Great Fridays were invited to join speakers from all over the world to participate in Adobe’s Education Summit in Istanbul. The audience were generally higher education, professors and administrators and we were asked to talk about the education industry from the point of view of creative services, the skills required in user experience design and to share our view on the industry.

Recently we’ve been working with Pearson on new educational tools and in this presentation we shared some insights into that work and its impact on teaching children through to high school.

Rob Noble, Founder opened the presentation, describing who we are and how we work showing some detail about our approach of Listen, Create, Design as well as describing our client engagement process and the long-term relationships we pride ourselves on building and maintaining.

Guy Jenkins, Director of Product Strategy gave a glimpse of the educational landscape and some insights into the factors, which are developing across both the educational and digital landscapes which are creating an environment for innovation.

Education in a Digital World/

Over the past decade or so industries have evolved to embrace the interactive space but at very different speeds. This rate of adoption can be largely attributed to economics.

Two of the very early adopters were retail who recognised that shopping in store was being challenged by the opportunities presented in the digital world and the online advertising industry who realised the online traffic being generated had real commercial value. Fast-forward and the likes of amazon dominate in online retail (they’ve diversified effectively too) and google in advertising.

The music and film industry has perhaps changed the most dramatically, traditional business models are being challenged and new products and services from the likes of Netflix, LoveFilm and iTunes are changing the dynamic of this industry sector.

As we know the Education industry is Huge!

• Education is a 7 Trillion-Dollar industry worldwide
• 570 x the size of the online Advertising market
• 7 x the global mobile industry

Education has been somewhat of a sleeping giant to date in the digital space but is now waking up to the opportunities of new technology. However, being latecomers to the party is no bad thing as the technology and knowledge is available to bring new ways of teaching to the classroom on a mass-market scale. There are a few reasons for this;

1. Generations. The teaching graduates of today were bought up with technology, the Internet and a fresh view on how to educate, sometimes, in a less structured manner. This new generation are importantly the new blood entering other industries such as design and development too. The combination of their enthusiasm, innovation and creativity is producing the right environment for educational teaching methods and content creators to embrace change and produce magic.

• 93% of Teachers believe online tools improve performance
• 95% of Teachers believe online tools engage students

2. Infrastructure and cost. The Internet is so widely affordable and available around the world that delivering resources at low costs is now a reality. Whether that is through mobile data in Africa and India making devices like the Vodafone Web box viable or low end, cost effective tablets in schools in the developed world like the $35 dollar tablet by DataWind. The tipping point is on the horizon.

3. Business. Big business has been playing in the field of education for some time, all knowing that it will explode one day and waiting in the aisles to act when the right situation occurs. Apple’s partnership with content creators such as Pearson and McGraw-Hill has been a significant step forward in the US. The likes of Skype recently launching their Skype in the Classroom initiative has always been an obvious addition to make to their services, however now the time is right. Pearson in particular has been leading the way in commercialising its content digitally and currently is reaching as many as 9 million students in the US with digital content. More than 3x that of its nearest competitor, Cengage Learning.

4. The Smart People. Smart people such as Sir Ken Robinson and Crispen Wilson have been debating the extreme edges of how we educate our children in school and have been challenging the sometimes, unnatural conveyor belt of learning and creativity, or lack of. The platform for them to debate has grown in recent years with the ability to podcast on line and target their audience as well as meet and greet with governments and industry to support them.

5. Disengaged kids in classrooms. Children today are bombarded with fast paced and targeted content. They have grown up with this level of interaction and can deal with the pace really well; education needs to embrace this way of working where appropriate.

6. Data. A Personalised education for all is now becoming a very real possibility. With the ability to identify and capture data from every aspect of the classroom it is possible for a teacher to refine the learning experience for those that need it, on the fly. We are moving from a one class for all to a personalised teacher for each student. Businesses like Knewton have been digging deep into how to make the data created by students using their courses gain an even more refined and personalised experience each time they logon.

7. OER (Open Educational Resources). Finally, something remarkable is happening out there which is making a massive difference to the landscape of education today and it is in some ways the glue, which we believe will stick all these other trends together. Open source educational resources are booming. Since 2007 when OER commons was established the likes of philanthropic ventures such as Bill and Malinda Gates’ mixing with grass routes activities shows the potential for change is extraordinary. The Big History Project, Khan Academy, The Teaching Channel and Games such as Re-Mission by Hope-Lab.

Each of these different factors are at varying levels of maturity and the balance between them is nearing a perfect equilibrium. The market is dictating the demand, the cost of the service has fallen to affordable levels, public opinion is moving towards acceptance of technology in improving education, innovation in content is driving the availability of it and both teachers and students are ready for the changes.

We are experiencing a fertile environment for some extraordinary service and product design to blossom.

Adobe’s recent transition to w3 web technologies has produced an exciting wave of new development applications and technologies. One, in particular, has already made a positive impact on our development processes here at Great Fridays.

