Razorfish + Emerging Experiences

We’ve been very busy since the Windows Phone 7 Series experience launch in Spain, and there’s plenty more excitement over the next couple of weeks. We will be announcing the Razorfish Vision Framework at this year’s SxSW Interactive Conference. We have created a prototype application that is a mixture of Augmented Reality and Multi-touch called RockstAR and will be showcasing it at the Razorfish hosted cocktail party on Saturday the 13th at the Paradise bar. Come by and augment your reality!

Also …

Below is a quick list of the conferences we’re at in March. Please let us know if you are also attending and we’ll make sure you get a chance to check out our experiences.

• GDC 2010 (March 9-13, SanFran) - Lesley just returned from San Francisco, CA where we helped Microsoft showcase the WP7S experience in their Game Developers Conference booth.
• SxSW 2010 Interactive (March 12-15, Austin) - We’re hosting a panel on the 12th, please come interact with us as we discuss “Touch + The Holy Grail of Delight” at 2pm http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/6124. We are also launching a fun new AR experience for the Razorfish cocktail party. Finally we will be at the Microsoft Speakeasy event showcasing the WP7S experience.
• MIX10 (March 15-17, Vegas) - @stevedawson and @hulljon will be attending the conference. The WP7S experience will also be making an appearance … with updated content!
• CTIA (March 22-25, Vegas) - WP7S experience will be out in force at this international wireless conference.

A quick thanks to all the peeps that helped out with RockstAR:

• Steve - @stevedawson
• Luke - @lhamilton
• Alex - @alexn
• Dung - @dungtienle
• Sara - @saragiessen
• Heather - @heathergately
• Jonathan - @hulljon

1:13pm (+1 GMT) - Day 2, Mobile World Congress. Video of Albert Shum, Director of Mobile Experience Design at Microsoft, using the multi-touch experience built by Razorfish as a tool to explain some of the thinking that Microsoft put into the user interface. Razorfish partnered with the Microsoft team to deliver multi-touch experiences which emulate a Windows Phone 7 Series device. The experience is deployed on multiple 40″ multi-touch displays at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

As part of our rapid prototyping process we will sometimes shoot quick little videos to share with our clients - its easier than hauling equipment all over the country ;). This video was shot on one of our 55″ multi-touch displays for the Windows Phone team just before heading over to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Customers are being faced with increasingly complex buying decisions, especially when it comes to technology and services. As a result, increased pressure is being placed on store associates to provide knowledgeable service to customers. Our Emerging Experiences team used this opportunity to develop a solution to demonstrate how an immersive interactive experience can assist customers and store associates with complex buying decisions in a retail setting.

The Razorfone solution is focused around providing an experience where customers can learn about wireless products. Phone and netbook features and associated wireless plans are presented in a rich interactive environment. Accessories are presented to the customer as a cross-sell opportunity. The use of 3D allows for customers to view their device in any color and from any angle, regardless of availability of the physical device within the retail store. The customer can validate the wireless coverage where they live, work and play through the use of the interactive coverage map using simple pan and zoom gestures. Customers can personalize their device after purchase with ringtones, games and applications through the use of QR technology, increasing sales and helping to eliminate buyers remorse.

As the complexity of technology and service offerings increases, training store associates on these products and services can be expensive and ineffective. In addition, the turnover rate in retail can have a negative effect on the number of knowledgable store associates. In an assisted-sales scenario, the store associates can focus on being brand ambassadors while the experience provides the information the customer needs to make informed decisions about the wireless products.

Watch the above video as we walk you through the Razorfone experience. We’d love to hear your feedback!

Our team has developed an application built on the new Razorfish Touch Framework called Razorfashion. It demonstrates how we believe retailers can meet shoppers growing expectations for more engaging digital experiences in-store and provide a consistent, integrated experience across the multi-channel shopping ecosystem.

Watch the above video as we walk you through the Razorfashion experience.

See it. Love it. Share it. Find it.

model photo credit: *katanaz-stock

Extending social experiences to the digital out-of-home and retail environment is a growing trend. One of the advantages of Microsoft Surface over other technologies is supporting engaging social experiences. The table-top form-factor and massively multi-touch input (more than 52 concurrent touches) lends itself well to support multi-user social interaction. Here are some of the ways we have used Microsoft Surface to support social experiences.

At the 2008 Razorfish Client Summit, the Seattle office created a social experience that allowed attendees to place their badge on Surface to enter a raffle for a free XBOX and bid on guitar signed by the “fifth Beetle” George Martin. In addition, attendees could form connections between eachother using the Surface table - as connections were made, behind-the-scenes we would e-mail each attendee the other person’s contact information. The client summit experience was extended for the Razorfish Atlanta Open House. Badges were tagged and guests congregated around the table to exchange information and connect with people that shared similar interests.

Recently our friends in the Neue Digitale / Razorfish in Germany created a social application for the Microsoft Xtopia conference named “Event Connect” that allowed attendees to access their Facebook account on Surface. Users could exchange photos of the event and send friend requests to eachother within the experience. This same experience was recently re-skinned by the Austin office and featured at the 2009 Razorfish SXSW party.

The Amnesia Razorfish office in Australia printed Surface tags on their business cards . When placed on Surface, these cards can access a variety of social feeds, including blog posts, Twitter updates and photos from Flickr. Check out video of the application here.

A childhood favorite – Table Toss - is transformed using Microsoft Surface technology. Like the old fashioned game, Surface Table Toss involves players taking turns at tossing a bean bag towards a target. However, in this version, the target is a bulls-eye created on a very expensive table (Note: No Surface tables were injured in the making of this game). Scoring is determined by the distance of each bean bag from the center bulls-eye. Each bean bag contains a unique Microsoft Surface tag to associate the score to each player. The combination of a baseball theme and photo-realistic particle effects creates a one-of-a-kind experience on Surface. While this game is fun for the whole family, we do not recommend throwing other items at the table, even if you lose.

Ever wonder what your co-worker three cubes over did last weekend? Our friends at Amnesia Razorfish in Australia made it easy to find out with a Microsoft Surface staff directory application. The application uses Surface tags printed on all Amnesia Razorfish business cards to show extra information about employees such as blog posts, tweets and Flickr photos. Recommended for business purposes only, not for spying on your coworkers.

With an abundance of plan and phone choices, shopping for cell phone service can require a lot of time. However, this award-winning in-store solution streamlines the sales process by enabling customers to make informed decisions around wireless technologies. The solution combines Microsoft Surface technology with an innovative and engaging user interface. It is the first Surface application to be deployed and remains the largest deployment to date (50 tables in 12 stores).

Check out the video walkthrough of the AT&T Retail Surface Experience above. We provide an in-depth walkthrough of the experience and cover some of the environmental, user experience and technology considerations when developing applications for the Microsoft Surface platform.