As part of an engagement with the Samsung product innovation lab, my team and I began to think about the television not as a consumer electronics product, but as part of our home and of our daily life. We asked…”What if the TV display in our homes delivered more than just the expected content experience? And what if the TV seamlessly transformed into décor when not in use?”
Agency
Fuseproject
The Frame TV
One of the primary solutions for enabling the TV’s integration into interior design was the proposed interface of “Art Mode.” This became as important a design challenge as the form itself. One of the aspects that took much prototyping to get right was the ability to respect the integrity of the art and make it appear as tactile, not just digital images. After reconfiguring and implementing new brightness settings, we achieved an incredible likeness to physical art.
In addition, the brightness sensor automatically adjusts the image based on the ambient room lighting, helping the artwork remain as close to the original as possible. The result is art that blends in the environment in the same way that printed photography or a painted canvas would look.
Experience Mapping
We first established core experience principles to offer a lens for developing and evaluating concepts— helping us to gain alignment across departments, and facilitating product/feature prioritization.
How users engage
Immersive
Dramatic, sophisticated, complete. Sweep me up. Take me away.
How users interact
Seamless
Effortless, magical, fluid. Surprise me with magical continuity.
The user’s content
Personal
Perceptive, intuitive, organized. You get me. I belong.
The user’s environment
Integrated
Harmonious, distinctive, considered. Everything falls into place.
Sketching the Initial Concepts
Initial Purchase and Setup
Our first series of concept sketches looked at the initial setup experience as an opportunity for a magical moment. First, a user would create a Samsung ID account and link it to other home services, then quickly tap the code on the screen to load their user information and settings.
Art and Entertainment
We first called the art mode “Chameleon”, activating back facing sensors to blend the TV into the wall, or you could add art to give the TV a distinctive place in the interior design. This idea was the birth of the Samsung Frame.
Prototyping the App Experience
Art Mode
The Samsung Collection is an initial feed of curated images, organized by collection type, i.e. Landscape.
My Collection allows for users to upload their own images, view recently set images, and view subscriptions to premium art feeds.
Mat and Settings
The frame settings allow users to further customize their experience, setting preferred mat aesthetics, color temp, brightness, and motion detection, etc.
When you buy The Frame, you are also investing in the selected artists, and presenting their work in your home as the artist intended. At product launch, we provided Frame customers with 100 pieces of extraordinary artwork, from 38 different artists, in 10 genres.
And of course, the option exists to display your own artwork or family photos, should you prefer. The artwork can be shown with white or color mattes, and other framing conventions according to preference.