Plastic Mobile Success in San Diego at the Mobile Shopping Summit

Mobile Shopping Spring Summit 2012

From our luxury press release on Tuesday in Toronto and New York City, to our presence and presentation at San Diego’s Mobile Shopping Spring Summit, this week has been a flurry of cross-continent activity for Plastic.

For the Mobile Shopping Spring Summit in San Diego this week, Plastic Mobile took our Candy Shop on the road to spread the word about retail’s new store front – mobile! For the second time since Dx3, the Candy Shop has been a success. Mobile Shopping Spring Summit attendees left the candy shop with an insightful message, and a serious sugar high. Attendee’s flew in from across the continent and a few of our fellow Canadians from Beyond the Rack, Montreal, and Central1CU, Vancouver, joined us in the not-so-sunny San Diego. Locals assured us their weather is normally more balmy, but at least bad weather is always a good ice breaker!

Also at the Summit, our president, Melody Adhami, spoke in an impact-full presentation on making mobile UX count. Read the article in Mobile Marketer.

Plastic Mobile and Luxury Institute: How the Wealthy are Using Mobile to Shop Luxury Brands from Plastic Mobile on Vimeo.

Award-winning mobile marketing agency, Plastic Mobile, recently partnered with the independent, New York City based Luxury Institute in a study to learn more about how wealthy consumers are using their mobile devices and luxury brand applications.

Watch our video of the findings and learn how mobile is set to change the luxury brand retail landscape by working to enhance the in-store experience.

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

Instagram has been around for over a year, and in that time has built up a substantial user base (over 40 million). However, with its recent release on the Andoid platform, and the current buzz surrounding this app, that user base is sure to grow.

That’s why I chose now to hop on the Instagram band wagon and try out this super app formyself.

The Gist of It
Simply put, Instagram is a social network for photo enthusiasts. Users can take photos, add filters, include geo tag captions and then have their photos posted for other Instagram users to like or comment on. They can also share their photos on other popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous and Foursquare. What makes Instagram so special is how easy and quick it makes the process of taking and sharing great pictures. In a matter of seconds, users can take a picture, add a filter and share that picture for all the world to see.

New User Experience
I found Instagram to be relatively friendly to new users, as the interface was simpleand uncluttered. Also, I liked how the app walks you through the process of getting started in five easy steps.

I used the app on my iPhone and found that the icons and UI elements felt very iOS-centric, making it fairly easy to navigate my way around the app. However, I felt that some icons could have been designed to be more intuitive.
After doing a little research, I found that the icons and UI elements had been different in previous versions of the app and while the newer icons were moreesthetically pleasing, the previous used icons were more intuitive and user-friendly because they included titles.

Take for example the feed icons from the above screen shots. The feed icon in the screenshot to the left (older version) would be very hard to misinterpret. However, the one on the right (newest version) can fairly easily be seen as a home screen of sorts.

Filters & Photo Quality
I was impressed with the quality of photos that can be produced with Instagram. Just by adding one of the 18 available filters, one can dramatically improve the quality of an average photo. The trick is to experiment and learn when to use which filter.
I enjoyed not having to wait until after taking a picture to apply a filter. I could see what the picture would look like before actually snapping a shot. On the downside, one thing I felt was missing was the ability to apply multiple filters to a photo as you can with other photography apps.

I liked the use of a carousel style pop-up menu for the filter options. It was a great way to pack 18 items into a list while minimizing real estate usage. I also appreciated how the icons for each of the filters gave me an idea of what that filter did. I didn’t have to go through each filter individually until I found the desired effect.

Share and Share Alike
Another thing I liked about Instagram was the ability to import pictures from the camera roll. Users that already have a favourite camera/photo-editing app can use their preferred app to capture and edit a photo, then import it into Instagram to share with the Instagram community or on other social networks. However, it should be noted that photos imported from users’ camera roll need to be cropped to match thestandard square (1:1) images produced by snapping picture using the Instagram app itself.

Android Version
Since Instagram was also just released in the Google Play Store, I also took some time to check it out on the Android platform. Right away, as expected, I noticed that all the UI was now appropriately Android-centric, but I also couldn’t help but think that the app wasn’t on par with its IOScounterpart and here’s why:

• Every image must be cropped (IOS version only requires cropping of images imported from camera roll).
• Android users have to wait until they have captured and cropped their images before they can apply a filter to the image (IOS version gives users a preview).
• Not all devices are supported.

