Ouch! Received an email this morning stating that playful design has no place in a business context!
For the last 3 weeks a small team of us have been working on an Enterprise Search application and we finally have something to show for our hard endeavours. Our Microsoft Surface Enterprise Search demo rears it's pretty face at FastForward'09 this week.
Please don’t tell me this enterprise application is not playful!
Playful design has historically been monopolised by non-enterprise applications. We have focused our enterprise efforts on task-focused applications to increase efficiency and failed to acknowledge other success factors. Should playfulness be a measure of success? Playfulness itself is not a measure of success. For me, creating an experience that engages people and provides entertainment and enjoyment is. Playfulness is just one element of an engaging experience.
Our challenge over the past few weeks has been to build a Microsoft Surface Enterprise Search demo. Microsoft Surface is conducive to play - playfulness is a must in the spirit of a Surface experience. So I had a playful strategy in my back pocket, to help shape the design of an application that is social and playful, but ultimately functional and extremely useful.
Does playfulness in this Search application compromise efficiency? Possibly! But not much and the playfulness payoff more than compensates for a few lost seconds. We have an unhealthy obsession with getting things done quickly. The pace of our lives is about 10% faster now than it was a decade ago. Yes, our time is valuable in an increasingly rushed environment but our pace can mean that we fail to savour the better things in life. This is summed up in by William Henry Davies in his poem ‘Leisure’ where he is frustrated by his busy schedule as it stops him from enjoying the surrounding beauty. I know that feeling so well.
So the Surface search application may be beaten to the finishing line by a desktop application in the race to find some specific content. But for enjoyment there is no contest. What this application does is challenge the concept that playfulness sits awkwardly in enterprise applications and creates an engaging experience of discovery. And as the cliché goes, a happy worker is a productive worker. There is undoubtedly a payoff from being entertained.
Web 2.0 has seen a new breed of playful applications but it seems the fun stops there. Microsoft Office, daily fodder for many of us workers comes certified with a NO Fun policy (oh, let’s not mention Clippy). I don't derive any joy from the Microsoft Office products – satisfaction, yes, when it helps me complete my task – but there’s no warm fuzzy feeling of enjoyment. Microsoft Office is efficient (some may argue) and functional but there are no ooohs and aaahs as you build your Excel pie chart.
An enterprise application is task oriented – it’s all about finding the information. But what if the route that we take to get there is changed. We could take the shortcut or the picturesque route. On the picturesque route we have time to enjoy the surroundings and interact with people. We take slightly longer to achieve our goal but along the way we have built an emotional bond with people and the environment. Is this really a bad thing?
I will caveat this ramble that playfulness must be well-timed. There is an art to adding small elements of playfulness that do not interfere with the experience.
Playfulness can manifest itself in many forms, such as through copy or interaction design. Not to forget playfulness through interaction with other people. Many office woes are built around social scarcity, a chance meeting in the office or a stagnant office setup. Yet this Enterprise Search demo facilitates a social and playful experience.
There is still some way to go with this application but it has been exciting to take something that we generally see as a mundane and routine task and make it fresh and enjoyable. It’s good to hear the buzz, a laugh and the occasional ‘woooo’ as users work with this search application.
So in response to this morning’s email, playful design certainly has a place in a business context. Next challenge, to make our Timesheet application playful!!!
As a footnote – if you want to see Microsoft Surface in action in London, or elsewhere in the UK, talk to us.