KFC Apologizes With A Brilliant Campaign

February 23, 2018 Design Happenings

KFC Ad CampaignCreativity comes in several ways, least of all in print. In a full-page ad today, KFC UK admitted and apologized for experiencing an unprecedented shortage of chicken leading to the closure of several of its outlets through a creative marketing campaign called ‘We’re Sorry’. The visualizer and the content/PR team deserve a huge kudos along with a pay hike for creating this amazing masterpiece! Through some research, I discovered this campaign has been developed by KFC’s creative agency ‘Mother’.

WIRED traced the logistical issue to a failure in KFC’s supply chain and “lack of contingency planning” after a serious collision on the M6 on Feb-14 which blocked access to their warehouse.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The lack of chicken began to hit on February 16. KFCs started to shut down locations in response to their missing ingredients, meaning that by February 18, only 266 of the 870 restaurants in the UK and Ireland were open. Locations in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have not been affected due to different logistical arrangements.[/perfectpullquote]

Must say, KFC made an honest attempt to sympathize with its frustrated fans with a visual messaging that conveys that feeling through an empty chicken bucket lying on the floor, nothing seems more effective than this simple, and eye-catching campaign.

Burnout Paradise Coming to PS4

February 21, 2018 Happenings

I was pleasantly taken aback at this sudden announcement on the Playstation Blog about EA bringing the Burnout Paradise Remastered version for the PS4 on March 16th. For those who haven’t yet had a chance to experience its dynamic gameplay, this game was light years ahead of its competition at the time with its open world racing environment and game physics. The first time that I came to know of Burnout was on a PS2 at a friend’s place. More than anything, I was blown away by the car crash sequences, the gripping slo-mo of the the vehicles in a head-on collision as the controller provided a vibrating feedback until the wagons came to a complete standstill in a ‘wrecked’ condition. The physics engine was doing a tremendous job at simulating a catastrophic event.

Burnout Paradise - Crash Sequence

Needless to say, when I got my PS3 in 2011 Burnout Paradise was one of the first titles I bought on the PlayStation Store and I still play it occassionally. What I love about the game is that I don’t have to participate in the competitive events, there are a bunch of them btw, I can play the game at my own pace, much like Driveclub, or just drive aimlessly exploring the corners of ‘Paradise City’ in a variety of automobiles until my knuckles hurt. EA bought its maker Criterion Games and I never saw another release — I believe they integrated its awesome game physics in the subsequent NFS titles.

To be very honest, a series like Burnout deserved a reboot on the PS4 though a remastered version would suffice in its absence and I am looking forward to experiencing the fun again. And hey Sony, if you are so inclined on remasters for the PS4 mind having a look at the MotorStorm series?

Latika’s Theme – Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack

February 19, 2018 General Movies

I have zero recollection of the hours that I have spent listening to Suzanne D’Mello’s melancholic crooning of Latika’s emotions in this track, a slow and an entrancing piece of melody from the critically acclaimed soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire. Once again, I discovered it quite randomly during my music listening spree today – perhaps your most cherished songs follow you everywhere just like your beloved memories. There are other hit tracks on the album, including the award-winning Jai Ho (Academy Award for Best Original Song and a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media) which captured the imagination of the world and also Ringa Ringa, but I keep returning to Latika’s Theme like a hopeless romantic. From my list of favourite composers, A R Rahman is one who has the potential of casting a spell on my latent consciousness with his tunes, while consistently demonstrating the obvious that music has a universal appeal even when it’s deprived of any language or words and an effective antidote for healing our bruised soul.

The Design Experience Dilemma

February 18, 2018 Design

I read an excerpt from Don Norman’s revised classic book on UX ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ that pointed at the cognitive functions of the human brain in the context of good vs bad design experience.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.   [/perfectpullquote]

When you think about software and “bad” user-interfaces for instance, consistent periods of exposure to a clunky task flow in a working environment per se forces the human brain to adjust to the flawed experience, and the pressure to meet those goals increases the cognitive efforts towards learning those relevant skills quickly despite the experience being unwieldy in gaining familiarity with the UI for accomplishing those recurring tasks. It might be termed as “efficient” but leaves the user in a quagmire. Such onerous yet persisting functionality naturally forms a so-called ‘blind spot’ preventing its users from judging the experience as ‘good’, ‘bad’ or ‘poor’ since they have now settled into a comfort zone in this burdensome journey. In my experience, I have seen its effect leaving a huge mark on their individual productivity, moreover in some cases, it even compels the users to thwart attempts to bring any positive change to the system. This is one reason why design thinking and user-centred frameworks fundamentally emphasize on ‘observing’ the users in their natural surroundings rather than ‘interviewing’ them to test their inherent judgement in relation to the tasks which they undertake. It could be, that in this context, Dr Norman is mentioning the human experience from the point of view of ordinary systems which are unrelated to the hurdles of technology, because the “inadequacies” which stem from a bad UI may not be necessarily perceived by the end-users for the reasons that I mentioned above, and also because they are committed to achieving those goals regardless of the quality of the UI or experience.

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