(applause)
- Hi.
Alright, let's see if
I can balance my notes.
Okay, this is gonna be
the culmination of tech
and physical hey.
Hi, I'm Kim McGuire.
I definitely don't know a lot of you.
I've definitely been out of the loop
ins Syndey for a wihle.
Looks like there's a lot of people
who are quite interested in XDA.
Everything which is fantastic.
Of course, yes, this is not the,
yeah, right okay.
Sorry, dual mics.
So yes, just repeating.
I am Kim McGuire.
I am a user experience designer
and service designer.
I'm currently working with Quantiss.
Is there a few Quantisses in the room?
Hey, that's right.
There they are.
And I just wanted to reiterate too
to Joe's point about
that mentoring program.
I had some brilliant mentors in the past.
One of whom probably doesn't know it
but he's in the room.
Ben Pectid, hey.
It's a really valuable
thing to have a good mentor
on your side.
Something like this, I think would be
a supremely valuable program if you guys
do get involved.
So I highly recommend it.
But without further ado,
let's get Digical.
This is a potentially
quite contentious topic.
How many people in the room are working
within a digital team,
a digital department?
Or a digital project?
Yeah?
How do you feel about the fact
that digital may or
may not actually exist?
Meh, hmm, okay.
Need some proof, altright, right.
Well this is what this is all about.
So we'll get set in.
Let's get digical.
So first things first.
We're gonna try to take a step,
a big step back
and look at the universe
according to science.
So firstly, yes these are
my dodgy sketch notes.
So please, if you're a
visual deisgner or employee
don't cry, alright?
I am not a visual diesigner,
these are not amazing
but they'll get the point across.
So hopefully that's okay.
I guess what I want to talk
a little bit about here
was the fact that the
universe is actually defined
by a couple of different things.
One of which is dimensionality.
It's a big nerdy way of
saying space and time.
So we've got three physical dimensions.
Basically the x, y, z plains, right?
So length, breadth and height.
We also have time, that's
the fourth dimension.
If you subscribe to super string theory,
big fan of Stephen Hawking, you'll know
that there's actually
more like 10 universes.
Or rather dimensions,
and that's basically all
stems around the concept
of the multiverse.
If you're a DC comics fan,
probably be riding on that as well.
But the other side of the coin
is around the laws of physics.
So this is all about
the actual natural laws
that govern our universe.
There's a few.
I'm not gonna go into
them in too much detail
cause as I mentioned in the notes
sort of describing this topic,
I've got like year 10 physics at best.
So there's no way that I
can give you a breakdown
of electrostatic laws,
and thermodynamic laws.
The laws of motion I think
most of us kinda get.
Things like gravity and momentum
and stuff like that.
But basically we've got all of these laws
that were essentially invented
by very, very smart physicists.
People like Albert
Einstein and Isaac Newton.
There's a gentleman by the name of,
I'm gonna forget this,
Charles Augustin Deauclaump as well
who invented one as well.
Probably not quite as famous as people
like Newton and Einstein.
But these guys are super smart.
And they have developed not theories,
although they started that way,
but laws.
That means that these things,
these models of the universe,
are not only reliable and accurate.
But they predict future outcomes.
That's pretty amazing.
So these are the things that govern
how our universe works.
Specifically from a
physical space point of view
but we'll also talk a
little bit about how to do
might be playing into that as well.
I guess what I'm really interested in here
is the fact that I have
started out in digital.
So I'm very much have that
digital and service design
background.
So service design being a
little bit more physical.
But recently I started
getting into spatial design.
I was really keen on exploring the concept
of interior architecture
and kind of what it meant
to design a space.
How do we use the UCD practice approaceh
to actually build out the interioir design
or the interior architecture of a room
or an eco-division space or a branch
of say a bank.
And it's actually quite interesting
cause the spatial design
paradigm or approach
is very similar if not
the same at a high level
to what we do in digital.
But there are some nuances
and we'll go into them in a second.
I don't want to get into
the good stuff just yet
but to kinda draw you in a little bit.
So we have a look at, I guess
what defines an eexperience
based on those laws of physics
and the dimensionality of the universe.
Really, what we've got is,
we'll start with truth.
