Universal Mind Helps Turn A Design Tool Into A Reality
iBrainstorm: Multi-Device App
Universal Mind Takes the Apple iPad Productivity App Market by Storm
CHALLENGE
Step into the studios at Universal Mind and you’ll find walls peppered with craft paper and sticky notes, covered with the scribbles of ideas in various stages of genesis. At least, that was the case until Apple released the iPad.
With the new device in hand, the User Experience team at Universal Mind immediately recognized its potential not just for industries such as medical and education, but for their own design industry as well.
After all, while sharing ideas in an open, collaborative forum leads to Universal Mind’s best concepts, lugging rolls of paper, stacks of sticky notes and boxes of colored markers to clients’ offices for brainstorm sessions didn’t fit an organization known for creating some of the marketplace’s most elegant digital solutions. What the UX team wanted—and set out to create—was a portable, digital version of the sketch boards they used. The iPad provided them the perfect medium.
PROCESS
The UX team brainstormed the concept as they always had—by putting pen to paper, and paper to wall. Employing the same process they use to solve client business challenges, they first identified problems with the current workflow in order to more easily discover the solutions.
One issue they found: passing the iPad around to let team members contribute was awkward. This led to examining the iPhone as part of the solution. The concept was to use the iPhone as an additional input device, enabling iPhone users to contribute ideas to the iPad, which fit well with Universal Mind’s multi-device strategy.
Through rapid, iterative prototyping, the UX team designed and developed products that each team member tested. All feedback was evaluated, making its way into adjustments for the next build.
After a few iterations, iBrainstorm evolved from concept to working software running on UX team members’ devices to being available in the Apple store. Using their own “release early, release often” strategy, Universal Mind decide to concentrate on an essential list of productivityorientated features in order to create a basic app and get it to market. With the final rounds of feedback implemented, it was time to share iBrainstorm with the UX community.
RESULT
iBrainstorm is a multi-device collaboration tool developed for Apple devices that allows users to seamlessly share ideas between the iPad and iPhone. Designed to easily collect ideas and organize them in a collaborative environment, iBrainstorm gives up to four iPhone users the ability to capture concepts on “sticky notes” and “flick” them from iPhone to iPad devices.
Within days of being introduced to the Apple AppStore, iBrainstorm for the iPad became the third most downloaded application of all free iPad apps, and was the number one most downloaded app in the free Productivity apps category for six weeks. A one-day update offering the iBrainstorm Companion app for the iPhone earned tens of thousands of updates that day.
“iBrainstorm is a perfect case study in our own UX practice as well as a powerful example of Universal Mind’s multi-device solutions,” says Erik Loehfelm, Executive Director of User Experience at Universal Mind. “By leveraging a real life metaphor for the iBrainstorm Companion app for iPhone, the idea of ‘flicking’ a note to the iPad, we’ve shown how a collaborative environment can be created using these devices, and how we’re able to do that across platform and across device.”
“iBrainstorm is exemplary of how Universal Mind approaches multi-device initiatives,” explainsBrett Cortese, CEO of Universal Mind. “We’ve successfully used it for concepts as diverse as software development, proposing a new model for a major refrigerator manufacturer, even remodeling someone’s basement. While iBrainstorm was developed for designers and developers, it’s been fascinating to see how users put this multi-device application to work.
In fact, iBrainstorm’s popularity has gone way beyond their original audience. “It was very surprising to us to learn that not only were UX professionals using it, but people designing their patio furniture layouts, shopping lists, reminder lists too,” adds Loehfelm. “We didn’t really plan for people to use it in that way, but it’s really cool that they are.”
