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Published on <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/nintendo-labo-proves-ux-isnt-just-a-digital-medium-87590251ea95?source=rss----eb297ea1161a---4">| Prototyping: From UX to Front End &mdash; Medium</a> Chris Harrison 
<blockquote>Full disclosure: This article doesn’t talk about traditional digital UX/UI design. However, Labo is a facinating example of innovative product design and has a truly fascinating user proposition, so if any of that sounds interesting, I’d recommend you take a look!</blockquote>
At 9:00 AM Thursday morning, I huddled in a circle with some coworkers to watch the reveal of what Nintendo called a ‘New interactive experience’ for the Nintendo Switch. Close to the reveal, the description was posted as this;
<blockquote>Tune in to discover a new interactive experience for Nintendo Switch that’s specially crafted for kids and those who are kids at heart.</blockquote>
That interactive experience turned out to be Labo, an almost inexplicable mixed media product for the Nintendo Switch.
I literally can’t begin to describe this thing. Check out the official video below — it’s worth a watch:
<iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FP3Bd3HUMkyU%3Ffeature%3Doembed&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DP3Bd3HUMkyU&#038;image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FP3Bd3HUMkyU%2Fhqdefault.jpg&amp;key=d04bfffea46d4aeda930ec88cc64b87c&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=youtube" width="854" height="480" frameborder="0"><a href="https://medium.com/media/d909b44bf8dde295dbe26209746df282/href">https://medium.com/media/d909b44bf8dde295dbe26209746df282/href</a></iframe>
Did you catch all that? Great, article over.
So obviously the huge, suprising takeaway from the Labo reveal is the cardboard construction kits. Customers will pop out frames from a flatpack and build gadgets such as pianos, joysticks, and houses. Those frames will then use the Nintendo Switch’s suite of sensors to allow the player to interact with the game.
There’s literally so much I could say about Labo and what it means for the industry. Instead of writing that sixteen-piece series, I want to talk about why this is so remarkable from a UX perspective.
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*b7437EABO1KU1txCr0DJJw.png">Third and First Party Wii accessories. There was a few.
The Nintendo Wii had a lot of physical accessories; balance boards, zappers, wheels, even a heartrate monitor. I remember working as a sales clerk at an EB Games during the Wii launch, and this stuff was very popular. But did any of it add much value? No, not really.
At best, like with the board and zapper, these accessories were a temporary distraction, that quickly demoted itself to collecting dust in the cupboard.
So when I look at the Labo Variety Kit, my first reaction was sceptical — “Really, again?”. The funny thing was though, I still wanted it.
It wasn’t until I rewatched the reveal video, and watched the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZiLM_GZNiE">Easy Allies Reaction video</a> that I started to realise that there’s a few key things which really make Labo so special.
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/690/1*ZiGW0u_iQoTc9NONFN8z3A.gif">This seriously looks so satisfying.
Lego is currently the biggest toy company in the world. In A Lego Brickumentary (Yeah, I watch Lego documentaries) they propose that a large part of Lego’s success was the customizability of it.
Kids weren’t just buying a toy car — they’re buying a toy car that, with just a few more pieces, is now their toy car. That’s an important message. Lots of your friends might own LEGO City Sports Car (8402), but yours has a sweet flag on the back and cool orange rims and it’s driven by Princess Leia, who usually cruises around with Zane from Ninjago, or occasionally, Batman.
Labo scratches a similar itch. Oh, you’ve got the Labo House? Me too, but mine’s blue, and has my name written on the side, and has a WizKid sticker on it.
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/728/1*NAQm1RzAL7ESUy68P-FjxA.gif">I know they’re pushing this toward kids, but I’m totally going to spend hours on my house.
We’ve seen customisation become a huge part of UX over the past few years — software especially is constantly providing new ways for you to make an app ‘yours’. It’s undeniable a key part to many successful user experiences.
Adult or Child, being part of building and customising something, especially with your own hands, is often a visceral experience that bonds you to the final product. Labo scratches this itch perfectly.
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/726/1*c0nh8LtP54Te145UVOvWMA.gif">Not going to lie, I had to watch this more than a few times to figure out what’s going on under the hood.
I’ll admit, I missed a lot of how Labo worked the first time I watched the video, and I think that’s really what left me a little unimpressed.
When you start to look at it in detail though, you’ll realise that Nintendo has been incredibly creative when coming up with how the various games work.
I wont go into all of them, partly because I think I’ll get it wrong, but lets take a look at a few:
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/726/1*3moea3OP7BPnT-W_bmM3lw.gif">It’s no Parrot Drone, but it’ll still freak out my dog.
This robot is actually pretty simple, and you might have seen similar things before. The two vibration motors in the joy-cons will vibrate in such a way as to move the model forward. Neat.
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/728/1*WQIhIEsW6Rr3rMREwFc5yQ.gif">If anyone sees Vlambeer, let them know I’ve found the next platform for Ridiculous Fishing
The fishing game is also not too complex. One joy-con is in the handle, tracking the tilt of the fishing rod. The other is inside the winch, tracking rotation. There might also be some sort of mechanism inside the switch itself, it’s hard to say without knowing more about what the game is doing.
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/726/1*9PiGtQP3DVMKrpV1WLWrzQ.gif">I have a feeling I’ll spend a lot of time with these diagrams…figuring out where I went wrong.
The Piano appears to be using the IR sensor on the Switch itself to know which key is pressed. I’m really keen to see how well this works.
The big finale, the robot suit, is the really interesting one, and I’m not going to spoil it for you. It’s not too hard to figure out how it works, and it’s undeniably a really creative solution.
The final piece of the Labo puzzle is it’s nostalgia factor. It’s not a cheap piece of plastic or an expensive high-tech kickstarter driven attachment. It’s really harkening back to the cardboard box you converted into a car, or a castle, or a spaceship, using nothing but markers and masking tape.
In the end, it’s this feeling of classic play, combined with a totally customizable product and innovative technology, that makes Labo so interesting. I can’t wait to see where this product goes.
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<a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/nintendo-labo-proves-ux-isnt-just-a-digital-medium-87590251ea95">Nintendo Labo proves UX isn’t just a digital medium</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io">Prototypr</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Nintendo Labo proves UX isn’t just a digital medium

Nintendo Labo proves UX isn’t just a digital medium

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