Posts Tagged Startup
i-muse Usability Tests on Tafter
It’s a satisfaction watching the result of our work in the hands of people while they visit the Educational Silk museum of Como with i-muse, seeing them at ease and at the end satisfied while they recall the things which impressed them the most! 🙂
Most of them actually didn’t expect such a high quality of the guide in all its components: workings, graphics and contents.
Usability tests are going on, they’re allowing us to refine the software and recently I had the chance to explain how they are performed in an article published on the italian online magazine Tafter.
Usability is common sense, as Donald A. Norman says, and from the tests we made so far it seems result we wished to obtain is getting near: when people, at the end of their visit, comment only the contents it means the rest is ok, the i-muse formula works! 😉
George, would you like to try i-muse?
Something was missing in the article about i-muse published on last saturday by the daily newspaper La Provincia: all the names of the team members thanks to whom we got up to this point!
So I wrote a letter for the Letters to the Director feature, thanking the team and pointing out that we’ll continue the invitation-only usability tests at the Educational Silk Museum in Como during the whole august, so even the people who now are busy at work will be able to find the time to come and try the videoguide and discover the wonders of a museum so little known by the people living in Como.
In the letter I also invited the famous american actor George Clooney, who’s spending the holidays in his Villa Oleandra in Laglio, to come and try i-muse and visit the museum.
Who knows, maybe you’ll find him in the gallery of photos we’re shooting during the tests! 😉
i-muse lives! on La Provincia
A full page article, printed in colors, clearly conveys the enthusiasm of the journalist Chiara Sirna who previewed the videoguide at the Educational Silk Museum in Como.
After the article of the last january, the daily newspaper La Provincia didn’t waste any time and let its readers know we got to the point, i-muse lives, and we started the invitation-only usability testing phase that will last until the end of august.
We also set up a gallery of photos shot during the tests showing the invited people as they walk inside the museum with i-muse.
This will also be a good opportunity for many people living in Como to discover a museum preserving a piece of the glorious history of the town related to silk processing if they didn’t have the chance to visit it yet. 🙂
For the moment i-muse is available only for the invitation-only usability tests. I point that out since the article isn’t too clear about it.
Come to try i-muse and we hope you’ll get impressed just like Chiara, who at the end of the visit asked us surprised: “How did you manage to put the videos on the PDA?” 😀
Au revoir Valérie
Valérie, our french stagier, went back to France for her deserved holidays after she managed to get appreciations from anyone who had the chance to meet her due to her contribution to the i-muse project and not only due to her charm and pleasant french accent! 🙂
An extraordinary girl, brilliant and results-producing, qualities they recommend to search for in the people to work with and that rarely you can find in the same person.
It was a privilege working with her during these three months, not only because she has a so vital attitude that looks the opposite of his italian surname ;), but also because you could talk about anything with her: from business planning to Rfid technology, to french cuisine, or even about John Gray’s books. 😉
Also thanks to her the number of left-handers in the i-muse team became equal: 3 vs 3.
Her thesis about the use of technology for the valorization of cultural goods, that she’ll discuss in september in Italy, almost looks like a celebration for i-muse, in a natural way however, since the studies and the market trends are reporting that the odds for our product are good in this specific sector.
A big thank you for what you did: Au revoir Valérie!
Come to Try i-muse!
This is the graphics made by Luca to invite people to try i-muse at the Educational Silk Museum in Como. 🙂
Now it’s your turn to judge our work, a hard work, complex, which involved many people and now it’s condensed in 50 minutes of PDA guided visit to one of the most fascinating museums in Como.
At the end of the visit we’ll ask you to fill a feedback questionnaire. This and the careful observation of your behavior while you’ll be using i-muse will help us understanding if and how making modifications to improve the guide.
We’re organizing the tests by appointment and they’ll be free of charge of course, so if you’d like to book for the test you can write to info@i-muse.info.
The virtual guide is waiting to tell you with an appealing voice “Welcome to the i-muse system“… 😉
LaboratorioComo at Villa Grumello
A wonderfully restored villa, facing the enchanted sight of the lake of Como, high level speakers and a perfect organization by the Como Chamber of Commerce’s staff.
