80/20

We conceptualize, research, design, develop and deploy solutions that set new standards in user experience.

Our Work

  • Better Place Vehicle Dashboard

Better Place Vehicle Dashboard

Better Place provides infrastructure and services dedicated to increasing consumer adoption of electric vehicles and reducing our dependency on oil.

Overview

Better Place needed a user interface for the electric vehicle that will manage the user’s service plan, provide diagnostics, gauge driving range and indicate fuel consumption. In addition, the company also sought to replace the traditional “infotainment” system that come standard with the manufacturer’s vehicle. Better Place challenged 80/20 to create a UI solution that was useful, entertaining and most importantly safe in all driving conditions. Additionally, the UI needed to be global enough for adoption in markets around the world.

Solution

Research showed that “range anxiety” was the biggest hurdle in getting users to adopt electric vehicles for long-distance driving. 80/20 came up with several features to reduce range anxiety by showing fuel consumption, remaining distance availability and charge spot locations, all within an easy-to-use interface operated by a 5-way knob. The design also had to accommodate the limited attention span of a driver by providing a day and night time views that made data visualization safe at all times.

Result

The 80/20-designed automotive UI is currently in live testing for the Israeli market with initial infrastructure deployment planned for late 2010 in Israel. In 2011, Better Place plans to begin global deployment, with agreements already in place for Denmark, Hawaii, Ontario, Australia, and California.

  • Warner Bros. Digital Everywhere

Warner Bros. Digital Everywhere

Warner Bros. puts your entire movie collection in the cloud and connects to Facebook, providing recommendations and activity from your friends.

Overview

The Warner Bros. Digital Everywhere initiative is a studio-agnostic platform that allows consumers to manage their media from the cloud. The service also integrates tightly with social networks, allowing users to easily discover new content based on what their friends were watching. 80/20 worked with Warner Bros to create an experience that scales across user types—from DVD collectors who still use physical discs to sophisticated online-only content consumers.

Solution

Digital Everywhere provides rich content discovery tools powered by Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes, which Warner Bros. acquired as part of the initiative. Integration with Facebook means you can browse your friends collections and instantly rent or buy content they recommend for you. The service also frees users from cumbersome DVDs by authenticating their discs and providing digital copies of their collections in the cloud.

Result

The service was announced in April 2011 to great enthusiasm in the press. Core to this praise is the service’s unique value proposition of aggregating both physical media and content from services such as Netflix and iTunes into one destination. And with extensive content from Flixster and social networks, consumers finally have one destination for finding the content they want.

  • Vodafone 360 Service

Vodafone 360 Service

Vodafone 360 keeps your contacts across services in sync with your devices and provides a one-stop destination for compelling mobile content.

Overview

Our modes of contact have expanded to include myriad phone numbers, IM handles, social networks, email addresses and the occasional snail mail. The groundbreaking Vodafone 360 service includes a super address book that manages your information at all touch points. Unfortunately its utility was not well understood by users. Further, site traffic was not being exposed to Vodafone’s rich content offerings.

Solution

80/20 prioritized feature sets and discarded functionality that was not core to its services. The new, streamlined interface uses familiar metaphors for contact management and engaging, large-format graphics for merchandising content.

Result

Working with Vodafone teams across Europe, the new 360 was rolled out in over 15 countries in record time. The 360 syncing service, content store and desktop companion have been called “the best we’ve ever launched” by teams within the company.

  • Verizon Media Store

Verizon Media Store

The Verizon Media Store was born from the need to integrate 10 different Verizon destinations to form a “one-stop shopping experience” for customers seeking mobile content.

Overview

In order to realize the vision of a single online media store, 80/20 needed to work cohesively with a large 100 person team consisting of internal stakeholders from various business units as well as 8 different content and service vendors. We worked with the various groups to align business goals and requirements as well as facilitate and resolve day-to-day technical challenges. 80/20 was tasked to create a robust site architecture that would accommodate the current offerings but also pre-empt future growth.

