In our first module at Hyper Island we interviewed a number of top players from the digital industry. In this Q&A we spoke to ustwo™, the London and Malmö based digital design studio. ustwo™ was represented by Marcus Woxneryd, creative director and Matt Politt, business development manager.
My fellow Mobile Applications colleagues Kasper Lahti and Sarper Erel also asked questions during the interview.
Jakub Burkot When we looked at the ustwo™ portfolio we saw that almost all of your work is designed for the mobile platform. Firstly, we would like to ask what did ustwo™ do before focussing specifically on mobile?
Marcus Woxneryd A lot of the work we do is very confidential and it’s mainly because of this why we can’t showcase the majority of the other work we do. Our early client projects involved working with Sony. During this time we worked on the Bravia and Vega brands working on digital TV UX. That was the very early stuff and as we grew we began to get more involved with Sony Ericsson based projects. We’ve done some great stuff with Sony Ericsson but unfortunately can’t go into specifics. However when Apple launched the App Store we decided to use our knowledge to create our own apps to publicly showcase our skills as designers and developers. Producing these apps finally gave us our voice and allowed us to actively promote what we do.
Matt Pollitt ustwo™ was started by Matt Miller and John Sinclair in 2004 with a £5000 loan. As there were just two of them – ustwo™ became the obvious name of choice for the company. After 3 years of growth working with some of the biggest brands in the world, the Apple App Store acted as a verbal spring board to really shout about what we do and what we’re about as ustwo™.
Marcus The explosion in mobile technology and consequently massive increase in handset ownership over the last decade has meant that for us – mobile work is the biggest area we currently work in. But we do work across all digital consumer devices including SatNavs, TV, medical devices and bigger desktop applications.
Jakub It’s interesting to find out that your service offering also includes other consumer devices and isn’t limited to mobile strictly. What keeps you so focused on mobile design?
Marcus Mobiles are very personal devices, kept closely and used throughout the day by most people. Therefore it’s great to design apps and other content for a device that means so much to people. Apple did an amazing job by bringing more tools, great UX and expandable apps to the mobile phone.
On top of that we’ve seen the beginnings of augmented reality, geo-location and what really interests me is how these tools could be used within gaming. There’s a lot of cool stuff happening with developers really pushing the limits and I think mobile is the most exciting field to be working in.
Matt It’s amazing to be involved in this industry and it’s booming as people shift from accessing web content to browsing content through apps in a much more user friendly way.
Sarper Erel So do you reckon that personal use and content consumption will be the main reason behind people increasingly using their mobile devices for this purpose? Will it be possible to develop a more creative way to use iPad or other smart phones?
Matt The iPad is all about entertainment whether watching movies or looking at content whilst relaxing. It goes without saying that you’ll be limited in terms of creativity but that really depends on your definition of creativity. For example you won’t be able to do the things you do on your laptop whilst using adobe Creative Suite. But if you were using an app like our Granimator™ you would be able to create amazing compositions using the touch screen to modify your creation as you go along.
Marcus I had a go on the Samsung Galaxy Tab last week and I wasn’t overly impressed, as the UX doesn’t offer anything new. I’ve heard people describing it as a tablet phone hybrid but it’s not the sort of thing I would feel happy answering on the bus. However the good thing about these types of devices is that they give portable access to the internet on a whole new level.
Matt It’s all about nomadic internet access…
Sarp Your work is very simple and made of very strong visuals. Do you think that there is a place for complex apps?
Marcus Of course there’s place for complex apps – there’s a place for all different types of apps from the sublime to the ridiculous. Some of our apps have taken a year to develop and others have only taken 48 hours so that goes to show the range of complexity available.
Matt App users themselves obviously are interested in complexity – they want an easy to use app that makes complicated things simple. Therefore the user interface is vitally important. My advice is to keep the interface and interaction as simple as possible and do not put too many features into one app. The backend of the app can be as complex as you like.
Kasper What do you think about Apple’s interface guidelines? How important are they for you?
Marcus It’s always important to follow the guidelines as much as possible. The devices themselves are beautiful so it’s good to keep standards in design and development high. These users have high expectations and if you want to stand out from the crowd as a developer you should concentrate 100% on your user interface.
Matt You could say Apple’s guidelines have made the App Store as successful as it is. Without them there would no consistency or standard. For example the more fragmented platforms like Nokia and Android lack this high level of consistency and it could be argued that it’s because of that they aren’t as successful as Apple App Store.
Jakub What do you think about app pricing?
Marcus I hope it is going to rise (laugh).
Matt I think app prices are more or less the same as this time last year. If anything it was easier to sell an app then but you now have to consider that the App Store is a bigger market i.e. more users willing to buys or download apps. Users expect a lot and it’s likely this will continue. The main difficulty that faces developers is not the price but getting the exposure needed to drive downloads.
Sarp As a user I do not want to spend money if there is no guarantee that the app is any good. Do you think that demoing games is a big trend now?
Matt Yeah, I think it is, Angry Birds for example - the number one selling app pretty much everywhere in the word, launched a free/ lite version of the game to give users a taste of what all the noise was about. Supported by ads, the user has a simple choice if they liked playing the lite version, to download the paid for version without ads and more levels to explore. It makes perfect sense for developers to launch both a free and paid for version of their apps.
Jakub One of our last questions is about your collaboration with Hyper Island. We know that you are going to be module an industry leader for concept development module. What would you like to gain from the contact with Hyper Island and what are your feelings about the school so far?
Marcus Hyper Island has a very good reputation and is a school we’ve always respected. Since we heard about the Mobile Applications course we wanted to get in touch, learn and work with you guys as well.
Kasper In terms of hiring Hyper Island students in the future, what kind of attitude and skills do you expect?
Marcus We want them to be passionate – passion is key.
Matt I agree – everyone here has a drive for learning new things and this is what we expect. Working at ustwo™ is more than a job, it’s a lifestyle.
Marcus You need to be hungry for new experiences. At our company it’s up to you how far you want to get. We don’t do hierarchy but you need to be good. Attitude and eagerness to learn along with taking full responsibility for yourself are the main attribute we look for in staff…
Jakub Thank you for sharing your valuable time. It was a real pleasure to talk to you. Hope to see you at Hyper in Karlskrona soon!
Marcus No worries, great initiative from you guys. It was fun for us!
Matt Thanks and good luck with your time at Hyper.
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