LBi London

London Guathon DDD Event

Posted by Bahareh Boostani August 18th, 2010

Last Friday I had the good fortune (as well as good friends who did the booking for me) to attend London Guathon DDD event. This was a free community event hosted by Microsoft to reveal their latest technology roadmaps and strategies. Within the geek community these event tickets are  as prized as the golden ones within Wonka  Bars with all 240 places being filled in less than 20min.

Despite being late due to the Runaway tube train  and the Northern line being closed I managed to get to the Odeon in Covent Garden just on time (OK, I was 15 minutes late, but the session started 15 minutes after I arrived).

ScottGu in London Guathon DDD

Scott Guthrie opened up the event with an introduction to the sessions of the day. These sessions spanned four different aspects of Microsoft’s new technologies:

1. VS 2010 and ASP.NET 4
2. ASP.NET MVC 2
3. Windows Phone 7 Development
4. Web Development Futures: ASP.NET MVC 3, SQL CE and IIS Express

What was cool?

First session had many tips and tricks from Scott ‘Gu’ including some which are guaranteed to make the geeks squeal with delight.
The second session was the real meat in the sandwich for those who care about content and the way it is presented. For the past 10 years, ASP.Net was a great platform in terms of development productivity and for building enterprise applications. But its weakness was in the poor quality front-end code it generated; something that LBi interface developers and SEO consultants constantly complained about. However, Microsoft’s new ASP.NET MVC will be a game changer in this part (there are useful packages in IIS 7 to help on the SEO side.)

And yes, Windows Phone 7 will be released around October in UK. Microsoft intends to send a strong statement of intent to the smart phones market. Mike Ormond’s slides on the day can be found here.

And finally, In the last session on Web futures Scott Gu announced new technologies including IIS Express, MVC3, code-first Entity Framework, Razor (the new view engine for ASP.NET) that is going to be released soon by Microsoft. Then he discussed the common themes of these new developments which are to keep the existing technologies working better and cleaner and to enable extensibility and customization.

Revolutionary… No, but Microsoft are moving in the right direction whilst correcting some of the legacy issues of .Net. Who knows one day we may be able to have more than one form again…

Microsoft continue to pick up many of the good ideas that have been implemented in other languages for a little while and we’re starting to see some real productivity improvements as a consequence. However Microsoft remains a big beast and how these developments relate to the Sharepoints and Silverlights of the world remains to be seen. Refinement rather than reinvention is definitely order of the day for Microsoft and for that they should be commended.

Tags: ASP.NET, IIS, Microsoft, mobile, mvc, Technology, UK, VS2010, Web design, WP7

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LBi wins HIVE award for BT Business site redesign

Posted by Imogen Thacker April 29th, 2010

LBi has won a globally-distinguished Hive Award for Best Information Architecture for the redesign of BT’s Business website, http://business.bt.com. Judged by an internationally-renowned panel of experts, LBi was recognised for the organisation and optimisation of the site’s content.

With LBi input, BT Business’ information architecture has seen a 25% increase in broadband sales, a 75% increase in calls and line sales, and a 105% increase in domain and hosting sales. Traffic from natural search has also increased by 77%.

BT Business offers the UK’s 4.8 million-plus* SMEs more than 130 different business IT and communications products online. Ranging from start-ups to firms with 1,000 employees and some significantly larger, the market is diverse.

LBi redesigned the company’s site in 2009, moving from an online catalogue to an ecommerce vehicle. Using a detailed customer segmentation model, LBi insight was to design the site for an individual user rather than a business. The result has been a fresh site targeted at people rather than job titles.

Sarah Morris, director of User Experience at LBi says “This is a great win for us, in a category that is actually quite hard an area to differentiate. Information architecture is usually driven by the content and business requirements, so it’s great that, by utilising insights and by thinking about the taxonomy differently, we’ve been recognised for the creativity whilst at the same time meeting customers’ needs”.

Anil Pillai, Managing Director of LBi UK says “It is refreshing to win an award for User Experience – this is an area that contributes hugely to every project we do and is often not recognised as much as it should be.  User Experience is the unsung hero of the industry.  This is a renowned award and we are proud to have received it”.
* 4.8m private enterprises in the UK per the beginning of 2008 http://stats.berr.gov.uk/ed/sme/smestats2008-ukspr.pdf

Tags: BT, client, LBi, LBi London, LBi UK, UK, Web design

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A war on files

Posted by Chris Clarke October 28th, 2009

I’ve just got back from C&binet forum, a government organised conference bringing the creative industries together to discuss the challenges and opportunities outlined in this year’s Digital Britain report. It was by and large a worthwhile event, and as always much of the value was in meeting talented people from all corners of the creative industry. On the downside, the debate in the main hall focussed way too much on ways of preserving outdated business models in the face of web enabled copyright infringement and not enough on ideas and business models which exploit the new realities.

Lord Mandelson announced this morning after keeping us waiting for a suitably rock n roll period of time that the government’s bright idea to combat file sharing is to send letters on a three strikes basis. What then happens isn’t clear, but I can’t help feeling it won’t work. Clearly the government has to be seen to do something, but I can’t help feeling this will drive the behaviour underground via encryption. Yesterday I asked Sion Simon if the government has an appetite for a war on files alongside the clearly very effective one raging on drugs. It seems they have.  To be fair the announcement did hint at help for businesses offering credible alternatives to illegal downloads, but in true New Labour style there didn’t seem to be any clarity over what that will be.  More positive was a commitment to fixing the UK’s arcane copyright laws, making it easier for artists to clear rights for the production of new work. As David Lammy said yesterday in his well informed speech, quoting Picasso; “good artists borrow, great artists steal.” So we look forward to the possibility of legislation which will enable a legitimate future for sampling, mashups and other digitally driven forms of creativity.

Tags: c&binet, copyright, government, UK, web

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Innovative salt app for Food Standards Agency

Posted by Simon Gill October 21st, 2009

LBi has created an iPhone and iPod Touch application and mobile-optimised site called ‘FSA Salt’ to help shoppers calculate the salt content in everyday foods and make healthier food choices for their families. The salt calculator also comes with sound: when you shake the application you can hear salt being shaken and you are provided with useful tips to reduce salt in everyday foods. The app has been created for the FSA in support of their Salt Reduction Campaign after survey results revealed that 26 million adults in the UK consume too much salt in their diets.  This unique app can be used by shoppers and mothers easily when browsing the supermarket shelves.
 
The Salt Calculator is a ‘simple to use’ app that can be integrated into the lives of consumers with ease and acts as a handy nutrition tool when they are ‘on the go’. Users can simply look at the food label, select the appropriate level of salt per 100g and combined with choosing the weight of the serving from the scale provided, a traffic light system reveals instantly if it’s a healthy choice.  The app includes added features such as salt intake information for children of different ages and an inbuilt shake gesture that provides useful tips such as ‘Go for reduced-salt back bacon in your bacon sandwich’. ‘And try adding some slices of tomato instead of ketchup’.  The shake feature provides a built in sound effect of salt being shaken, which can be heard with each tip displayed.

Laura Jordon Bambach, Joint Creative Director LBi UK:  “Its always a pleasure to work on projects that are not only creatively pleasing but provide such a useful tool in promoting good health; and where we can use digital channels to create real benefit for consumers. We’re especially happy to be helping mums make the right decisions at point of sale, through our work with the FSA”.

Tags: app, iPhone, press release, UK

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