The Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) in Reston, Virginia, is again renovating its facility. From the time we opened, our center has grown from just half of one floor to the entire floor, and the center now spans two full floors!
With the increase in space, our team wanted to provide a compelling reason for customers to look around the center and explore a variety of devices, software, and solutions.
We decided to divide the floor plan into different experience areas. We were inspired by how Disney’s Magic Kingdom is divided into Adventure Land, Tomorrow Land, and Fantasy Land. This led us to Data Center Land, Productivity Land, Home Land, and Business Intelligence Land.
In each “Land,” we focused on building interactive experiences in the form of kiosks. These kiosks support two modes of delivery—Tour and Explore. The Tour mode is used when one of our staff members is leading a group around the center. Explore mode is a self-service experience for customers.
Creating an Interactive Lync Kiosk
This post will focus on a Lync kiosk we created in “Productivity Land.” This area of our floor plan has been part of the MTC since our last renovation. We have a video wall of four borderless screens that connect to a computer. Before the construction, we routinely used it to play a Productivity of the Future video in a loop. Below the screens is a counter. The kiosk looks like this:
We decided to make our customers’ experience scenario-driven. This not only makes it easy for someone to get valuable insight in a short period of time but also gives us flexibility to extend the functionality in the future. To highlight Lync, we settled on four scenarios:
- Stop the Madness. People often have more than one phone number at which they can be reached. They waste time and productivity trying to track coworkers down via their various phone numbers.
- Elevate the Conversation. Some companies have separate solutions for instant messaging, voice, video, and web conferencing. This means that as coworkers communicate they constantly have to switch applications and re-invite everyone.
- Find an Expert. It is often difficult to find a coworker who has a particular skill or experience. Users may send email messages to distribution lists asking for help. This results in wasted time and problems that go unanswered.
- Reaching Out. Workers often have to communicate with external people who are not employee resources. It is often difficult to bring these employees into the fold.
In keeping with the Microsoft vision of productivity on any device, we added devices to the kiosk counter, including a Nokia 920, an Apple iPad, a Galaxy S3, and a Windows tablet and laptop.
Incorporating Cloud Technology
To build our kiosk, we relied heavily on Microsoft cloud-based services. A Microsoft Office 365 tenant provides SharePoint Online, Lync Online, and Lync to Skype federation. We defined several users, created profiles, and set up several Skype accounts. We created a website based on Windows Azure that serves as a scenario controller. This site is accessible from any of the devices and presents the scenarios to the user. This technique gives us insight into which scenario the user was interested in and which device they used.
Building the Display
A computer with four video cards controls the four-panel display. We developed a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Controller Application that controls which content is pushed to each screen. In addition to the scenarios, we wanted to have an idle state for when customers aren’t using the kiosk. When idle, the Controller Application plays a sequence of videos across all four monitors. Our videos include product overviews and case studies. When a customer selects a scenario, the idle video pauses and the selected scenario begins. The Controller Application orchestrates the delivery of the scenario content so that it plays in this order:
- Upper-Left: Scenario description
- Upper-Right: Problem video of actors trying to complete the scenario without Lync
- Lower-Left: Walkthrough video showing the customer how to use Lync in this scenario
- Lower-Right: Solution video of actors completing the scenario with Lync
The customer could then use Lync on the devices to do the scenario themselves.
Inviting Users to Explore the Kiosk
We quickly built a prototype and discovered a challenge of how to get the customer’s selection of a scenario back to the controller. Windows Azure Service Bus provided us with the plumbing that we needed to facilitate this communication.
We were also worried that it wasn’t very obvious to a customer walking by that we wanted them to pick up a device. To solve that problem, we turned our attention to how Kinect for Windows could help. Kinect is best known as a companion device for the Xbox, but there is also a Windows version that developers can use for applications.
With Kinect, we are able to invite passersby to interact with the kiosk. If Kinect senses a customer walking by during idle state, it will display the person’s shadow super-imposed on the video with a dialog asking them to raise their hand to interact. Once the customer raises their hand and presses a button to start, we provide a menu of the same scenarios from the Windows Azure site, but now in a user interface that the customer can select by moving their hand.
We are excited about the completion of our renovation. The Reston MTC is an awesome place for customers to visit and explore many of the incredible technologies that Microsoft has to offer.
To see a demonstration of the Lync kiosk, please check out the video below.
The renovation would not have been possible without the contributions of the entire MTC Reston team:
- Ed Hild – Productivity Architect
- Russ Williams – Application Platform
- Architect David McDonald – Productivity Architect
- Art Rask – Application Platform Architect
- Rhett Krulla – Infrastructure Architect
- Brian Tirch – Infrastructure Architect
- Alex Starykh – Technical Director
- Joan Barrow – Director