And the laws of physics, being these laws
and predictable outcomes are truths.
We know these as fact.
Some of us may in fact interpret
them slightly differently.
There are people who are
very vocal who still believe
that the world is flat.
However, that's their interpretation.
That's their perspective,
their frame of reference,
their beliefs being
overlayed over those truths.
So that then create their reality.
Your reality, my reality,
little bit different.
The way that we're all interpreting
what I'm talking about now.
Some of you might be coming
at it as quite cynical
and you know, hey prove it to me,
I'm not gonna just believe you just yet.
It's not truth yet.
So even though we're
talking about kind of a,
experiencing the same event,
each of us is gonna
overlay perspective on that
and experience it slightly differently.
So that creates a different
reality for each of us.
When you look at reality and
then overlay sensory input,
so this is our, not just our perspective
but our perception.
That's when things get a
little bit interesting.
So as an example,
someone who is, say we
had someone dialing in
to tonight.
So they wouldn't be getting the visuals
but they would get the audio track.
We may also have someone who,
hi to the people playing at home.
There's a video recording by the way.
If there's someone watching
this video right now
or rather in the future,
they'll see the visual
and they'll see me talking.
But they won't get the
vibe of the camaraderie
in the room.
They won't feel the airconditioning,
they won't have a beer in
their hand necessarily.
So to feel that cool amber liquid
and the delicious nature of a beer.
So, you know, sorry to those of you
who are watching.
But yeah, it's one of the benefits
of being here, I guess.
But, all of those individuals,
given the fact that the
sensory inputs are different,
will have different
experiences of this event.
So bear with me.
It's probably important at this point then
to understand how that
impacts physical space
versus digital space.
But first things first, what
the hell is physical space?
How do we define that?
And that's probably a
really good place to start.
So what I wanted to,
just sort of give you a
bit of a backgrounding
at the moment is kind of what
I define physical space to be.
I've had a look.
I've done the whole google etymology of
of words and yes physical stems from
as you would expect, the latin, right?
Physicka.
And physicka really
means relating to nature.
It generally refers to things
that are real, authentic,
actual.
What are some of the
other words we've got?
Tangible and conrete.
But that doesn't really cover the breadth
of what physical really is.
I mean, you can't touch, hold air.
So it's not really tangible, is it?
You can kinda feel the effects of it.
You can see the effects of it.
It's not concrete.
So there's definitely physical entitites
that don't really,
it's not adequately
described by those words.
So I kinda looked a little bit
at shaping that definition.
And what I think physical is
is something that's governed
by the universe's dimensions.
So it has space, it has time.
And the laws of physics.
So our world truths.
Does that kind of sound reasonable, yeah?
I'm seeing some nods.
Okay, go with me on this.
But what the hell is digital?
This is gonna, losing.
I'm losing my tech, sorry.
I know.
Oh!
No!
See, this is (mumbling)
See, this is.
I can keep going, because this
is not just a digital thing,
right?
Okay
Back in 5,4,3,2,1.
Okay.
So I'll keep going.
So digital.
Can everyone hear me?
Alright, thanks.
So digital.
Is it goverened by the universe's
laws and dimensionality?
Anyone got a thought on that?
Does digital have space and time?
Yeah? Okay.
What about the laws of physics?
Yeah?
How so?
Things like motion.
You can see things, yeah?
Well, this is excellent.
Yes so this is a really interesting thing.
When you think of digital
as a sort of entity,
we very much describe,
basically it's kind of lights on a screen.
That's digital.
And what we forget sometimes
is actually that's housed
in a physical entity.
A physical device by a physical person
in a physical environment.
And that kind of gives
you the context, right?
And this is what we as user
experience practitioners
and as developers, as visual designers,
as all the different sort
of parts of the ecosystem
that produce digital assets.
This is what we really
need to be cognizant of.
I'm gonna keep going.
Yay! (clapping)
Thank you Joe.
So I guess to me, digital, potentially,
to your point, there are
definitely the physical aspects
of things that house digital.
But really the digital
stuff you see on screen,
it doesn't necessarily
have all of the dimensions
that we would normally expect
from the physical world
For example, if you see a box,
if you see this image
on the screen right now,
is it 2d or 3d?
