On September 11, 2011 – 10 years after the
attacks of 9/11 – the National September 11 Memorial opened at Ground Zero in
New York City. Infragistics Services developed the official Windows Phone app
that assists users in exploring the Memorial. One of the main features of the
app is to help users find the name of a loved one on the bronze panels
surrounding the reflecting pools that sit in the footprints where the Twin
Towers stood.
One of the best definitions I know of User
Experience is that it’s the envisioned or actual experience of a user
interacting with a technical product. This project made me understand this
definition on a much deeper level than before. While we were working on the
app, we tried to foresee its use against the background of the emotions that
families and friends have regarding their losses. Everybody on our team that
built the app remembers 9/11 vividly of course, and Infragistics headquarters
is less than one hour away from Ground Zero. You can read a lot about what
emotional journeys the families and friends of victims had gone through for 10
years, but only they know what their losses truly mean.
AP Photo / Carolyn Cole,
Pool.
Our app extends the physical Memorial at Ground
Zero into the digital space. Users can take the memorial – and with it some of
the special memories of loved ones – with them wherever they go. Consequently,
the app is very different from most of the other apps that users have installed
on their phones. It shares a lot of experience attributes with typical
smartphone apps, e.g. “engaging”, “immersive”, “informative”, “useful”.
However, in the same way that the actual Memorial at Ground Zero is not
“funny”, “playful” or “flashy”, we designed the app to be down-to-earth,
adequate and worthy for its context of use.
The Metro design guidelines for Windows Phone lent themselves
very well to what we wanted to achieve. Not to say that you couldn’t use this
design language for funny apps (check out the thousands of apps on Microsoft’s
marketplace for proof), but the Metro appeal is rather straightforward and
without frills. The translation of the physical Memorial experience into our
digital world obviously went beyond the level of visual design. To share just
one example: What do you do with long names of victims or affiliations they
worked at? On a smart phone, there’s very limited real estate. Because the
integrity of names was paramount, we could not truncate them. So we allowed for
line-wrapping, even though that means that individual pages become longer and
users may need to scroll more vertically. In these kinds of situations we tried
to make the best decisions, always envisioning the actual use of the app.
Photo by Getty Images /
Chip Somodevilla.
When the app was placed into Microsoft’s
marketplace for free download on 9/11/2011, we were very curious as to the
reactions from the users. This was the switch from envisioned to actual user
experience. On this first day, 50 user reviews were written, giving the app a
5-star average (5 stars is the best possible rating). A lot of photos were
taken and published about the first encounters between visitors and the
Memorial on that day. And again, the app is just a digital extension of the
physical Memorial. The architects could not know for sure either how families
and friends of the victims would experience the physical Memorial. But if you
look at the photos above, it is evident that envisioned and actual experience
were congruent. From the feedback we receive (it’s still the highest rated app
in its marketplace category), I believe that we achieved this congruence with
the app as well.
For more details, check out our case study!
