My Comments On… “Google Glass could enhance the High Street experience but what else can it offer brands?”

I recently supplied a few quotes to The Drum on how Google Glass can be used by brands as a marketing tool. The full article can be read on The Drum with full commentary from the editorial team, my quotes are below.

Joel Blackmore, senior innovation manager, Somo, described Glass as “an ultra-personal device” and claimed that it meant delivering “appropriate content is more important than ever before.”He added; “The simplest thing a brand can do to use Glass as a marketing tool is to find a way to deliver brilliant and relevant content” to users.

 

“The New York Times has already produced a good example of this with its Glass app. I’d encourage brands to start experimenting with the Glass technology to understand the best ways to deliver their content to users in an appropriate fashion.

 

“Using Glass and having content pop up in your field of vision takes some getting used to, so having unwanted advertising content would be even more disconcerting right now. Putting the right branded content onto the Glass screen is more important than advertising for brands at the moment.”

There you go, shocker! Content is more important than advertising for a brand to remain relevant to a consumer. We’ve known this for a long time, Glass just confirms this once again.

Has the Role of the Google Glass Designer Reverted Towards an Art Director and Copywriter?

Will the lack of standard options throw the digital designer?

I recently ran a Google Glass hack day where ~40 developers and designers were tasked with pioneering new creative uses for Google Glass. One of my favourite parts of the day was when I briefly caught up with the head of design and I asked how his team was doing. He said to me that his input as a designer using the mirror API was limited and often his design choices were reduced to choosing an image, a few words, maybe an icon or two, and the use of colour to get his key message across. This made me question: is the role of the Glass designer more similar to a traditional art director and copywriter than it is to a digital designer?

Google Glass currently only let’s you design content through the Mirror API where only cards of images, copy, icons, and colours are permitted. As Glass places content directly into your field of vision, choosing the right content is essential to stay relevant and therefore installed. This means the choice of image, copy, and iconography is more important than ever before and a designers role is now more to choose the perfect image, write (or work with someone to write) the perfect short form copy, and use iconography and colour in significant, meaningful ways on the tiny real estate.

Designing for the Glass Mirror API calls for considered, concise design choices. Whilst designing for a smartphone app could be compared to writing a blog post, with room for flourish and explanation, designing for Glass is like composing the perfect tweet, say only what is relevant with minimal media attached to get your point across in a couple of seconds.

#IgotGlassed – My first impressions using Google Glass

We’ve just got our hands on one of two Glass units here at Somo. I’ve had a bit of a play around and thought I would jot down some initial impressions seeing as no one on the internet is talking about Glass…

How does it feel?

Weird. Low-res. High-up in my field of vision. A wee bit sparse. Feels like Google Now for your face. Using it feels ok when you get used to it, but I imagined it to fit into my routine seamlessly so I could stroll along checking out the latest NYT stories – not so, it is very distracting when viewing content and I wouldn’t consider it sensible or safe to carry on your daily business.

Do you like what it looks like?

What. A. Dick.

Do you? I think it looks like a computer on your face, and when the screen is on it looks like your devil-eyes glow red. However, in saying this, I am getting more and more used to seeing it around the office now. I think it looks like a great v1. It really makes this Wired article on wearable tech needing fashion to thrive make a lot more sense.

** EDIT

The ’tilt head up to switch on’ manoeuvre is both ridiculous and hilarious (when other people are doing it, not me). You can’t really use it purely without your hands. At some point you need to touch it, which is annoying seeing as it’s on my face.

How easy is it to use? #speechdetection

It is easy. Even new gestures are pretty simple. The only thing that isn’t that ‘easy’ to use is the speech detection – it’s as good as any Google speech detection, it’s pretty good, but quite a few times it picked up what I was saying incorrectly. Also, it was a surprise to me to get generic search results through when asking Glass to ‘find me a hotel’. I was served with the full search result (not sure if it was PPC or not) including such inspiring copy as “Find cheap hotels, discount hotels and last minute hotel deals at LateRooms.com – theHotel Offers Experts. Book hotels & make hotel reservations online or by ...”. Not cool.

I’m using a shared Glass so have only used a few apps. NYT is pretty impressive as it seems to suit the use case of ‘give me small headline snippets of content’ and it reads them aloud to you so that you don’t focus on the screen for more than a couple of seconds.

**EDIT

The speech detection is pretty annoying actually. Lots wrong. It also reminds me why being conversational, like Siri, or Chrome’s recent conversational search, is important. When asked “how old is Obama?” it told me the correct answer. When I asked “how old is his wife?” it didn’t even register that I was trying to talk with it.

Overall…

It’s fun, new, innovative, unique, but a little limited at the moment. This will no doubt evolve into something really useful over the next year, it just very much seems like a v1 product. If Google had given these units out for free, or very cheap, then it would be awesome and completely worth it, however, paying $1,500 for one at the moment isn’t hugely worthwhile.

Will this replace my mobile? No chance. Our phones are really sophisticated, powerful devices that offer everything from 10 times a day utility, through to Plants Vs Zombies. My iPhone offers me far too many rich, thoroughly thought-out, reliable experiences that I fear Glass, or wearable tech sans-smartphone, will take years to match. I see Glass as a very ‘top-level’ gadget – something to give you a snapshot of info – where phones will remain the device of choice for longer, more in-depth experiences.

Rapid prototyping Google Glass – by an experience designer in Google’s X team

Google are starting to talk a lot about Glass, releasing a video yesterday entitled How It Feels [through Glass].

 

This reminded me of a great video by Tom Chi, an experience designer in Google’s X team, explaining how quickly they created prototypes for Glass.

via Only Dead Fish

 

It’s tempting to think that the prototyping for a project such as Google Glass would have been a complex, lengthy process lasting months if not years but this short, charming talk from Tom Chi (experience designer in the Google X team) gives a fascinating insight into how their process of creation was greatly accelerated through rapid prototyping. The first prototype was built in an hour using coat hangers, a tiny projector and a piece of plexiglass. Subsequent prototypes took even less time and used materials as diverse as paper, clay, modelling wire, chopsticks and hairbands. From these models they were able to glean useful insights into the social awkwardness of gesture controls which led to them dropping fetaures which had been thought integral. As Chi says, “Doing is the best kind of thinking”. Fascinating.