2d, correct.
So it may look 3d, that
is the trick of the eye.
It is not sticking out from the screen.
It is in fact 2d.
So 3d representations of physical space
are represented in two dimensions.
So this is not 3d.
And therefore doesn't actually
have all of the dimensions
that would be associated with
traditional physical space.
So before I lose you,
cause this is starting to sort
of blow my mind a little bit.
Digital really is represented
by ones and zeros.
Kind of the core of what
digital stemmed from.
And that's actually apparently where,
possibly the word digital came from.
Digital again, latin,
came from the word digitus
which means finger or toe.
There's kind of ideas as to
what that actually means.
How did they get finger
or toe to mean digital?
We think, and this is hypotheses
but actually that represents
the ones and zeros.
So the way of counting back in the day.
You know, when calculators weren't around.
Maybe even before the abacus.
It was a concept of how
people might have counted.
On, off, correct.
So, have you seen this
presentation before?
(laughing) Okay, perfect.
Perfect, no, no ,no that's
great, that's great.
So yes, quite rightly, toggle on and off.
So it's sort of you got yes, no.
Right?
So that is what we kind of expect might be
the rationale behind the word digital.
But it's also the storage
of and record representation
of data, digital,
with a combination of
electricity and magnets.
So to the point of the
genteleman in front,
yes there's definitely physical principles
that underpin digital.
So digital, interestingly
enough obviously behaves
quite differently to physical space.
One example of that is in
potentially how we take
a journey from point A
to point B.
So physical space, I can
move from here to here.
That takes me some time, right?
And I can go, I can be in this
place at this point in time.
Now I'm in a different place
at a different point in time.
I can't be in two places really at once
unless you kind of are really
specific about how big I am
and how many points on the
earth's surface I'm taknig up.
Please don't do that.
But digital is very different
because we essentially
are using stargates.
Kind of mechanisms that allow us to zoom
form place to place in almost an instant.
The blink of an eye.
To move between information.
I can be on a banking website
and within one click of a link,
be on a telecommunication website.
Pretty amazing.
In fact, you can be in three
different places at once.
You can be in several different
places at once in digital.
A feat not yet mastered by physical space.
So there's some pretty amazing things
that we can do in digital, right?
Yeah, we are, like superman, that's right.
So back to the multiverse, it's good.
So underpinning all of
this digital space travel
is this concept of the fact that we got
electromagnetic principles,
underpinning how servers work
and all of that kind of jazz.
But ultimately all of that
digital representation of data
is used by a physical
person in a physical space
in a physical environment
with a physical device.
There's all these physical
that's sort of fixed
around it and actually facilitates
the use of that digital.
So when you design a website, actually,
that's kind of part of the equation.
So, I realize I've gotten like super nerdy
and I'm gonna
maybe get into a little bit
more of the sensory stuff.
So I just realized that.
You missed my callback diagrams.
So looking at senses.
So you know how we've mentioned before
about the interpretation
of the sensory inputs
that we have around us
influencing the way that
we eexperience things.
That's what this is all about.
So what I've tried to
do is kinda break down
the different sensory inputs
that someone might have
and yes we've got the typical senses.
Taste, smell, touch, you know
all of that kind of stuff.
But I've gone kind of a step further
to understand specifically
what are the characteristics
of each of those.
And how can we break those down
and almost put this
across this Venn diagram
of physical on one side
and digital on the other.
Yeah?
And what I found was
that the digital space
actually has no sensory inputs
that are unique to digital.
So there are a lot of
sensory inputs that are used
by digital.
But they are in that middle space
where they're actually also part
of the physical environment.
So this is where we
kind of start to evolve,
maybe the fact that maybe
digital doesn't really exist.
Actually it's digical,
which is a really wanky way
of saying, it is actually
digital but just make sure
you think about physical
space while you're doing it.
So physical space.
Taste, yes, definitey physical.
Smell, definitely physical.
Sound, definitely physical, yeah?
So we got things like tone.
So the actual sound that you hear.
We've got the duration of that sound.
They're both things that are encompassed
by physical space and online.
So digital, you can have
tone and you can have
the duration of sound played through
an online application, website, whatever.
