Feb Meetup - Ubiquitous Computing and the Retail Experience

How we will shop: ubiquitous computing and the in-store shopping experience
Jonathan Morgan, Senior User Experience Designer, Rosetta

What happens when computation becomes a pervasive feature of the retail shopping environment? Today, smartphones are transforming the in-store shopping experience. People use their phones to learn more about specific products, compare related items, and check competitor pricing. Where the web replaced the traditional shopping experience—you no longer needed to visit the store—the smartphone is augmenting it. Computation is creating new reasons to visit the mall.

This is merely the beginning. A wave of emerging technologies will deeply embed computation into the retail environment. This means new kinds of in-store devices. It means new ways of understanding how people shop. It means technologies that communicate with smartphones, tablets, and other personal devices. But what it really means is that stores will be designed with computation as an integral part of the shopping experience.

The technologies are here. Estimote Beacons, for example, are distributed wireless sensors that can be used for indoor navigation support, proximity marketing, and contact-less payment. And iOS7 includes iBeacons, a technology for seamlessly connecting multiple devices in a close-range physical spaces.You know how to design an e-commerce app, but how do you design for this?
This presentation identifies fundamental principles for designing computationally-enhanced retail environments. These principles are distilled from over two hundred research papers in human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, and related fields. Our analysis revealed a core set of principles relevant to user experience design that are independent of any particular technology platform. The result is a roadmap to the future of shopping.

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Please join us for a meetup at the OSC Tech Lab where Nick Petroski has generously offered to host our group! The lab is a co-working space with plenty of free parking nearby. There are also bars/restaurants within easy walking distance for folks who would like to continue the conversation over food & bev after the "formal" meeting. If you have suggestions for speakers or would like to volunteer, please ping me.

Please be sure to come to the SECOND floor.