Solution

80/20 designed a scalable site architecture that dramatically improved content discovery. The addition of media type search and global search meant that the team needed to overcome a large meta data challenge. This was feasible only in a open and collaborative environment, where internal and external teams worked closely and seamlessly.

Result

Improved site usability and discovery increased store sales by over 200%. The success of the the Media Store helped Verizon Wireless demonstrate their online expertise, and 80/20 has been asked by Verizon to further expand the Media Store and explore mobile options for 2010 and beyond.

  • Sony Next-Generation Mobile

Sony Next-Generation Mobile

Sony asked 80/20 to help paint a vision on differentiating its phones through a ground-up redesign of its software experience.

Overview

Sony’s Consumer Products Group R&D wanted to develop a new touchscreen UI paradigm for the mobile phone beyond the application grid popularized by Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. The group also wanted the interface to be optimized for single-hand use. They asked 80/20 to conduct research, brainstorm, design and create a compelling vision for senior Sony executives.

Solution

Ethnographic research showed that users were engaged with the activities of the phone and not the applications of the phone. 80/20 created a concept around the integrated social phone that allowed users to interact with their contacts rather than their applications. We then developed a “story“ demo that integrated key personas and scenarios to demonstrate how the new interface would work using a single hand to make and receive calls, text, browse, update social networks and use the GPS.

Result

The Sony CPD R&D team reported that the demo was well received internally. The group further sought 80/20 for other research and concept development projects.

  • Vodafone Shop

Vodafone Shop

The world’s largest mobile operator partnered with 80/20 to create a new shopping experience for its customers in over 15 countries.

Overview

Vodafone wanted to energize content sales across the globe with a completely new website experience. Its stores were disconnected, relied on dated technology and weren’t giving customers the content they desired. The goal of the redesign was to start fresh with a platform form growth on both the front and backends.

Solution

80/20 worked with Vodafone teams across Europe to create a design system that met the unique requirements of each market. We then created a roll-out plan that would allow for quick deployment based on sales goals associated with each media type. Built in HTML 5, the design system uses large, bold graphics to merchandize content across desktop and touch devices.

Result

The new Vodafone Shop was successfully deployed in record time. Together with Vodafone 360, the media store is the cloud-based service on which customers rely to customize their mobile devices.

  • Second Life

Second Life

Second Life is the Internet’s largest 3D virtual world where the users build the community and create the content. Collectively, users have logged more than one billion hours and generated more than $1 billion in user to-user transactions.

Overview

Usage statistics showed that over 50% of new users who register and download the Second Life viewer log in once and never go back a second time. 80/20 was asked to redesign the viewer to address attrition with new users but without alienating existing users. Secondly, the company wanted to broaden the appeal of the product and make it more attractive for corporate and educational use.

Solution

80/20 evaluated the Second Life user experience and concluded that the redesign needed to be drastic. Cosmetic changes to the existing viewer were not going to be enough. The team designed a new viewer based on the browser paradigm, so that it was instantly recognizable by anyone who starts the app. The browser analogy made it easier for new users to navigate, explore and get immersed in the Second Life environment. As for the second challenge of engaging businesses and educators, the team added new productivity features such as VOIP functionalities to enhance virtual meetings, conferences and classes.

Result

The redesign helped Second Life reach their goal of increasing active users by 40%, to 1 million. New user attrition has dramatically decreased and accolades continue to flow in from existing users on the blogosphere. This is the biggest and most successful overhaul of the Second Life experience since its creation in 2003.

  • Sonar Mobile

Sonar Mobile

80/20 saw an opportunity in the mobile space to radically improve the experience of feature phones targeting emerging markets. The founding partners incubated Sonar from conception to development.

Overview

The biggest design challenge was to make the feature phone interface simple and easy to use. The team had to rethink the way the mobile phone was used and remove the unnecessary clutter to create a user friendly interface. The second challenge was to make it cost-effective both for the end consumer but also for the manufacturers to implement.

