[Music] [Giulio Barresi] Hello, everyone, and welcome to this Adobe MAX 2024 virtual session brought to you by Logitech. We're super excited to be here with you guys and share some insights around the creative process and how some external factors could actually influence your ability to be creative. Which are how we tackle the creative community's challenges and how at Logitech we are bringing solutions to life to really ease your creative workflow and ultimately build shortcuts to master when it comes to creativity. [Alba Ollé Moreno] Hi, everyone. This is Alba Ollé. I'm a Senior Product Manager working at Logitech, and I'm very excited to share this presentation today here with my colleague, Giulio. Hi. I'm Giulio. Super excited to be here with Alba. I'm the Head of Design here at Logi, and we're going to run you through some of these findings and explorations we've been up to. So I'll go and talk to you about the state of flow, and what it is, and how it really influences your ability to be creative. And I will talk more about design stuff, how we build solutions, what we keep in mind when we do that, and how they can ultimately help you. And then together, we'll present you some of our latest innovations. So I would like to start by setting us all into context and asking this question. Have you ever experienced a moment where you're so fully engaged in an activity that you lose track of time and you feel a deep sense of enjoyment and are completely absorbed in what you're doing? Well, actually, this feeling is often referred to as being in the flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a renowned psychologist who actually came up with this concept, and he defined flow as that time where everything just clicks, when we're completely focused on an activity where we're feeling energized and really fully immersed in the present moment. And we're performing at our best and really feeling a sense of fulfillment and enjoying in the activities that we are performing.
People generally enters into this type of a state when the activity that they are engaged in is challenging enough for it to require their full attention and skills. But at the same time, when this task is not so difficult as to cause frustration. And the time that really might take from person to person to reach a state of flow can vary widely. Some people might just enter into flow within just a few minutes of starting a task, while some others might really take longer to warm up and block all distractions and really be able to concentrate in what they're doing. But what does actually happen? And really to understand better state of flow, we'll need to look a bit deeper into some science, and specifically the one that happens inside our brains.
So for that, we'll be looking into what's happening in the prefrontal cortex and in the limbic system. So in the first one, which is actually located in the very front of the frontal lobe, this is what we normally call the executive center of our brain, and it's really playing a very important role regulating the most complex cognitive processes, which are decision-making, planning, problem-solving, or self-awareness. And the other part that we will need to focus in is the limbic system, which is located much deeper within the brain, and it's a part that is primarily associated with emotions, with motivation, with memory, and it really plays an important role regulating the emotional responses. So what we actually see is that when we are experiencing flow, both these brain parts undergo certain changes.
So first of all, the activity in the prefrontal cortex is believed to actually decrease. This allows individuals to experience deep concentration and a heightened focus. This is what actually is leading us to feel in control and in this timeliness, where time passes without you even realizing. The decrease of the activity in the prefrontal cortex also is reducing the internal dialogue, and the self-criticism, which is yet again promoting a much intuitive engagement with the task at hand. What we also see that it's happening is that in the limbic system, we actually see an increase of its activity. This results in heightened emotional engagement in an increase in motivation, higher sense of enjoyment, and of fulfillment. And what's also super interesting is that this increased activity in the limbic system can also lead to release of neurochemicals, such as dopamine or endorphin. And as you might know, these are associated with feelings of pleasure, motivation, and reward, which are further enhancing the individual's experience when in this state of flow. Yet what happens is that in today's digital environment, we have a constant stream of distractions that are coming in all the time, which really makes it very challenging for us to attain, but especially to maintain this state of law. We are constantly interrupted by notifications from emails, colleagues, social media, messaging apps, you name it, which really makes it hard to feel concentrated enough to really get into this global state. We're also constantly multitasking. In this digital age that we live in, we normally split our attention within various tasks, so it's really difficult to be fully immersed in a single one. And then as a consequence as well, we have reduced attention spans, which is also making us more prone to getting distracted more frequently. But even when we might decide to really focus in one single task, turning off all the notifications and all of the distractions around and focusing one single task, what we have seen is that the tools that we use when in our workflow, both hardware and software, also play a super important role within the flow state, and they can also impact this flow state. Logitech, as you might know, we're constantly engaging with users and really trying to learn about how they work and listening to their feedback. And we actually wanted to show you which are some of the struggles that we have heard repeated times of our users' workflows and the tools that they use, which actually prevent them from reaching this state of flow. So let's actually look into them. We have seen there's an ever-expanding amount of features that are being incorporated into our software applications day after day, which makes it hard to actually remember where each of these tools might be located within the numerous interfaces. This is impacting usability. This is impacting discoverability, and in a way, interrupting the state of flow every time that we need to start thinking where a specific tool that we want to use is actually hidden within the different menus. There are shortcuts, which can potentially help us reach these tools in a faster way. Yes, shortcuts can also be inconsistent across applications, they can be very complex sometimes requiring multiple presses and both hands to actually, trigger them, or which might simply be unintuitive. And this is yet again making us require this extra attention to remember each and every one of the shortcuts that we might potentially know.