Overall, Instagram on Android offers a noticeably less streamlined experience by lengthening the process of creating and sharing images. I must also include that the short comings of the Android version of Instagram are most likely a result of technical limitations due to the many variations of Android.

Are you loving Instagram on Android or iOS? Tell us about your photo-sharing love at @plasticmobile.

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

There are plenty of alternative keyboards available to Android users in the Play Store. However, only a select few of these keyboard apps offer a totally creative and different mobile typing experience.

One of these rare apps is called, “Siine Keyboard.” Siine adds several interesting twists to the conventional QWERTY keyboard, including shortcuts (siines) for times, dates and commonly used words and expressions.

PM UX: Plastic Mobile Reviews the Siine Keybord App from Plastic Mobile on Vimeo.

Check out our video (Vimeo) demonstration of the Siine Keyboard App available on Android’s Play Store. Watch as Plastic Mobile walks you through the good, the bad and the ugly of this Android app.

Practice Makes Perfect

Using the shortcuts in the Siine Keyboard allows users to type common messages like “hey, what’s up?” with only two taps and two swipes of a single finger. In theory, this should make typing messages easier and faster. However, as a first time user, I spent more time looking for the shortcuts than actually using them!

To mediate this, I found it was helpful to take time to edit and customize existing shortcuts or download new sets of shortcuts to match your texting repertoire and messaging style. Eventually, after a little time spent practicing, I became comfortable with this new way of typing and found it to be a refreshingly different experience.

Time & Date to a “T”

The time and date features in Siine are brilliant. They are highly intuitive and feel quite natural to use. Unlike the vocab shortcuts, they do not require any getting used to.

The time feature makes adding times to messages easy and fun. It is definitely one of the best features Siine has to offer, but – in my opinion – the date feature is the most innovative and useful because it allows the user to check and post dates in one easy step. No longer do we have to navigate to a calendar app to find out which day the 1^st of next month falls on.

Trash it Fast

Siine gives users three options for deleting text. Tapping the delete button will delete one character at a time. Holding the delete button will also delete one character at a time, but it’s slightly quicker and doesn’t require multiple taps.

The best option for trashing large chunks of text is the quick delete function. I like to describe it as a “delete button on steroids.” Basically, users can hold the delete button then swipe their finger back and forth across their smartphone screen to delete text. The faster they swipe, the faster the app deletes the text. It’s deleting with muscle!

I found that the quick delete function felt very natural to use and was surprisingly fun. It reminded me of using rubber erasers in art class.

Thumbs Up:

• Very innovative keyboard
• Well-designed User Interface
• Variety of FREE extra downloadable sets
• The time & date features are great
• Fun and different alternative mundane keyboards
• Also functions like standard QWERTY keyboards
• Fun quick erase function

Thumbs Down:

• Requires some practice in order to fully benefit from the functionality
• Buttons are quite small in portrait mode

• The quick word shortcuts have potential, but require some setup to be truly effective

Do you have the Siine app? tweet us @plasticmobile and give us your review!

Mobile News from VentureBeat by Sean Ludwig

Yesterday’s big news was the purchase of photo-sharing app Instagram by social media giant, Facebook, just days after finally launching an Android app and reportedly closing a $50 million second round of funding. It seems that Facebook is determined to make its mark on iOS and Android, which makes sense since Facebook is on the mark, wanting to be avaialble to everyone, every where, all the time! Go Mobile!

But, according to sources, the good news for  Instagram keeps on coming. Just a day after Facebook announced that it would acquire Instagram for $1 billion cash and stock, Instagram’s new Android app has attracted 5 million downloads in just six days.

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

Draw Something is currently one of the hottest games to play on your Android or iOS device – and we know because it has invaded our office, resulting in all kinds of hilarious images and sudden burst of “ohhhh… I see it now!”

Best described as a combination of Words with Friends and the classic game, Pictionary, the game is incredibly fun and highly addictive. In fact, after three weeks of use, I am considering checking myself into anti-gaming rehab.

How it works

1. You start a game with friends by connecting the app to Facebook or by using their email address or Draw Something username. You can play multiple games with different friends simultaneously. You can also play with random Draw Something users if you find you don’t have enough friends to sufficiently support your habit to the addictive game.

2. Once you have selected a friend to play with, you choose one of three words that vary in difficulty from easy, medium or hard. You then draw a picture of your chosen word and send it to your friend. They then have to try to figure out what you’ve drawn using a subset of the letters shown on the screen. Based on the fact that few of us are anything remotely close to artists, this is the fun part.

