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Happy Valentine’s Day!
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Lextant decorated over 250 sugar cookies last Friday and donated them to the Columbus Ronald McDonald House for Valentine’s Day, spreading a little butter and sugar-based cheer to families in need. At one point, over 20 designers and researchers crowded into the Ballroom fighting for squeeze bottles of icing. The hardest part about it wasn’t the decorating though, it was not eating the results!
The event was inspired by Drop In & Decorate, whose goal is to “offer a more personal way for people to make a difference; we do that with cookies—because cookies are universal, and because cookies make people happy.” If you’re interested in doing an event like this, drop us a line or check out dropinanddecorate.org.
For more photos (like George Ressler’s 3D whale cookie or Stefani Bachetti’s robot love cookie series), visit the Lextant Facebook page and check out the album “Valentine’s Day Drop In & Decorate.”
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We LOVE Stickers
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At Lextant, we LOVE stickers, others might call it an obsession. We use them in our research projects and find them very effective. We are always looking for real world examples of how others are using stickers. This morning, Sherie Masters, Vice President - User Experience Design, sent around an email to the company, it included the following text:
“Not that stickers on everything is a good thing… but love this social participation on a large scale for vacant buildings and spaces… http://iwishthiswas.cc/.”
Our team loves to analyze and dive into emails that are sent companywide. Allen Cai, Intern - User Experience Design, responded by commenting:
“Really cool – It’s amazing how much impact and how large a scale social-based design can be, especially having a physical form in this digital age. This actually reminded me of a very similar project from about a year ago, her focus was on re-imagining space in lower-income neighborhoods: http://rachelinman.com/project/re-imagining-place-engaging-community/.”
Ashley Rovenski, Associate – User Experience Design, joined in the conversation:
“Wow a very interesting idea – at least for collecting initial data. Of course, I’d want to delve deeper into the “why” – why should it be a Laundromat, Chinese restaurant, garden, etc. What a fun way to involve the public and, since we were talking about market research yesterday, to understand the “market” of the neighborhood or area and what is most desired in that space.”
Lastly, Chris Brown, Production Assistant, brought up yet another similar project:
“Ji Lee, a graphic artist started putting ‘speech bubble’ stickers on advertisements and posters at bus stops and public places. The idea was to be able to engage the public in what was a one-way communication (being advertised to) to a 2-way conversation turning “the corporate monologue into an open dialogue.” This was back before the social media explosion; it’s interesting to see how the concept has evolved into more practical and utilitarian concepts.
http://www.thebubbleproject.com/.”We enjoy talking about what is happening in the community and how people are taking different approaches to help everyday people have a voice. Our number one focus is on experience and how we can improve and create an ideal experience for the end user. The projects mentioned above gave people a voice and the ability to truly say what they are thinking. We strive through our research to discover consumer’s unmet needs and unarticulated desires. We are able to accomplish this by having a discussion with the consumer and using stickers, as stimulus for those discussions. See it all comes back to the stickers, which we hold dear to our hearts.