Fine adjustments are something that we're doing constantly. This can also be very challenging to perform if we do not have the right physical tools. And here, tactility is really essential to experience a very natural intuitive and immersive type of adjustments, which we see also our users' struggles with.
And then as we've seen before, we also tend to work with multiple screens, multiple monitors, different applications, which is adding into complexity. It's adding distractions into our workflows, and this is preventing us yet again to reach the flow state. So when we actually heard all this feedback, we thought it was an incredibly valuable and eye-opening because we actually saw that multiple users, it was really constant feedback that we're hearing recurrently from users. So we actually realized that there was a big opportunity to improve our users' workflow and to really help them to create immersed into flow. It is actually what Giulio is going to tell you about. What is it that we did with all these feedback so that we can make sure that to empower our users to create immerse in this state. So then what to do with all this? I think, here I'll probably do some of the pinpoints, that we've identified. I think this whole flow state is super fascinating, actually. Always love, when I get this feeling of being in flow, and it's usually something that I noticed after I got out of it. And really, I think this is something that I'd like to live more often when I create stuff, and this is experiences that I want every creator to get to experience as much as possible when they're deep down into the work.
So really, what to do with all this was really something we felt we had to tackle. We knew that we had an opportunity to look at something that was totally new with our 40 years of innovation into peripherals. So what could be something new that Logitech could offer to help people get into this flow state, even more fun and even better? And we focused on three areas to do that. And the first one is really leveraging the essentials. And I'll talk a bit more about what it means in a bit. And then there is really something that is important for us when we build good experiences. Clearly identify what the issues you want to tackle and find very simple solutions for them. And I think we do that in everything we do, at least we strive to. And when we build experiences, and this brings me to my third point, is that we want to make sure that when we design them, we design them in a way that is actually good for the people and for the planet, and it's what I called designing for good.
Okay, let's jump into the very first one, which is leveraging the essentials. And I kind of, but not totally kind of, but want to go back to some of the first interfaces that were built. And I don't want to run you through the whole computer history and how interfaces have developed itself, but I want to bring you to 1981 when the first graphical user interface was built by Xerox. And I think this is really like a game-changer in the way we have been operating with machines. And I think Logitech quickly understood that there was an opportunity to support these new interfaces, and that's how the company launched the P4 Mouse in 1982. And you would say these experiences, they're pretty dated, but I still feel, the principle is the same today on a desktop experience. Loads have changed. Don't get me wrong, right? But the interactions are still pretty much similar. And what we've noticed is that in many cases, maybe most of the cases, it's still more efficient to move a mouse on a surface to select something on a screen, right? So it's not an experience that we wanted to get rid of, right? It's really an experience that we want you guys to keep when you can use a computer to create. But I'm talking about the word efficient, and I think that's very important, right? The first time you use a mouse, it can feel a bit daunting and moving an object on a flat surface, or a cursor that moves on the screen, it feels a bit strange, but once you've gone over that learning curve, as we call it, it seems to be very efficient.
And so this is something that we're trying to balance, efficiency versus intuitivity, right? And I think these interfaces have evolved over time. If I look at mice I said, we spent 40 years doing mice, but they've changed quite a lot because the interfaces ultimately have changed themselves. And I'll just bring you an example of the MX Master 3 that we launched in 2019. You can see that we started to create more interactions with your favorite apps and giving you a sense of higher tactility and control in the work you do. And I think this alludes to some of the feedback and findings that Alba was mentioning earlier. So I think chapter one basically is we don't want to create something completely out of the blue and got you lost and you don't know how to use it. We still want to keep the kind of primary parts that we all got used to.
