Davy Rennie: A review of 2016 in Digital

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DRennie.jpgBy Davy Rennie (left), experience design director, The White Agency

 

It’s been one of those up and down years. Some bloody great stuff happened, and some not so great (or just downright shit) happened.

 

In the digital and design worlds products came in faster than it takes a Samsung to catch fire. We have seen some game changing technology continue to accelerate like autonomous driving and 3D printing and some incredible examples of how powerful design is a business tool like IBM Designs venture into design thinking.

 

maxresdefault.jpg2016 Best of:

 

Local

Sydney Vivid showed a mix of all things design and technology. Drones, light shows, augmented and virtual reality provided the best show yet.

Global

The introduction of an in-game NBA experience on your AR headset. A real statement of intent from sports providers and franchises to get the fans into the game.

The White Agency

Helping our friends at Lion deliver MoCu. A completely new experience for those passionate beer drinkers out there, looking for much more than a simple online shop.

 

Customer experience

And finally for the wins, the release of the new Airbnb mobile application and brand experience is a triumph for customer experience design the world over. This is a brand that came, disrupted and continued to leave every other travel company in their dust, then they went a little bit further and partnered with Qantas to change the travel game completely. 

 

2016 Worst of

 

1470782291347.jpgLocal

The census. And absolute screw up on a mammoth scale. How an organisation can completely ignore customer insight and testing principle continues to baffle me. Starting with letters that were marked “to the resident or householder”, meaning a swift move to the recycling bin, to the site crashing under load, to the general User experience. It is hands down the worst of 2016 and continues to shine a light on the need for better federal digital platform design across the board, designed with, not just for, Australians.

 

Global

It wouldn’t be a wrap up if we didn’t chat Trump or Brexit. What is astonishing, is that in a day and age of advanced data and analytics, AI and the like, the US and UK polls continued, to the very last minute to predict a win for the other team. It continues to show small polls are not the answer, especially ones conducted in major cities and hubs. It also highlights how little we see that we aren’t interested in on Facebook and other social channels. Not once did I see a pro-Trump or Brexit comment, but they were out there, but the algorithm just didn’t think I needed to see them.

 

This again highlights a need to digitise at a federal level, so data collection and modelling can be more accurate and shock likes these happen less.

 

Ps. Sportsbet were twice ahead of the curve in predictions for both polls, whilst news sites continued to predict the opposite.

 

exploded-note-7-2 (1).jpgCustomer Experience

Samsung. Here’s a phone that explodes. Wait let’s swap it. Wait they explode too. Ok, wait for a year we will fix this. In the meantime, the poor sods who went android are stuck at the airport, banned from taking their incendiary devices on flights.

Then boom, out comes the Google Pixel and all those Andoriders jump ship. I’m not saying there is a conspiracy here, but…

 

That wraps up 2016, 2017 will be a massive year:

 

Look out for:

–          Card based everything

–          Augmented Reality on consumer sites

–          Video, everywhere

–          More and more connected homes

–          Some incredible new releases from us here at the White Agency

–          And our brand spanking new White Agency Design Practice.