These were the ingredients of the five evenings of LaboratorioComo, the initiative wanted by Paolo de Santis, Como Chamber of Commerce’s President, aimed to educate and stimulate new entrepreneurs through the creation of an elite education school in the area named Kilometer of knowledge, going from Villa Olmo to Villa Erba passing by Villa Grumello, where the event took place.
The level of the speakers was really excellent, it was a pleasure listening to experienced people talking about arguments I’m involved into: becoming an entrepreneur, using technology to valorize cultural heritage, keeping the bound with our territory, working in a pleasant environment and most of all being creative in order to be able to turn problems into opportunities and make products with a social function.
In particular I was impressed by the words of engineer Giuseppe Natta, founder of Ecodeco Spa and maker of the La Cassinazza, by the speech of Davide Rampello, President of La Triennale and by director Paolo Lipari with his “Wait a moment… what if?”, synthesizing the moment in which a team’s creativity unleashes the power to break old schemas.
After these five evenings I felt like there’s a favorable wind blowing into our direction about what we’re doing with i-muse! 🙂
Habemus i-muse
If it sounds too bold or solemn let’s try in this way: i-muse is ready! 😀
The PDA guide, the core of our entrepreneurial project, is ready to be tested!
Since this week the staff of the Educational Silk Museum of Como, who kindly allowed us to build the first contents for the guide according to the exhibits placed inside the rooms, began testing i-muse and evaluating its potential both from the technological and multimedia contents points of view.
Now we’re starting an intense invitation-only test phase in which we’ll test i-muse with different typologies of people and at the end of the visit we’ll ask them to fill a feedback questionnaire, a phase which will quickly bring us to the official presentation press conference.
We’re proud of the work we did so far and we feel ready for the fire test, the moment in which the guide will go into the hands of visitors. 🙂
Maybe we don’t realize it well enough by ourselves yet, but we have a great social responsibility with this project.
We created i-muse for you, bending technology to the service of you as visitors of museums and art events, so you’ll be the judges and you’ll tells us if we hit the target! 😉
i-muse Financed by Saturno
Some weeks ago I was reading that the astral conjunctions were pretty against my zodiacal sign, the Lion, and that Saturn was the bad planet according to the horoscopes. 😯
However, fortune wanted that it was Regione Lombardia’s Saturn Project to actually bring some luck to the project I devoted myself together with my team in the last months!
They published an official chart of the entrepreneurial projects admitted to the Action 2 of the Saturn Project providing the financing of the 70% of the immaterial expenses of the financial plan submitted. 😀
Reading my name in the top section of the chart was a satisfaction, even more considering that the number of the submissions was pretty high.
After the useful courses I attended in Mantua for the Action 1 of the Saturn Project, this is a great news that makes all the i-muse team more at ease about the expenses we have to face in order to complete the PDA guide and begin its promotion.
We’re almost there! 😉
A French Stage for i-muse
We received a lot of curricula for the stage offer related to i-muse.
Curricula from anywhere in Italy and someone even from abroad.
I did about ten interviews on the phone and then I proceeded with four interviews in our office.
The general feeling is that the opportunity to write a thesis about an innovative project in the sector of cultural goods such as i-muse is considered like a sort of privilege. 🙂
Among the students who impressed me the most for their smartness and results achieved until now in their student career there was a french girl attending international management at the Università Cattolica in Piacenza.
Now Valérie, this is her name, moved to Como thanks to the support of the international students relations office of the Politecnico.
It has been hard finding a flat for her, since the real estate market in Como is definitely “sparkling” and finding a flat not too far from the office for just four months wasn’t easy at all.
Valérie will see the birth of i-muse together with us and will assist us launching it on the market.
i-muse Awarded at EuroP.A.!
First prize in the category Technology – Projects, first place in the Online Award, a 1000€ voucher spendable in products and services by Maggioli Spa, articles on the magazines by Maggioli Editore and some contacts with potential customers: this is the balance of the participation of i-muse in the IQU Award at the event EuroP.A. in Fiera di Rimini! 🙂
Prizes that motivate and stimulate the whole team for the simple reason we see a real appreciation for the work done until now.
A big thank you to who voted for i-muse in the Online Award. Each vote was important since the difference from the second place was pretty tight.
In the photo you can see me holding up the prizes just received from Marcello Balzani, chief editor of the Paesaggio Urbano magazine.
Now we have to focus even more on i-muse to come up to everyone’s expectations! 😉