And really, this brings me to the second point, which is simple solutions for targeted problems.
And we put focus on really three types of actions that you do all the time with your favorite apps. Triggers, so this is like triggering actions. So launching a very simple event. And then there's adjustments. So how do you tweak settings? How do you change the luminosity of an image or the volume of a track? And then, navigation. I think, when I look at the interface from Xerox, they're pretty simple, but I think also the use cases were pretty simple. And now the use cases are much more complex.
Interfaces have evolved, but then how do we make sure that the tools that we use, help us navigate those interfaces much better? Okay, so as I said earlier, it was really about finding the sweet spot between the learning curve and efficiency. And if I take a commercial plane, there's about 10,000 buttons and knobs that to control this aircraft. And although we really want you to feel like you're-- This pile up, flying your creative plane to bring you to the next amazing idea or amazing creation destination, we don't think if we were to build a device that would have a single button or a single dial for every action you want to control in your application would be something that you'd be comfortable with that. We'd rather think you'd probably be a bit overwhelmed than, probably, the learning curve again would be super high to get started. So I'll share with you now, how we went about all this. And really, I think we started from the ground up. And we started with very simple pieces of hardware, like small knobs, dials, and sliders. And we started to map them into functionalities into the different creative applications that you may be using. And we started to see if what felt right and what felt really nice and intuitive or better than what you would usually do with a standard pointing device. And then we clearly figure out the things that were working and the things that were absolutely not working at all.
And I think as we move forward in this creative process, we started refining those interactions. And we did stuff, and then we started to lay them out and figure out, "Okay, this sounds right, this sounds maybe something that we could continue exploring." And as we're moving on into this process as we're finding interactions, our designs became more integrated. And that's where we started to share some of these very early new device interactions with a bunch of people, and they really told us what worked and what didn't work in a real life use case.
And I think that's how we ended up iterating and quickly coming to something that felt right. And really, this brings me to the last stage here of how we've developed new creative solutions.
As I mentioned earlier, we really wanted to make sure that we're designing for good. So now that it was time to develop something it had to get its personality, its final look and feel, and really, lock down the real experience. But we wanted to make sure that we were doing this in the right way.
And so we set the focus on three aspects in designing for good. And the first one was better materials. And really, I think on this one, we're pretty good at innovating by creating contrast and personality in the material, but at the same time minimizing a lot, the amount of chemical treatments that you will usually do in these type of processes. And really, the plastic that we used...
Are as much as possible made from recycled plastics. So we're really trying to close the loop here using plastics that have been used before in the industry, and play with special patterns and processes that minimize the amount of use of chemicals. And then the second part is really about the objects themselves. We really want to make sure that they are flexible, that they follow you across your workflow. But let's be clear, many people have different workflows. So how do we create one device experience that still feels very personal and tailored uniquely to your own needs? So really, in the way we're thinking about developing it, it was for you specifically and for others specifically and for today and how it could look like tomorrow. And this really brings me into the last point, evolutive experiences. Today, we'll show you some integrations with your favorite applications and what they can do today for creativity. But really, there's more to come, and more integrations are coming, and you'll see how your device will evolve over time as we need to change. Okay, so I'm not going to keep you hanging for longer. This is how it looks like. We call it the MX Creative Console, and it's made of two parts. You have the MX Creative Dialpad, which is this big dial, fully customizable that will help you to adjust, navigate with its ruler, and really gets you more connected to the way you do adjustments. And on the right-hand side, we have the MX Creative Keypad, which is also a display customizable keypad on which you can map any functionality you would like to get quick access to.
So we believe it's a super powerful solution, and let me show you a bit more how it works in action. [Music] So we hope you are as excited as we are about this latest innovation, which, as you saw, was designed to really complement and expand the MX ecosystem. This was a solution for creative professionals to really help in all type of creative activities from design to editing to retouching. We really want to empower our users to create with the speed to really feel in control and to work without any distractions so that they can enjoy this data flow. So if you actually want to learn more about the MX Creative Console, you can come and visit us at the booth or visit logitech.com - Thank you. - Thank you. Bye. [Music]
