanks to the QRioCity Melbourne -
brought to us by State of Design 2010, Victoria's design festival. QRioCity is a scavenger hunt in Melbourne from the 14th - 25th July to find the coded objects hidden in the city and decode them with your mobile phone... sounds like fun! Click here to find out more!

All hail the QR Code!

Filed under // cool stuff event technology

Posted by Leah Cunningham

Comments [2]

November 25, 2009

Can you decide whether you should park here... in under 15 seconds?

image source

If you did, congratulations (tell us via comment) ... but were you driving by this sign at 20Km/H, with three lanes of traffic backing up behind you, your kids yelling in the back seat on a day that a stadium event had been scheduled in the area?

On Monday night I was lucky enough to attend a short presentation by Dr Karel Van Der Waarde, Lector/Scholar at Avans Hogeschool in the Netherlands, at Magnation here in Melbourne. As a user experience consultant to the world's leading pharmaceutical brands, Dr Karel had some eye-opening stories to tell about his experiences. His main point however could not have been made more clearly:

"We don't consider the user early enough in the design life-cycle".

Perhaps if the designer of the sign above took in to account the traffic that would be around the driver at the time, or the screaming kids in the back seat, or even the fact that "THRU" at a quick glance (or even by someone who suffers from dyslexia) could be perceived as "THUR" - the sign could have been designed more clearly. I'm sure it made sense though when viewed on a computer screen having played with the fonts and layout for several days. This sort of thing doesn't just happen in the USA (the above is from Baltimore), it's everywhere, even here in Melbourne.

Dr Karel jokes that he "observes nurses in emergency departments of hospitals"... and although that sounds a little bit seedy, if he did not, how would he have the data that proves:

50% of the time, patients are initially given the wrong medication; because a nurse picks up a box that looks similar to another one (their perceptions of colours and layouts are somewhat skewed at 3am after working a 12 hour day)
Every parent writes their own notes about the usage, frequency and dosage of medications for children; because the tiny instructions inside the medication boxes use incomprehendible language, no images and are impossible to read without a magnifying glass.

These are just 2 examples of what he discovered when actually sitting back and observing how people behave. There are many, many more.

This sort of insight simply cannot be gained by a round-table discussion between designer and commissioner. The closest thing one gets is an 'educated guess'. By having real data available to make educated and strategic decisions about design and usability you're almost guaranteed to get it right the first time. In the long run it will save you money and time and provide a positive experience for your most important person - the consumer.

A short thankyou to Design Victoria and AGDA for making the event possible.

Filed under // design event user experience

Posted by Matt Shanks

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November 23, 2009