But, the one thing
around sound that doesn't
really go well on digital
is the position of origin.
So if you close your eyes,
everyone close your eyes, come on.
Audience participation.
I've got a laser pointer,
I can point you out.
Ready, okay.
I'm gonna say something.
Obviously I'm at the mic right now.
I want you to point to me
when you think you know where I am.
Alright guys, where am I?
Okay, now open your eyes.
Right?
Ben picked it.
You've got a problem.
Okay, fair enough, fair enough.
Okay, so it's even a bit
fudgy in physical space,
am I hearing you?
So you kinda got that, right though?
So that's something that
you wouldn't necessarily get
in digital.
You'd hear not where
the position of origin
of that sound was,
but where it's coming from
from the digital device.
Again you kinda lose that context.
Digical.
So we've got there.
We've covered up the sound component.
We've got sight as well.
So obviously there's quite a
lot of things that we can do
with sight.
In fact, there's not a lot
that's sort of not shared
between the two.
We've got the size and shape and pattern.
All of the things that visual designers
will be able to tell you
the multitude of things
that factor into sight.
And yes they play out
in both physical space
and in digital.
But touch, touch is an interesting one.
And I think touch, you
will probably touch on
a little bit of this in
her wearables bit as well.
So nice little segue.
Touch is a relly interesting one.
Cause we are sort of
getting to the point now
where touch is relevant to digital.
Right?
So it's specifically when you
look at things like wearables.
And even the haptic
response of your keyboard
when you are typing
is a physical response.
But the interesting thing about that
is that with the haptics,
so the way that say your Apple watch,
yeah you could do with a pressure,
a little bit of a love tap
when you've got a notification.
That is absolutely touch in
kind of digital form-ish.
But there's a lot that we lose out on
that are only available in physical space.
Texture, temperature, so far.
What else have we got?
There's loads.
Density, weight, materiality.
If you feel jeans versus
cotton versus silk.
They're all things that
are much physical space
design tools.
And they definitely factor
into that spatial design,
structural design, industrial
design sort of work
that we get to do.
So what does that
actually mean for digical?
Digical, and I'm gonna
recert to saying digital
cause it's just so much easier,
has actually done a hell of a lot for us.
And the reason being that,
the digital elements, the UI, all of that
kind of technological stuff
that sort of underpins
a lot of physical stuff we have,
actually has a dramatic
effect on how we live
as humans.
So as an example, we now have fridges
that will do your online shopping.
We have cameras that while you're out
at the grocery store, you can check to see
if milk's running low.
It's pretty amazing.
We've got logistics and retail
have been revolutionized by the concept
of just in time delivery.
So warehousing costs have gone down
which means that ultimately
the cost to the consumer
has also gone down.
So there's some pretty dramatic changes
around how technology
impacts various industries.
But always within the confines of a
sort of a physical
industry or physical space.
So it's kind of augmenting physical space
or transcending the
barriers of physical space.
We are able to communicate with people
10,000 miles away in real time.
I have spoken to my parents on Skype,
when it's three in the morning for them.
I did apologize, but hey that's alright,
we learned.
And that was pretty amazing.
So while I was in London,
I could have conversations
with them to keep in touch.
Just, it's pretty incredible.
This is all so new and so wonderful.
It's helping us build relationships
and it's helping us to grow communities.
We've got examples where, you know,
Marty Mcfly would be super proud of cars
that drive themselves.
And hoverboards, you know,
it's a thing, it's a thing.
Getting there.
We've got banking.
But you can get money out from an ATM
with your fingerprint.
Pretty amazing.
And there is, there are doctors in London
who can take out your
appendix in Australia
using buttons, a hi-res
monitor and joystick.
Right?
So there's, it's not quite on medicare yet
but the technology is there.
But at the same time,
that same technology,
for better or worse, is used in drones
for neutralizing threats overseas.
Which, there's positives.
We're potentially saving lives.
But at the same time
the flipside of that is
that that technology can
also be used in the reverse.
So it kind of has that
potential to take the humanism
out of conflict.
And whether or not you subscribe to
the positives or negatives
of drones in the military,
it's a pretty dramatic change
from what we had before.
Pilot risk is dramatically
reduced as well.
