
The Emerging Experiences team at Razorfish recently unveiled their experimental retail platform
Razorfashion. The system is built around a multi-touch enabled surface display that aims at augmenting the user's shopping experience in offline stores. It is indeed an interesting exploration and contains several inspired ideas. However, this "retail experience" that Razorfish created may not actually be a consumer darling in a real retail space. Here's why:
Retail experience that isn't

Due to iPod's dominance, some competitors attempted to unseat it by introducing new killer features. One of these seemingly attractive innovations was wireless song sharing, however it never gained much traction. The problem is that it goes against people's expectation of what "sharing" embodies in physical space. When you are together with your friends, the music is shared by co-listening through the same pair of headphones or speakers. The wireless transmission of files deprives users of the intimacy or camaraderie that the act of sharing traditionally promises. Same problem here. The retail experience for most shoppers is the enjoyment of seeing/feeling/touching merchandises, comparing/matching them side by side, trying them on, and admiring oneself in the mirror. If one wishes to "shop" on a computer screen, he or she can simply stay home.
In the nascent stage of e-commerce, many had the misguided notion of replicating brick and mortar experience in the cyberspace. Some went so far as to champion 3D virtual mall built around the (then) cutting-edge VRML. Now the pendulum has swung to the other end; efforts such as Razorfashion aspire to recreate digital experience in physical space using the (now) cutting-edge touch surface. It just might be as futile. It is my opinion that our digital social lives have evolved to the point that the real world is starting to collide with the virtual one. Experience design professionals now need to take a hard look at how these two realms can compliment and enhance each other.
Replication is not the answer.
Crossing the chasm and then back

In order to induce such a tectonic shift in shopper behaviors, a critical mass is needed to create strong enough network externalities. Razorfashion's clever responses are a) to create an inter-store system that facilitate a continuous experience in the same shopping center, and b) to leverage the consumer's personal social networks such as Facebook.
The former would be a vast infrastructure-building initiative. Not only the cost can be prohibitive, it also ignores the differences in branding requirements of all these diverse stores in the same mall. One design does not fit all, and some brands may flat out refuse to be associated with any modern technology. Even if we somehow manage to establish such a network, the user's personal data is portable only through his or her own mobile device. Coupling with the fact that the social network touch points Razorfashion trying to duplicate already exist on said mobile device, one has to question the wisdom of building an elaborated display network in the first place. Why not
keep the experience on the mobile device from end to end?
Private touch in public space

There is no question that the characteristics of multi-touch interface such as tactility and direct manipulation lend itself well to small devices that are personal and intimate in nature. Problems however arise when the surface is scaled up. Most early applications of large-scaled touch interface were collaborative "workbench" systems. Since they were often used in semi-private settings with trusted participants, the
tension between private and public modes of computing, while emerging, was still well contained. Nonetheless, the simple act of bringing up the surface from its traditional upward-facing orientation to its new full-frontal public posture stirs up that tension to new height. Exactly which parts of people's shopping experience they deemed private and which parts public need to be researched and then addressed accordingly. Razorfashion's social network mashup features further underscore the issue.
The deployment of multi-touch surfaces in public space also faces a couple of problems that are trivial but not any less real. First, due to the size of the display certain operations are difficult or imprecise to operate with just one hand, thus all the two-handed actions that you saw in the Razorfashion demo video. This would spell trouble in its intended environment, where users are likely carrying shopping bags or handbag. The second issue is one of sanitation--real or perceived. Witness how people loathe the finger smudges on their iPhone; now imagine magnifying that smeared screen and placing it in a shopping center where sees thousands of visitors...in flu seasons. It seems a contact-less gesture-controlled interface, not unlike the Xbox Project Natal, is more suitable for large public display.
Despites the aforementioned issues, projects such as this and IconNicholson's interactive mirror are important trials that surely will one day lead to better retail design and services. Integrated online/offline service design is likely to become the new focal point of the industry. It is exciting times to be an experience designer.
Fang-Yu Lin