I just spent the weekend in Leeds jamming with some very interesting folk. We were challenged to develop a service prototype in 48 hours under the overall theme of "(super)heroes".

We chose to work in the problem space around youth and crime.

We brainstormed and eventually tried a mental model which exposed an opportunity space between the child who "wants to be free" and the mentor and institutions that can't usefully communicate the difference between right and wrong. The service we came up with was a space where young people could experiment with alternative behaviour in the safety of the virtual world.

To evidence the service we built a scenario around Lisa who is 14 and wants to have fun but is learning to help others and do the right thing. Here's the mini-blueprint of the service.

You can grab the pdf if you want to look at the detail.

We worked under a Creative Commons license and the details of Do the Right Thing (and many other astonishing projects) are online at http://planet.globalservicejam.org/ and do check out the other projects as teams around the planet put in the equivalent of 50,000 man/hours over the weekend:-)

A screengrab from the Dixons GetSat server

One of the key pillars of the four-year Dixons Retail transformation program is to be thrifty when building and this is particularly relevant to software in the enterprise where feature-bloat and mystery licensing can mean you get some exceptionally poor value for your corporate dollar.

Dynamic social content on the new dixons.co.uk

As part of the effort to discover new ways to build cheaply online Dug is running a number of pilots including web-based customer-led support via GetSatisfaction and using open-source blogging tools to enhance our ecommerce websites.

Fingers crossed these will lead to some greater efficiencies, not least the ability to build quickly as well as cheaply.

Dug has a secret master-plan to build a developer community around Dixons. The fit with Intel is a good one as the UK electricals retailer ships an inordinate number of devices powered by the American chip-maker.

As part of the developer competition (entries have now been judged and entries closed. Sorry, check back next year) Dug briefed Intel on the type of application most likely to fuel both engagement and affiliate sales and then commissioned an api to programatically expose Dixon's trading underbelly. The entrants where able to build 3D roomsets and kitchen design tools filled with Samsung TVs and DeLonghi coffee makers.

The apps are able to display all product metadata, live price, live stock information and all associated rich media. Keep your eyes on the AppUp centre as apps will go live in next few weeks:-)

Dug did the ethnography, concept development, service design and prototyping in partnership with Vodafone R&D teams in London and in Spain. The beta of the Exchange server was built on top of Ocastalab's Statusnet service and is currently live.

From the Vodafone site: Agora is an open trading platform for individuals and groups to post items and services for sale or exchange. Have an extra laptop lying around? Need a bike instead? No problem! With Agora, you can specify what you'd like in exchange (including cash or services) and the system will alert you to others that have what you're looking for. You can make offers, negotiate with others until you secure an agreement, and then leave comments and ratings for your completed deals.

Agora is deployed as an Android app that is downloadable from the Android Market. It has been tested across a range of handsets and is compatible with Android 1.6 OS and above.

You can download the Android app from Vodafone.

As part of the Betavine Agora project, Dug produced this short video to explain how a distributed mobile marketplace not only supported the creation of listings and the promotion of transactions but also the serendipitous discovery of potential collaboration.

Orange Backup is one of several integrated web, PC and mobile applications Dug developed while working for Group Design & Usability. The app is part of the home software suite (HSS) delivered to broadband customers across Europe.

The product is based on a white label version of oodrive a leader in cloud storage. Dug conducted extensive user research into the target users and transformed the product into one focused on customer needs and respectful of their very specific context of use.

A project run at Group D&U to create a UI toolkit for a European comms product for Orange and Mobistar business customers. A flash animation is available to view a snapshot of the calendar functions

This project was a joy to run, a real testament to what a small team running Agile methodologies can do even as part of a heavyweight organisation. I had spent the better part of a year managing France Telecom stakeholders on an integrated communications project when I was contacted by the leader of this three-man team.

We worked together (yes, in French), helping dev teams move from waterfall-based production methodology to a user-centred design process built on the Garrett elements of user experience.

Outcome: The end product was rolled out quickly to the two markets and has been a huge success. After the launch, learnings from this product development were fed back into the France portal which now offers its customers best-in-class converged communications tools.

Dug created the specification for the Orange communications services beta which ran in late 2006. This was an early entry into complex RIA merging voice mailbox, SMS, email, calendar, contacts, IM and personal space storage into an integrated web app.

The spec seems a little dated now that RIAs have matured into more familiar design patterns supported by reliable RESTful apis but it's an interesting document nonetheless (download PDF - 9Meg).

Fortis: Life, pensions, investment products

Role: Lead the conception and experience delivery of Fortis' latest transactional risk business tool (a secure, prime-partner portal). Establish UCD methodology in a SCRUM process environment and define and evangelise the role of user experience design in this traditional, software-engineering-led team.

Outcome: We launched on time and our product has leapfrogged the industry leader in its first six months of operation.

Redesign and restructure bioinformatics extranet application GPCR SARfari. From the application's current owner's website:

SARfari is an integrated chemogenomics workbench focussed on GPCRs. The system incorporates and links GPCR sequence, structure, compounds and screening data

The UI grew out of a rapid development requirement where user needs assessment, paper prototyping and visual design happened very quickly as the client needed to be ready for an event.

The database is designed (among many things) to promote the serendipitous discovery of compounds from a seemingly infinite number of combinations. Dug was inspired by the mobiles of Alexander Calder.

The juxtaposition of random three-dimensional position with the seemingly unique shapes seemed a strong metaphor for the interaction of the genome scientist with the SARfari product. Dug photgraphed a number of mobiles and then used them as a random grid for the UI. The app that he worked on no longer exists since the product was sold, but many elements of the original work survive in the European Bioinformatics Institute website.

Dug lead a team of scientists, programmers and marketers through a complete user experience architecture process resulting in an entirely new system design.