BBC New Media Central (NMC) is one of the biggest design research and development centres in the UK working across all digital media. Nico Macdonald from AIGA London organized an event at the Design Council last Wednesday to introduce the work of NMC
NMC themesJulia Whitney who has recently joined NMC as Head of User Experience Design kicked off the session by giving an overview of the broad themes NMC is concerned with

• Applications and services
• Public service mission
• Focus on licence fee payers
• Methods & processes
• Broadcast legacy
• Connection (e.g. user-generated content)
• Interactive television

a short history of the BBC home pageThis was followed by a timeline-style presentation of the evolution of the BBC homepage from its modest beginnings in Mosaic to its current incarnation. An interesting presentation that simultaneously served as a little history lesson in the evolution of the net and digital media in general.
project space worksThe UCD case study of the single sign on development presented by Anthony Coltfelt was divided into the Understand � Concept � Build � Test phases that should be familiar to UCD practitioners. One of his main points was “project space (as in a physical room) works!”: a dedicated project room where the walls can function as (team) communication surfaces (e.g. clear and visible action lists on the wall). He further advocated the use of flow diagrams as a good communication tool between team members and lo-fi or paper prototyping (“work in ways that can be rubbed out”)
The single sign-on development took altogether 12 months which prompted an audience question as to who else would have the luxury to go through such a lengthy process. Indeed. We probably should have a meeting on ‘best guerrilla methods’ (apart from the ubiquitous Nielsen ones)
I love this phone but don�t know how to use it Priya Prakash�s refreshing mobile experience field research and video came to the conclusion that people by and large like small and simple things and have a problem with too many choices in gadgets that suffer from feature creep. But it also highlighted Don Norman’s point that we sometimes prefer less usable things because they appeal to a level other than the purely behaviourist one, i.e. the emotional or, as he puts it, visceral
BBCi StudioAthena Agnastopoulos gave an overview of the development and everyday activities of BBCi Studio at the ground floor of Bush House. A physical presence for BBCi developed in cooperation with IDEO where the network becomes part of the physical space and interfaces sit on the borderline between the inside and the outside (e.g. interactive TV screen embedded in one of the windows) trying to engage passers-by. Concluding with lessons learned so far, Athena said: “there are many, but in this context the main one probably is to ensure resourcing and commitment after launch”. A good and often neglected point for each digital project
Since this space has to be experienced rather than described, go there and try it out if you�re in London
all people have dreamsLuciana Baptista who manages the Creative R & D department introduced ‘Stapler’, a project looking into future opportunities for the BBC in a connected world by using participatory design methods.
The project is based on the observation that people (within the BBC) complained about not having enough time to think about the future and lacking a creative space in which to do so. So the idea was to support creative and long-term thinking from the bottom up to senior management rather than the other way round.
So far, a 5-day participatory design workshop has taken place in cooperation with Sonic Rim who believe that you can learn much more when people do things (rather than just talk about things). The workshop brought together BBC staff as well as members of the public and comprised activities such as a timeline of ‘a day in my life’ that charts activities over a day and helps to identify needs; the dreams experience that creates dreams for those needs and finally the dream solution. One of the results of the workshop was the idea of ‘content that navigates towards you’ which doesn’t exactly strike me as innovative since we’ve been dealing with this in the world of IA and web applications for quite some years already
One of the audience questions in this context asked whether the BBC should not rather rely on its internal expertise and innovate things that users can’t imagine. This reflects a standard view in relation to UCD methods that try to tease out some blue sky thinking from users: people can’t talk about what they don’t know. Sonic Rim’s methods however are based on the simple democratic premise that all people have dreams and therefore all people are creative
radio daysWho hasn’t used the BBC Radio Player yet? The great little application (well, probably not so little) has 1.5 bn unique users per month and a new news audio/video console is planned to be linked with it.
impImagine Napster or Limewire combined with BBC programmes – and therefore obviously DRM protected. IMP (which stands for Interactive Media Player) is based on p2p and the related minimisation of distribution costs. It will be piloted around Easter and available only to UK licence fee payers who are on broadband.
Join the inevitable DRM discussion
an empirical rather than a defined processis what Agile Software Development with Scrum aims to be, the process used in developing iCAN according to Dharmesh Raithatha.
The method claims to do a lot of wonderful things such as to reduce documentation (which hardly anyone reads anyway) and, more importantly, reduce developer frustration triggered by constant changes that interrupt momentum
Now, I’m not a developer but I’ve seen them suffering and therefore every method that might improve this situation without sacrificing responsiveness to learning during the project lifecycle is worth looking into.
More about AS with Scrum can be found in this Slashdot book review
support AIGA LondonAnd last but not least: AIGA London is urgently looking for support – not only for the excellent, informative and free meetings but also for extending its web site’s functionality.
Contact Nico Macdonald: nico@design-agenda.org.uk
Check the AIGA London web site for other presentation summaries or downloads.