3. If your friend guesses the correct word, you are both awarded coins that you can use to purchase more colours or bombs. The number of coins you receive depends on the difficulty of the word your drew. You get one coin for easy, two for medium and three for the hardest word.

4. It’s then your friend turn to draw and your turn to guess. This cycle continues indefinitely, even if either person fails to guess correctly.

Plastic Mobile User Experience Draw Something App Review from Plastic Mobile on Vimeo.

Despite the addictive nature of the game, and how much the Plastic Mobile team seems to love it, we decided to take an objective look at its overall usability.

Usability Issues

I encountered one minor usability issue while using this app. I found that while trying to guess words, the bottom portions of some drawings were obstructed by the semi-transparent overlay showing the number of letters in the word.

Only after repeatedly becoming frustrated with this, I realized that I could pull up the image and uncover the bottom portion.

A possible solution for this issue could be a “hide” button that would toggle the visibility of the overlay, or a more evident and intuitive scrolling option.

Pros

• Play with friends or random players
• Seeing replays of your friends guessing and drawing (so hilarious at times!)
• Easy to pick up and play
• Simple interface
• Highly entertaining and interactive

Cons

• Limited dictionary (words are repeated among different players)
• You can write instead of drawing (takes the fun out of playing)
• Obstructed view of some drawings

Suggestions for Improvement

• Give users the ability to pause and navigate away from a game that is in progress. Right now, in order to leave a game with one friend and move to the next, users must finish guessing and drawing. The only other option available to users is shutting down and re-launching the app.

• Provide users with an option that would allow them to undo their last action while drawing. This would save users from having to erase parts or all of their drawings in order to correct any mistakes.

Side Note: Back to the Stylus…

Here at Plastic Mobile, we are in the midst of an ongoing debate regarding the use of the stylus. We generally believe that the introduction of the touch screen should have been the ultimate demise of the stylus. We agree with Steve Jobs’ belief that we are born with 10 of the best pointing devices in the world.

However, after playing Draw Something, I could see why sometimes a stylus could be useful.

Are you as addicted to Draw Something as the Plastic Mobile team? Tweet us @plasticmobile.

Amazing Acrobats Playing PLastic Mobile's Twist 'em!

Yesterday at the Spring IAB Mixx conference, our Plastic Mobile take on an old board game favourite was revealed at IAB’s MIXX conference and turned out to be a huge success among attendees.

“Twist ’em” allowed two players to compete to knock down the opposition’s bendy acrobat – yes, there were real acrobats on the unique Twist ‘em board. The two players combat using an iPad application to light up the positions and colours on the Twist ‘em board, causing the contortionists to try to twist away without falling over.

The iPad apps allowed the users to choose one of four colours and one of the left or right hand or a left or right foot (very similar, if not exactly the same, to Hasbro’s Twister). The mobile twist came of course from the mobile app controller on the iPads, as well as from the Twist’em board, which was 16 iPads that would light up to identify which square the acrobats should use. The person with the bendy acrobat left standing, won, and it was very challenging because those contortionists were REALLY flexible!

Needless to say, the Twist ’em game was a huge success for event attendees so we can’t wait to play it again!

One of our favourite tweets of the days was: “Wow, flavored oxygen at @TCTranscontinen and acrobats at@plasticmobile, bringing out the big guns! #MIXXCanada@iabcanada“

Stay tuned for our video of “Twist ’em: The making of…,” a documentary of sorts (not really) about what happens when a creative agency decides to take their event booth to a whole new level…

A few weeks back, we reviewed a productivity app called Clear, which impressed us with its simplistic UI, as well as clever and creative single- and multi-touch gesture controls. I was recently excited to find a calculator app taking a similar approach to creating a great user experience.

Rechner is a calculator app with just the right amount of functionality to handle simple, everyday mathematical calculations – so don’t stroll into your final calculus exam thinking this is your ticket to an A+.

What makes Rechner Calculator stand out from the competition is that it doesn’t have some of the buttons you would expect to see on a calculator. For instance, you will not find a plus button for addition or a minus button for subtraction. Those buttons, along with a couple others, have been replaced with gesture controls, making everyday mathematics just a little more fun.

This is the first screen presented to the user after launching Rechner Calculator for the first time. Its an Instructional Overlay outlining the five gesture controls available to the user. Form here, you tap the screen and the overlay will fade out so you can get started.