Adobe Shadow/

Adobe Shadow is a lightweight web development tool for efficient cross platform testing, debugging, remote inspection and DOM manipulation. Shadow synchronises Android and iOS devices, via WiFi, with your desktop computer; streamlining the preview process. Connected devices mirror your desktop computer browser, replicating navigational clicks and therefore eliminating the need to interact with each device individually.

The Shadow utility consists of:

• Desktop helper – installed on your desktop computer, it needs to be open to keep the connection with devices. (Bonjour is required to provide auto discovery for devices – this is enabled by default on OS X).
• Chrome browser extension – to control interactions (debugging, cache management, inspection, etc) with devices from your desktop computer
• iOS App – used to preview on device iOS devices
• Android App – used to preview on device Android devices

Adobe have been continuously making improvements to Shadow, listening to feedback from its users and responding to feature requests by developers. Last week Adobe released version 3 of Shadow, with infrastructure updates and some useful new features, including:

• Device screenshots – simultaneously taking screenshots of all connected devices, saving them to your desktop computer’s hard drive
• Cache management – clear the cache and refresh page for individual devices with one gesture or even clear all the connected devices caches with a single click from your desktop computer
• SSL support - new support for local development workflows with https, accepting self signed certificates on all devices
• location.hash – all URL changes trigger updates to connected device

What we think/

Our frontend developers have been using Shadow since it’s beta and candidate releases earlier this year, it quickly became an indispensable development tool and formed an important part of their daily workflow. Helping to streamline the multi-device testing and debugging of responsive sites and mobile web apps; which in the past had been time consuming and, at times, a tedious process.

Shadows remote inspection tool uses a Weinre server, hosted externally with Adobe. In the earlier releases our developers frequently experienced periods of downtime, probably due to maintenance and/or updates to the service. Recently it has become much more stable, however it can, at times, seems a little slow.

Most of our development is done locally, using either IIS or MAMP and, despite what a large number of App reviews say, Shadow does fully support local development. Although, not surprisingly it will not load local files browsed via file:/// as none of the files actually exist on the connected devices.

Our suggestions/

We asked frontend team what features they would like to see in future releases of Shadow, here’s what they thought:

• Single authentication - for sites that require authentication (e.g. an account login), we should be able to enter these details just once for all devices. At the moment each devices needs authenticating separately.
• Wider device support – as Shadow is currently only available on iOS and Android devices. Support for Windows 8 phones and BlackBerry would be useful.
• More browser support – currently Shadow only works with Google Chrome, an extension for Firefox and even IE 9/10 would be nice for those who are more familiar with those browsers and dev tools.
• Better script debugging – access to the Script tab, for more advanced JavaScript debugging with breakpoints.
• Edit as HTML – although it is possible to manipulate CSS and HTML from the elements tab, it would nice to be able to right click and edit HTML, as text as you can with the Chrome tools.

What’s next for Shadow?/

Currently Shadow is released through Adobe Labs, and free to use, while Adobe improves and develops it further. It is likely that Shadow will become part of the Adobe creative cloud subscription service later this year. We highly recommend giving it a try for yourself (while it’s free!). And keep a close eye on Shadows development team, on Twitter and their blog, for more up to date information on future releases.

It’s nice to get a bit of recognition for projects, especially when that recognition comes from Adobe.

Each month Adobe shines a spotlight on some of the projects that have been completed using their tools as part of their internal Agency Partner newsletter. This month they’ve focussed on the work we undertook for loudspeaker manufacturers Bowers & Wilkins.

We’ve had a longstanding relationship with B&W, meaning that we’ve been able to form an entire visual landscape with the aid of Adobe software. From designing their website, to implementing their Society of Sound download manager using AIR 2.0, Adobe tools have allowed us to design multiple touch points ensuring a consistent user experience.

Adobe software has consistently proved itself to be adaptable, versatile and capable. Adobe have been setting high standards in design software for a number of years. On an individual level, tools such as Photoshop, InDesign, After Effects, Flash and AIR are the benchmark when it comes to creating and deploying digital design, and while new features are continually added to their latest software incarnations, it’s the key features that mark Adobe products out as the best.

For several weeks there’s been a mysteriously shaped object hidden under a sheet in the great fridays office.

Occasionally, in a flurry of surreptitious activity, said object is whisked to the board room, at which point the lights dim, disco lights dot the walls and balearic beats rattle the windows. Shortly after, several members of the team emerge, disorientated and slightly frenzied.

Having been sworn to secrecy, we’re now able to disclose that the object under the sheet is the latest edition to the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin series, the Zeppelin Air. The Zeppelin Air has the ability to wirelessly stream music from multimedia devices such as iPods, iPads and the iPod touch via Apple’s new AirPlay technology.

Bowers & Wilkins consistently conform to impeccable design aesthetics, which is why they’ve continued to come to great fridays for their online and software requirements. For their latest creation, B&W required a billboard-like landing site that placed the Zeppelin Air at the forefront of their online pages. The new pages were to slot in seamlessly with the existing site design great fridays had previously formulated, whilst projecting the significance of the new top secret product.

