Posted on
by
Wow, that was a more futuristic talk than I was expecting. And that’s saying a lot. Bring on my neural implant!
The Future of Omnichannel Immersion
Stephanie Sansoucie
@jolisouci
Experience Strategy & Design Research
Kohl’s
  • Multichannel: online, kiosk, in-store, etc.
  • Omnichannel: engagement across all the touchpoint to create one experience
  • Advances in technology are outpacing our ability to craft experiences for them.
  • The biggest challenge for retail experiences or any omnichannel experience, it’s Moore’s Law.
  • Asking how many people familiar with, using, designing for…
    • 3D printing: many
    • virtual reality: less
    • beacons: even less
  • 3D Printing
    • $8.6B by 2020
    • Amazon: 3D printing store
    • Makerbot’s Thingiverse
    • Adoption < 10 years
    • Manufacture burden shift
    • More manufacturers selling schematics, rather than parts.
    • More materials
    • connected devices
  • Wearables
    • Apple Watch: great, focus on aesthetics.
    • Google Glass: failed based on aesthetics
    • Aesthetics
    • Adhesives
    • Biotech / embeddables
    • Kinetic, solar powered
    • internal engines
      • current wearables use an external device, like your phone, to drive them. in the future, that can be embedded in the wearable.
      • and limited power budget for wearables.
      • in the future, with kinetic and solar power, far more power available. so the wearable can be smart, independent from any external devices.
    • CuteCircuit
      • Clothing with built-in lights, LEDs, so that they can change color, make different designs.
      • You can use tablet to make different designs, to customize clothing.
      • You can let your friends control your clothing.
  • Micro-location
    • Wearable integration
    • Monitoring
    • Connected homes
    • Connected ecosystems
    • Beyond digital marketing
    • Retailers playing in this space. Walk into the store, get an offer.
    • Insurance companies investigating connected homes. Philips investigating micro-location embedded in every light bulb.
    • Expected about 60 million iBeacons sold by 2019.
    • Smart Reactive Environments
      • You are a mesh node, walking around…in your home, the store.
      • The lighting or the temperature will change.
      • The information displayed will change.
      • If you’re a store, and all the customers are in the men’s department, do you move your employees there.
  • Virtual Reality
    • The players are huge: Sony, Facebook, Samsung, Microsoft, Google.
    • Primary focus is gaming. But not for long…
    • Beyond audiovisual. into the realm of tactile experiences: you can feel it.
    • Social shopping: Go shopping together with my sister in NJ.
    • Travel: Experience places as if I was really there.
    • Interactive product views: How about buying a house, by walking through it virtually?
    • Virtual collaboration: be able to really feel like we’re in the same room.
    • Immersive, interactive education
    • Biomedical, surgical
  • Big Data
    • Big Data + Data Mining + Human Reasoning = Insight Generation
      • At the end of the day, we need humans to reason about the data.
      • Data scientists in so much demand.
      • But this won’t last for long.
    • Big Data + Artificial Intelligence & Algorithm Sophistication = Insight Generation
      • This is what’s coming.
      • This is like IBM’s Watson.
  • Artificial Intelligence
    • Semantic Models vs Deep learning
      • Deep learning is more powerful long term, but semantic models are what’s working now.
  • BMBI: Brain-machine-Brain interfaces
    • You can get a thought from one person to another person via a machine intermediation.
    • This could be use to fix neuro-degenerative diseases. Or to create a zombie army.
  • What do it mean to design for a total ecosystem that encompasses everything?
    • How do you draw wireframes when you have beacons, and multichannel experiences?
  • Experience Design: Top 5
    • 1) Ready adoption of digital fabrication by studios for rapid prototyping.
    • 2) Experience design of complete ecosystems.
      • Still some specialization, like her friend who designs haptic feedback systems.
    • 3) Active consideration of service, ethics, safety, wellbeing, privacy, legal implications.
      • If you go to Disney with a child, and ask the princess where the bathroom is, they bend down low and interact directly with the child. Because they know the experience means a lot to the kid. It’s not just a request for information, it’s an entire experience.
      • Google Occulas Rift roller coaster funny videos — it’s funny, but it’s a safety issue. People are falling over while trying to ride a roller coaster, because it’s so realistic.
    • 4) Evolve design practice approach, influence, business partner relationships
    • 5) Evaluate emerging technology yourself.
      • Go try VR, if you haven’t used it. Get familiar with it before its mainstream.
  • Design Research: Top 5
    • 1) Extensive field studies to identify moments that matter, evaluate triggers, unique customer journeys.
    • 2) Evolve usability testing practice to support novel interfaces and complete ecosystems.
      • A lot of times we test a website, or mobile.
      • But how do we test VR? How do we test an ambient system – we walk up, and something happens.
    • 3) Identify data collection approach for organizational learning – explicit, implicit.
    • 4) Validate big data findings and insights through design research and testing.
    • 5) Refine approaches for data presentation, business case creation and related strategic design approaches.