Grand Designs Live: Kevin McCloud

• Tuesday 28 April 2009
• Paul Bishop

Digital innovations agency, Splendid, and online bank, first direct gave Microsoft Surface the biggest public outing to date at Grand Designs Live yesterday. Thousands of members of the general public, as well as the presenter Kevin McCloud were given the opportunity to interact with
Splendid is one of the only UK companies currently devising applications for Microsoft Surface.

The agency's brief was to create a Surface application to promote how first direct's off-set mortgage product has the flexibility to enable homeowners to bring their own Grand Design ideas to life. Part of the brief was to develop fun and interactive content to inspire the public to create their own grand designs and a simple way for visitors to work out how much an offset mortgage can save them.
The Microsoft Surface technology enabled first direct's product to be promoted in an innovative setting, allowing users to interact directly with the material and personalise the experience to match their own circumstances. Details such as salary and mortgage variables were updated live, instantly showing the impressive savings that are afforded by the mortgage product.

The underlying application is created with Microsoft's new WPF platform running on the .Net 3.5 Framework with SP1. Specifically the visual asset authoring and UX work was brought together with Microsoft Expression Blend and Visual Studio.

Paul Bishop, Managing Director of Splendid said: 'Microsoft Surface is all about providing an enhanced User Experience through a natural and intuitive user interface. Splendid specialise in combining new technologies with great user experience so it made sense that we are the partner of choice to engage in this ground breaking Surface project. Grand Designs Live was a popular event and given the economic climate, demonstrations to the public showing how an offset mortgage could save you money went down very well!'

Lisa Wood at first direct added: 'Often consumers get overwhelmed by mortgage information and confused by all the different options. Microsoft Surface with Splendid's help offered the public a user friendly, fun and incredibly engaging way to find out how our product could save them money.'

Splendid worked with Made By Pi, first direct's brand agency, on the look and feel of the application and story. The Edinburgh based marketing agency, worked on the messaging for the event which also influenced the application.

back