So there's definitely positives.
So that's kind of digical.
But,
what is the power of digical?
It has the power to make our world bigger
and smaller at the same time.
Pretty amazing.
And by that I mean that we have grown
the boundaries of our
universe, our known universe
through space travel.
We have the ability now to potentially
give lots and lots of
money and get a flight
on a rocket if you really wanted to.
I would suggest buying
a house but you know,
that's just me.
We've got the ability now
to internationally travel.
We have made the world so small,
so easy to get around.
And so accessible, so
cost-effective, so efficient.
Those things have changed dramatically
because of technology.
We are able to get access to
seemingly infinite data online.
And there's a lot of power in that.
There's a lot of stuff we
kind of can't even perceive
because it's too much.
But at the same time, there's instant news
through social media, through a variety
of different channels now.
In fact, when,
I got a house in Brisbane.
And in the Brisbane floods of 2011,
I actually found out that
that was all happening
while I was in Sydney at work.
And the way that I found out that my house
had been affected was through Youtube.
Someone had posted a video of my street
and panned across and I saw
a pool in my front yard.
And that's when I knew.
Right, time to go home.
Hopped a plane, and busted a move
straight over there.
But that's stuff that I wasn't getting
through traditional channels.
So technology is pretty incredible.
And it has the power to
dramatically change lives.
We also have relationships
that can be made
or break, or broken
by technology.
So you post a status and
you build relationships
or potentially you turn them down.
So there's a lot of power
in that communication.
And for people who have access needs,
it is a really powerful tool as well.
So again it opens their universe.
It gives them access to things that
in the physical space
may be more challenging.
But only if we support it.
So I cannot, I cannot stress this enough.
But we need to put so much more of a focus
on making inclusive design
so much more integral
in what we do.
Because it is for this reason
that people with access needs
or maybe not, not able to
access information and tools
in the same way that people
without access needs are.
But really, we got the
power to change that.
We've got the technology.
So why aren't we using it?
So that's one of the things
that I want you to take away
is the fact that broadening our horizons
in terms of our audiences
and making sure that
we support access needs
is a great way of taking the
technology that exists now
and really optimizing for it.
So making sure that we
are doing our very best
to make these things
available to everyone.
And why is that?
Well, and this is the last slide
so we've got a little
bit of time for questions
if anyone will ask them later.
We, humans are designed to change.
We adapt based on stimulus.
So the things that happen around us
are likely to change
our frame of reference,
our expectations, our needs, our contexts,
what we believe, how important things are.
All of that, and that has the
power to change us as humans.
But, the really interesting
thing about that
is once those expectations
and needs and contexts
are changed,
so too does the problem space.
And so we design.
We as humans design.
But when we design, what happens?
We then change again
the way that we interact with things.
We change the interaction paradigms
and the way that people
perceive information.
And therefore we change human evolution.
Which is pretty massive, right?
It's quite interesting because I guess
one of the, I think a
really nice example of this,
maybe a very small example
is the fact that my mom's cousin
got in touch with me on Facebook,
wanted to be my friend,
and bless her little heart.
I didn't really know how
to tell a distant relative
that I didn't particularly want
photos of me doing Jaeger shots in a bar
and snogging the Swedish
backpacker down the road.
Probably wasn't really for her, right?
And just to be clear that
didn't actually happen,
that's sort of an anecdote
that I finessed a little bit
so you don't really
know too much about me.
(laughing)
But that ettiquette, right?
That was developed out of digital.
That didn't exist before.
I would have been quite happy
to tell my relationships
status to friends and family
in incremental fashion
as the concentric circles
of my friends and family
got sort of less and less
important, really I guess.
You start with the most
important people to you.
You tell them information and you kind of
trickle out from there.
That's traditionally how it's worked.
But now, you've got a,
it's not official until
it's on Facebook, right?
So once you're not single,
you update your status.
And everyone including
the acquaintance you met
from a random job 15 months ago
knows that you are now off the market.
But I don't know, it just seems like
that's such an unusual way
when you look at it like that.
But that's a thing now.
So this digital ettiquette that's evolved
out of the fact that
we are using technology
that has been built for us
in new ways.
It's shaping our communities.
