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Technology design for usability
in everyday life
Ana C. Andrés del Valle
Accenture Technology Labs
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Introduction
Our technology R&D approach
Healthcare: The Persuasive Mirror
Corporate collaboration: Accenture Distributed Network project
Entertainment: the novel TV experience
Discussion
Outline
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The engineer approach …
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… versus the designer approach
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The prototype
The testing application
Healthcare:
The Persuasive Mirror
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Approach
Study of the concept of captology
Analyze the user scenario to prove the hypothesis
Develop the prototype to prove that the idea is feasible
Cooperate with external medical entity to rethink the approach from a clinical test perspective
Results
A firm verification that the technology solution is feasible
Uncertainty about the usability of the mirror prototype
And scientific support to continue exploring the captologyapproach to the healthcare challenge
The approach and the results healthcare
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Corporate collaboration
Accenture Distributed Collaboration Network
7 Whitespace
ACCT – Ice T
Advanced Sharing Interfaces
Multiple HDVC
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Results
High-definition VC is mainstream and encouraged by CIO regardless of well
humans are using it. No more work in optimizing it but effort in adopting it
White space prototype development was stopped. Accenture does not focus
on collocated work, difficult to set testing environment beyond the labs
Accenture Coordination and Collaboration Tool was tested but not deployed
Ice T was tested and it is currently deployed as beta waiting for CIO support to
develop version 1.0
The approach and the results
$125,000
cost
red
uct
ion
per
per
son
/per
ye
ar
positively impacted productivity (# employees) 180,000
Level of impact(savings/person versus people impacted)
$257,000 yr
cost
mai
nte
nan
ce o
f eq
uip
men
t
# people hosted in the environment
+501 3 10
Level of impact (cost versus capacity)
corporate collaboration
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Entertainment
The Novel TV Experience
To develop of cross platform Web2TV consumer experiences
Reinvigorate the TV
as a marketing channel
To bring forward the uniqueness of the TV-user context
Synchronizing Web
and TV useKelly’s new car…
Chat
(time shifted) Feed AggregationDual channel experience. User goes to Xsync.com and gets a synchronized experience on both TV and PC.
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Approach
Market study of novel technologies
Discussions with Accenture clients in the media and entertainment industry
Discussion with Accenture industry teams to understand their positioning in the market. We found new angled that had not explored
Designed and developed technical prototypes that exemplify those angles
Results
Two fully working prototypes that enable us further testing on the technical side (scalability) and human side (usability)
The approach and the results entertainment
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Better one technico-usability approach than none
I have not been able to use a single universal approach
The technical requirements constrain the usability testing possibilities
In corporate research, a usability strategy should be defined from the start and never neglected, no matter what
Conclusion
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“On Academic Knowledge Production”Jon Kolko
Interactions Café. ACM interactions Vol XII.5 (Sept+Oct 2010)
Thank you
Any questions?