Project Context

•

Video showcasing the Context prototypes in action.

Project Context’s goal is to make in-person collaboration and content reviews more effective via instant natural file sharing, direct access to content repositories and seamless integration across multiple larger and mobile connected screens.

The collaboration room in the San Francisco XD space.

In the summer of 2012, Adobe's XD Seed team began envisioning, designing and prototyping a physical workspace for collaboration. The challenge became - what if you designed an operating system like experience for a space with multiple connected screens, large and small, touch as the core input, and multiple people using it simultaneously?

"We looked at the idea pretty broadly in the beginning. One idea was that you could draw or paint in the room, on a much larger scale. The idea came from a painting I saw when I was younger. Motherwell's, "Elegy to the Spanish Republic" is a huge abstract painting. When I first saw the painting I wondered how the artist could paint on such a large scale and what kind of tool it would require to reach that far. The original concept allowed you to sweep your hands in the air and stomp your feet to interact with the screens. This idea had us thinking about interacting on a larger scale."

— Michael Gough VP of Experience Design at Adobe.

Dutch Calligraffiti artist Niels Shoe Meulman at work on a large scale piece.

"Painting and drawing at a large scale changes the tools and the way the tools are used. Full body interactions for instance become a natural way to control the tools and interact with large surfaces. The Dutch Calligraffiti artist Niels Meulman defines his own ways of using unconventional painting tools, like a broom, and talks about drawing with the hand, wrist, arm and body depending on the size of the creation."

— Remon Tijssen Principal Designer at Adobe XD

Shinichi Maruyama performing spatial arts.

"The idea to target magazine publication at first came from the documentary The September Issue. That month's issue of Vogue Fashion Magazine is the most important issue, globally, in fashion. In the documentary they show a collaboration room where they tack their print outs and photos to a wall so they can edit the magazine. It is a very analog way of seeing all their work."

— Remon Tijssen Principal Designer at Adobe XD

Excerpts from the Vogue documentary "The September Issue"

“The wonderful thing about Project Context is that it takes the best of what we do in the analog world and recreates it digitally.”

— Claudia de Almeida Design Director at Wired

"I can't tell you how excited we are about Context and the creative liberties it is going to provide us"

— Scott Dadich Editor in Chief at Wired Magazine

Glamour reviewing their magazine stories, layout and photography at Condé Nast in New York.

Review table and wall at the New Yorker at Condé Nast.

The September Issue of Vogue Fashion

“I like to think of it as our answer to “big content.” You know, just like big data, but with images and text and video and the like. Most of us have experience with printing hundreds of images and trying to pin them all on the wall or spreading them on the floor just to try to figure out the big picture. This is another good example of how something was lost when we went from physical to digital. Somehow file folders full of assets, or tiled displays of images don’t quite cut it. We think that large screens with touch and gesture interaction paired with the appropriate software design are a way to not only get back what was lost, but to take the organizing and producing experience to a whole new level."

— Michael Gough VP of Experience Design at Adobe

The assets importer and container system without asset.

"In prototyping the software for the room, we made the behavior of the interactions a key part of the experience. Everything should look and feel natural, very responsive and seamless so it feels more physical than digital."

— Remon Tijssen Principal Designer at Adobe XD

An overview of the container system in action.

The Context container system in various states of the magazine creation process.

"A layout of super scaleable vertical columns, called containers are at the core of project Context to help people organize, visualize and review content. These containers carry their own functionalities (in contrast to global functionalities) and can be displayed and used on a phone, multiple connected large displays, or everything in between."

— Remon Tijssen Principal Designer at Adobe XD

Detail view of the container system.

"In RoomOS, mobile devices are a natural extension to larger screens in close proximity. Sharing from mobile devices, and across displays is as natural as showing someone a real photo or paper sketch."

— Remon Tijssen Principal Designer at Adobe XD