It's shaping our social norms.
And I guess what I wanted
to kind of get across
with this concept of physical and digital
is that
really what we're doing when we design
is we're not just shaping a website.
We're not just building a tool.
We're not just building
a flow of information.
Actually what we're doing
is changing the way that people interact
with your service.
Potentially that means,
if you're, say using best practice
or sort of competitive, in
line with competitive industry.
Then you're perpetuating behaviors.
If you are an innovator
or if you're deliberately
trying to disrupt,
then you are dramatically
changing things for people.
I guess if we're a little
bit maybe more cognizant
of how our specific design elements
affect the way that people
perceive every other digital
offering out there.
I mean it's quite an interesting problem
that we're really trying
to solve, isn't it?
It's not just about creating
a singel digital entity.
What we're doing is
dramatically changing the way
that people interact with
digital more generally.
Whether it be Pinterest or the device
or the wearable and the physical space
and all of that kind of stuff.
And an example of that,
just to sort of sum up,
I guess is,
if you have ever used a west facing ATM?
Yeah, maybe you don't recognize
that as a west facing one
but you probably do about
halfway through the afternoon.
When you've got a,
uh, can I see?
The light hits it, right?
So this is an example of
where physical and digital
coming together, the digital
interface is probably
been designed, isolated
from that particular spot
as a general ATM interface.
But actually, because it's in that spot
with that sun at that point in time,
the individual has significant
trouble using that.
So the usability of it
is very much affected
by physical space and time.
That's it.
So thank you.
(applause)
Thanks.
(man mumbling)
- running around.
Start over here and start sweeping
and see if anybody's
got a question for Kim.
It was a very,
actually it's quite like
a tiny little simple idea
but it took a good half hour
to get the head wrapped in.
It really communicated well.
(mumbling)
So does anyone have a question about this
new merging of.
It would have to be a person
at the very end of the room.
But this merging of digital and physical.
- [Voiceover] So interesting,
when you talk about access issues
and things like that.
I'm aware that it affects
aspects of society.
I'm really interested in your thoughts
on how that affects those people's lives
and what could be done then.
- [Voiceover] And by access
you mean accessibility
(man mumbling)
- [Voiceover] Also the
building perspective
you were talking about
was a pretty good one.
- Nice, I'm really glad
you asked that actually.
Access means obviously,
and not just sight.
And that's probably the traditional one
that we kind of think about in digital.
Mostly because that's probably the most
commonly used sense when
looking at our audiences.
However, access needs
are cognitive, physical,
sensory, emotional.
There's actually quite
a lot of different types
of access needs that exist.
In fact all of us are on the specturms
of every one of those.
Not all of us have perfect 20/20 vision.
If i take these bad
boys off, I have no idea
who you all are.
But I have an aid that
helps me out, right?
In some cases there are access needs that
there's just not an aid that
is able to support that.
Or there's an aid that they have,
for example a screen reader
if you're looking at a site.
Ample captioning if you've
got a hearing impairment.
So then there are technological
tools that can be used
to improve the way that they perceive
that information.
That's very much a digital thing.
Physical space, absolutely same issue.
So with physical space,
there's better governance
and more specific requirements
around what access needs a physical space
needs to have.
Mostly in commercial and public.
Residential is not quite so much governed.
But it's very much a,
I think what physical
space does really well
is there are quite a lot of very
measurable tangible requirements
like the gradient on a ramp.
There is actually a rule around how
that gradient needs to work.
What the maximum gradient is
in terms of sort of
the level of steepness.
(man mumbling)
Beg your pardon?
There you go, perfect.
And a lot of people
actually know what that is.
But in digital, maybe
it's a little bit harder.
We've got wickhead guidelines, phenomenal.
But everywhere that I've ever worked,
people have had a little bit of trouble
understanding what that
actually means to them,
how to interpret those.
And because the technology is so evolving,
it is actually really hard
to figure out the best way
to do something.
So yes, I think physical space
is probably very much
more governed and more supported.
But we can get there
with digital, I think.
So hopefully, if all
of us can band together
and get our accessibility on,
we can crack through that.
Does that answer your question dear?
- [Voiceover] Any more questions?
Thank you Kim.
(applause)