Solution

80/20 decided on an over-the-air management solution that allowed users to pick and choose the features from a portal, thereby minimizing the clutter of the mobile interface. We also saw that the users were spending majority of their time communicating with friends via texting and social networks. Sonar breaks these communication features out and makes it simple to access and use. The features were designed to consume minimal data so that carriers can conserve available bandwidth as demand grows.

Result

The first Sonar prototype was successfully built on top of Qualcomm’s Brew MP platform. It was highlighted by Engadget as one of the best in show at the 2009 Mobile World Congress and praised for its concept, design and smart back-end.

  • Adobe Post

Adobe Post

Looking to expand the functionality and capabilities of its ubiquitous Adobe Flash Player, Adobe sought to introduce multi-touch functionality for touch-capable devices.

Overview

The Adobe Experience Design team wanted to create a multi-touch interactive application to test and demonstrate the richness of Flash 10, with a sneak preview at the annual Adobe MAX conference. Using a pre-alpha build of the latest Flash Player, 80/20 was tasked with creating an application that showcased the improved Flash capabilities as well as provide feedback and guide beta development of Flash 10.1.

Solution

80/20 worked closely with Adobe’s Experience Design team to gather the business and technical requirements. We came up with a multi-platform, multi-touch digital cork board that allowed families and friends to create and share memories. People can post to this digital bulletin from any device, with contents showing up on the virtual cork board. Users can send notes, photos, videos, website clippings, articles, and even post sounds to fully demonstrate the breadth of input capabilities ranging from mouse and pen to touch and sound. 80/20 designed the interface, developed the Flash interface, and created the backend Java environment to manage the content.

Result

80/20 was able to create the application and improve Flash 10.1 in a short timeline due to excellent internal and external team dynamics, methodical test plans and schedules and a dedicated team for rapid response. The application was successfully demonstrated at Adobe MAX 2009 and continues to be developed into a shipping product. The latest plans are to include Adobe Post with all shipping HP TouchSmart computers.

Clients

Better Place Comcast Fidelity Google Motorola Nokia Second Life Skype Sony Verizon Vodafone Warner Bros.

Services

Our engagements range from rapid strategic vision prototypes to multi-year product and service initiatives.

Discover

We align knowledge among teams, build consensus, fill information gaps and paint the vision.

  • Business Requirements Development
  • Consumer Research and User Personas
  • Experience Audits and Expert Reviews
  • Business and Marketing Strategy
  • Technical Architecture Evaluation

Design

We translate requirements into concepts, craft the experience and iterate on user and business-focused solutions.

  • Product Development
  • Information Architecture
  • Schematics and Wireframes
  • Interaction and Visual Design
  • Sound and Motion Design
  • Interactive Prototyping
  • Usability Testing

Deliver

We architect and develop, optimize the experience, test and launch. We then analyze performance and act on results.

  • Functional Requirements
  • Interface Specifications
  • Asset Production
  • Iterative Development
  • Quality Assurance
  • Analytics and Metrics
  • Deployment Consulting

Leadership

With heritage from Apple and Adobe, we’re specialists in user interface design for all form factors, from desktop to devices.

Andrew Borovsky

Andrew Borovsky

At Apple, Andrew led the product design of MobileMe where he defined the ecosystem of services for the iPhone and the Mac. Prior to that he directed design at Adobe, creating state-of-the-art mobile experiences for Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, AT&T and Vodafone.

Jerry Knight

Jerry Knight

Jerry led design for the Adobe Lighthouse Team, which worked with strategic clients in the creation of next-generation, multi-platform digital solutions. He’s led industry-shifting initiatives for Verizon, Fidelity, NASDAQ and KDDI.

Andrew Lin

Andrew Lin

Andrew has designed some of the world’s most successful applications. At Adobe, he set the vision for a ground-up, end-to-end redesign of Photoshop and the entire Creative Suite line of products. Prior to that, as a product design lead at Apple, Andrew led the creation of Aperture.

Contact Us

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121 Greene Street, Floor 2 New York, NY 10012 USA

(347) 692 - 8020

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