Gesture Controls & Visual Feedback

Even though there are only five gestures to master, they can take a few minutes to get familiar and comfortable with. Initially, I found that even the most simple calculations (such as 1+1), were taking me way too long to execute. However, as I started to get more comfortable with the gesture controls, my speed improved considerably.

One thing I found to be quite useful when I first started using Rechner, was the visual feedback I was given after inputting a gesture command. For example, after swiping to the right, a bright yellow circle with (+) in the middle appeared in the center of the screen and gradually faded. This visual feedback was especially helpful when I first started to use the app and wasn’t totally comfortable with each gesture.

The visual feedback, appearing then gradually fading.

One Hand is Better than Two

The only problem I had with Rechner, was that the gesture for the clear function was a two finger swipe in any direction. Because this gesture requires two fingers, it also requires two hands (one to hold the phone and one to input the gesture command). I think I would have enjoyed the app even more if I could have done everything using just one hand.

200% More Efficient?

In the app store, the creators of Rechner Calculator boldly claim that it is “200% more efficient,” though they don’t specify what exactly this app is two times faster than – a regular iOS calculator app? I assumed as much, so I decided to put the two apps to the test.

I handed my iPhone to a friend and asked her to take five minutes to get familiar with both apps. I then gave her three basic math problems with their answers and asked her to execute all three problems, one after another, while I kept time on a stopwatch. We did one time for the three equations on the iOS calculator app first, and then one time for the three equations on the Rechner Calculator, second.

Here are our very scientific findings:

The Verdict

Overall, Rechner is a fun and interactive twist to the conventional calculator app. The simple and uncluttered interface is very easy on the eyes and its use of gesture controls is pleasantly different.

As for the claim that Rechner is “200% more efficient,” if they mean compared to a regular iOS app, our experiment shows they need to re-think their slogan. In fact, we found that it’s around 16% less efficient. However, it is important to note that our test was light years away from even coming close to being considered “scientific,” so perhaps they do have a leg to stand on. It is also important to consider that most of us have been using standard calculators since elementary school and only five minutes with the Rechner Calculator can’t match that.

Even though our speed test didn’t pan out so well, I nonetheless consider Rechner Calculator a great app. I know that with more use, any users’ speed will increase substantially. As far as I’m concerned, Rechner did the job I expected it to do, but in a fun and different way, and all without any unnecessary bells and whistles to clutter the interface and distract me.

Doe you have the Rechner app? What do you think? Tweet us @plasticmobile.

That was the question posed to me by our UX expert on Tuesday when writing our PM UX blog post.

So I thought I’d weigh in with my take on the tool tip. Here goes…

Our foremost concern when creating a mobile solution at Plastic Mobile is the end user – the person who will actually be using our product for their entertainment, everyday lifestyle or as a tool. Ergo, it’s my thought that if you have to explain your app, website, etc., you have probably missed the mark in terms of user experience; if they don’t get it right away, you’ve basically #Failed.

That being said, I am not naive. I understand and appreciate that certain things require subtle cues to prompt or gently nudge the user to properly deploy certain functions or get them started. For instance, on any iPhone, the very first screen has a sliding bar along the bottom. It actually says “slide to unlock” in faint type which is illuminated by a pretty sparkle that lights the path of the sliding bar. This is what I consider a subtle cue. Just a helpful hint to get the user started that, while clearly explains to the user what to do, doesn’t interfere with their experience. We’ve used a few of these similar nudges with various apps, including our award-winning Pizza Pizza app to help the user along the ordering process.

What I’m mostly taking issue with, is the idea that a mobile initiative should come with a manual, or require a tutorial or full explanation in order to make it useful. For me, that says that you over-complicated the application and didn’t properly consider the fundamentals of UI and UX.

What do you think? Are tool tips good, or would you rather it just be clear from the get-go? Tweet us @plasticmobile and join the conversation.

Today, the Bagel Wednesday team really shook things up in the office and pretty much changed the way we will think about Bagel Wednesday forever. Instead of bringing bagels to our mobile sharing meeting, they made pancakes. Holy flap jacks batman!

Needless to say, the excitement over the pancakes made prying mobile news from full mouths a challenge. But, we did learn more that we can expect the new office iPads to arrive any day now, that Apple may have purchased patent rights to mobile payment controls and that I found an amazing mascara that actually gives your lashes some serious oomph (Benefit “they’re real!” mascara, available at Shoppers’ Drug Mart for $26).

While there was actually very little mobile news shared, the experiment in a breakfast favourite resulted in some great bonding and a long lasting sugar high thanks to the syrup.

Good job team!