We textured a 3D model from scratch, and delivered a 360º animation that would feature both on the Zeppelin Air page, and in the set-up DVD included with the product. This animation formed the central point of the landing page, with additional renders for features pages. The interactive UI of supporting pages allowed visitors to glean information relating to the product, and gave the Zeppelin pages a glossy, yet uncomplicated nuance, allowing the visually striking elements of the product to speak for themselves.

“great fridays have consistently delivered excellent results on the projects they’ve undertaken for Bowers & Wilkins. For the Zeppelin Air assignment, they took the high-calibre qualities of our product, ethos and brand identity, and implemented them flawlessly online”

Danny Haikin

Brand Director at Bowers & Wilkins

The site can be viewed at www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk/

The iPad is changing the way publishers now operate. Formerly static pages can move in ways that print’s never allowed for. Given the oft-vibrant nature of their subject matter, it seems appropriate that publishing companies should adapt their content for use on this new technology.

Fashion designer Stella McCartney wanted to be one of the first to produce a publication for use on this emerging platform. Alongside our publishing partner MERI Media - a company founded to provide luxury iPad publishing services for mobile channels – we set about creating a content rich experience on Apple’s device.

Stella wanted an application on which she could showcase her range of fashion items in a way that effortlessly displays her designs and allows users to easily purchase products.

The application makes full use of the iPad’s features to deliver rich, varied and engaging content to users. To ensure a captivating environment, we designed a platform on which users could easily navigate to the required page.

“Many magazines on the iPad are simply reformatting print content.  This magazine is intended to provide a bespoke and beautifully packaged experience of the brand”, says Remi Permingaux, director at digital publishing house Meri Media.

“We wanted to produce an application where e-commerce and editorial content are working hand-in-hand. It is much more lifestyle oriented than anything currently available on the iPad, allowing for a wide range of Stella McCartney brand associations.”

The final product features video and music to promote the brand in an interactive lifestyle magazine format. It’s only recently been released, but is already receiving positive feedback.

You can get the Stella McCartney app here.

We’re never short of VIP guests at great fridays, having recently hosted some of Adobe’s top brass; and while their work is under wraps, we’re occasionally allowed to steal them away from their clandestine duties for a quick chat.

We spoke with Tim Kukulski, lead technologist of Adobe’s Experience Design group about the projects he’s working on with great fridays, and what the future holds regarding mobile technologies and Adobe software.

We’ve had a great relationship with Adobe for a number of years. “One of the nicest things about great fridays is that it’s very similar to what we do in our design group, which is by getting your designers and developers working closely together. All of your designers are people that are conversing in design. So it works really well as you’ve got these complimentary skill sets that overlap, and by having people working together you get a tremendous degree of productivity. It’s not just cranking things out, but being able to push the boundaries with projects.”

Adobe, like great fridays, likes to examine the minutia when it comes to new hardware technology. Tim is straightforward in his discussion of how Adobe works on developing a new product. “With traditional development you’re not going to start building for a new device until everything’s understood about that device and all the problems are solved, then you go ahead and you build something for it, and what you build might look just like the same device that barely takes advantage of new features. With code development groups such as the one we’re working in with great fridays, you’ve got the skills to approach it as more of a design problem.”

Tim understands that looking at projects in new ways is an important element concerning design and development, something we practise on a daily basis with the work we undertake. “One exercise in art school is you’ll get handed a material and they’ll say, ‘do something that takes advantage of this material’ or ‘look at something and reinterpret it in terms of this material’ so we’re gonna do that with new devices with new capabilities. It’s a lot of problem solving.”

An area in which we’re seeing developers and consumers becoming more involved with is mobile technology. It’s an area in which Adobe are very keen on developing. “Up until very recently you could do almost nothing on a mobile device. Now we’re seeing portable machines that are really very powerful, but for all the power they have they’re a lot slower than a desktop machine. So we’re in an interesting place where in interactive design, people are building these amazing experiences that take advantage of what desktop computers can do now. So we have that, but it takes a rethinking of the problems to make sure they’re going to run well on these small machines.

“The other part is the opportunity. The opportunity is that you have something that’s mobile; you can have it with you all the time. In terms of interaction you’ve got these multi-touch screens and there’s this sense that you can look at a really great multi-touch app on an iPad and it’s almost like you’re interacting with this little world that’s behind this piece of glass. The connection with what’s going on can be very strong if you do it right.”

We’re delighted to again be working with Adobe on a number of projects.

Regretfully, we’re not in a position to give you too many clues as to what these projects are. However, we’re allowed to tell you that the work is centred on experience design for tablet device applications.

We love working with Adobe, having built a strong relationship working with their team on several projects in the past. It’s no secret that they’re the world leaders in their field. Working with Adobe allows us to develop ideas that are challenging, exciting and innovative.

Speaking of the current venture, Tim Kukulski, lead technologist of Adobe’s experience design team said: “One of the nicest things about great fridays is that it’s very similar to what we do in our design group, which is by getting your designers and developers working closely together. All of your designers are people that are conversing in design. So it works really well as you’ve got these complimentary skill sets that overlap, and by having people working together you get a tremendous degree of productivity. It’s not just cranking things out, but being able to push the boundaries with projects.”

We look forward to being able to give you more updates on the project as they occur.