Next Simplicity
Next Simplicity - Royal Philips Electronics
Not since Vision of the Future has an exploratory design project received so much attention. How did Next Simplicity come about?
"The starting point was to develop a common understanding of what simplicity is," says Marion Verbücken, responsible for project coordination and content direction. "You may still strive for very advanced solutions, as long as you reduce the effort required to operate them. Or if you have very basic, single-function products, the challenge is to enhance the experience associated with these products.After all, the existing light bulb could hardly be simpler; you flick a switch and get light. We examined how to retain simplicity while broadening the scope, which is, for example, how we arrived at 'ledbulbs' that change color."
"There is enormous diversity in the Philips portfolio," continues Bertrand Rigot, also involved in project coordination and content direction, "from mono functional items, such as toasters to multi-functional systems such as media centers. We aimed at embedding simplicity at all levels. That is why we treated Next Simplicity as a collection, ensuring a balance between basic but also more advanced product concepts."
New codes of simplicity
Central to the project was defining the new codes of simplicity; not just the look and feel of an object, but also its behavior. "Take, for example, a mobile phone," says Verbücken. "You could design it so, held vertically, it is a phone, held horizontally it automatically becomes a camera, and flipped over it turns into an MP3 player.And each time users will only be confronted with the features relevant to that particular function."
Gesture-based operation
Gestural interaction is a recurring theme in Next Simplicity. For instance, instead of a remote control for a television there is a 'magic wand'.You scroll through on-screen content by waving the wand up and down, left and right, clock wise and counter clock wise. These kinds of gestures are extremely logical, easy to remember, and - unlike pressing buttons on a 57 key remote - distinct for a particular function. "You hardly need a user guide at all for any of the concepts," says Verbücken.
Another important aspect in the project was to address not only the rational but also the emotional. "Rational benefits are easier to quantify, such as faster response time or increased memory," says Verbücken. "But emotions are also crucial. You put a lot more of yourself in a written letter than you do in an e-mail. We wanted to address rational values, making things more understandable, as well as emotional values in the form of rich and enhanced product responses such as magical surprise effects, color changes, glowing lights, subtle movements, etc. Emotional values make objects behave more humanly."
Work on Next Simplicity started in January 2005, with an analysis of all the available research material.A great deal of dedicated web-based research was carried out, including competitor analysis and checking out relevant blogs. Roadmaps from the various Philips businesses have been gathered and visualized. Personas were used, though in a different way than usual. "Because the scope of the project was so broad, addressing all product divisions, we have concentrated on examining mass shared values and needs, rather than specific individual values and needs, as well as keeping diversity within" says Rigot. "By 'diversity' we mean gender, age, marital status, attitude towards technology, areas of interests etc.We always started by examining what makes sense in people's lives before puzzling over how we bring the solution to life."
A multidisciplinary team
The number of people involved in the project grew as it progressed. For approximately the first month it was just Verbücken and Rigot, collecting background data, creating tools, developing a framework, and defining the themes for the concept creation. Then followed another month of more or less non-stop brainstorming with a multi-disciplinary team of 8 people from Philips Design to define initial ideas. Somewhere in the region of 600 ideas were hatched for possible Next Simplicity concepts.
The key ingredients from the original framework were used as selection criteria to determine whether proposals were 'Philips fit', exhibited mass-market behavior or had the potential for growth, were meaningful and relevant for people, were focused on ease of use and pleasure and above all gave a positive feeling of addressing new codes of simplicity.
Once it became clear which ideas would be followed up, and then matured by a team of 25 designers, more than 50 people from Philips Applied Technologies helped develop the working models.All in all, approximately 120 people participated."We put product designers and interface designers together, so they could discuss, challenge each other's input, and come up with genuinely clever proposals that balanced physicality and interaction," says Rigot. "In fact, this was a feature of the project."
Inspirational provocation
"It was not the intention of Next Simplicity to come up with exact product proposals but to create inspirational propositions.This is why we needed a healthy distance from the business during the creation process. Otherwise we could not create a communication tool provocative enough to inspire the organization.
However, the data we gathered at the start ensured we stayed on track, and that the provocation was to be appropriate to the business," says Rigot. "Next Simplicity is a starting point, not an end in itself," adds Verbücken.
Because the project scope was looking three to five years ahead, the solutions proposed are similar to the products of today. There are many known typologies such as a television, remote control and electric kettle. "It was more a matter of how than what," says Verbücken. "We didn't create completely new paradigms; we chose to make known paradigms much simpler and/or more pleasurable."
Another feature of the Next Simplicity concepts, shown for the first time during September's Simplicity Event in Paris, is that they are all experiential models.Visitors can experience and interact with them. "The focus is on the usability, functionality and interaction, so we knew which aspects to demonstrate and which to leave out," says Rigot. "For instance, we mocked up the interface on the Air Tree air purifier, but didn't engineer it to actually purify air, because that isn't relevant in the context of the demonstration (since people would not really notice at the exhibition if the air would become cleaner)."
A successful launch
The launch was a runaway success, with more than 90% of the analysts, press, customers, Philips people and other visitors in Paris ranking Next Simplicity as 'very positive'. People from different Philips product divisions became enthusiastic and even started coming up with their own ideas after seeing it," says Verbücken. "The project also proves that design is a potent tool in marketing & strategy, and can also stimulate new business creations."
"Such projects are so enriching for those involved, that more people in the organization should be given the chance to participate," she concludes.
It looks like her wish will come true. A new collection of Next Simplicity concepts is under discussion for 2006, meanwhile the current collection is soon to hit the road with a traveling exhibition to spread the message worldwide.
What is Next Simplicity?
Next Simplicity was intended to be a tangible and inspirational way of communicating the brand promise for the coming three to five years. There were five themes: care, glow, play, share and trust. Together they covered all the Philips divisions; a true One Philips initiative. For each theme, approximately four concepts were created and shown as working models. Each was characterized by exceptionally straightforward operation, with an almost total absence of buttons and switches. According to Andrea Ragnetti, Philips Chief Marketing Officer, Next Simplicity is "an exploration of a vision for simplicity, all the time keeping end-user insights, technological innovations and sociological trends at the center of our thinking."
Gerard Kleisterlee, President and Chief Executive Officer of Philips commented: "Our Simplicity Event marks a real milestone in the transformation of Philips into a truly market-driven company. Many companies recognize the role of design-led innovation. But we at Philips have gone one step further with a special differentiator in this area: we believe in simplicity-led design. We have focused and refined our thinking on design-led innovation and the result is simplicity-led design, which is our springboard to even greater innovation."
January 25, 2006 at 08:09 PM in Web 2.0 | Permalink
| TrackBack (23)
| Top of page
| Blog Home
