What’s The Next Breakthrough In Productivity Tools?

Chris Dixon makes the observation that new user interface paradigms lead to new notions of ‘productivity app’, by which he seems to mean so-called ‘office apps’.

He wrote:

Microsoft is running ads making fun of the iPad for being a “consumption” device. Here’s what Steve Jobs had to say back in 2010 about creation (“productivity”) on the iPad:

We are just scratching the surface on the kinds of apps for the iPad…I think there are lots of kinds of content that can be created on the iPad. When I am going to write that 35-page analyst report, I am going to want my Bluetooth keyboard. That’s 1 percent of the time. The software will get more powerful. I think your vision would have to be pretty short to think these can’t grow into machines that can do more things, like editing video, graphic arts, productivity. You can imagine all of these content creation possibilities on these kind of things. Time takes care of lots of these things.

If you go back and look at the history of productivity apps you’ll see that each major user interface shift led to new classes of productivity apps. Back in the 70s and 80s, when computers had text-based interfaces, word processor applications like Wordperfect and spreadsheet applications like Lotus 1-2-3 were invented. In the 80s and 90s, when graphical interfaces became popular, presentation apps like Powerpoint and photo editing apps like Photoshop were invented. If the historical pattern repeats, productivity apps that are “native” to the tablet will be invented.

Chris doesn’t make any predictions, but I will make one. Gestural displays are already having an aesthetic/kinesthetic impact, with tools like Clear showing the way.

But I think the biggest breakthrough will come from apps that allow groups to co-curate better than how we do it now. The activity stream is now the dominant social motif of social tools, but we are being streamed to death in a dozen siloed apps. 

There is an opportunity to place social in the OS on our proximal devices. Imagine if iOS 8 (9?) arrived with a social stream baked in (they should have bought Twitter when it was cheap), and that applications could use to push and pull messages into. We could have a single context for all our streaming information, and we could share with people rather than with apps. Google could play along with Android, and we’d see the next generation of apps sharing a model of sociality, just like apps do today for the file system and the web.

Source: cdixon.org

3 June 2013 10 Permalink

I am often asked what UX means

amber:

I am often asked what UX means. I then give a slightly different answer depending on who I’m talking to (and what their assumed level of base knowledge is). I came across this great excerpt in a blog post from Teresa Neil on Hiring Top UX Talent (seems it’s not just HK [Hong Kong] that has difficulty finding “talent” then):

UX isn’t graphic design and it isn’t web design and it isn’t (just) making wireframes. An experienced UX practitioner will guide you from research to product launch. They should be part of your strategy team, not brought in at the tail end of the design phase to tidy up the wireframes. 

If you are hiring a consultant, they should want to be part of your team through  launch (and afterwards too). UX isn’t about a hand-off, it is a cornerstone of your project’s success.

Exactly.

Exactly.

2 June 2013 20 amber Permalink

‘Invisible Design’ Is A Cognitive Trap

Timo Arnall debunks the current infatuation with the #NoUI concept, suggesting that it demeans the user and oversimplifies the difficulties involved for design to make complex things seem simple. His argument is directed both at the metaphor of an invisible UI, but also the value of what it rejects.

Timo Arnall, No to NoUI

1. Invisible design propagates the myth of immateriality

We already have plenty of thinking that celebrates the invisibility and seamlessness of technology. We are overloaded with childish mythologies like ‘the cloud’; a soft, fuzzy metaphor for enormous infrastructural projects of undersea cables and power-hungry data farms. This mythology can be harmful and is often just plain wrong. Networks go down, hard disks fail, sensors fail to sense, processors overheat and batteries die.

Computing systems are suffused through and through with the constraints of their materiality. – Jean-François Blanchette

Invisible design propogates the myth that technology will ‘disappear’ or ‘just get out of the way’ rather than addressing the qualities of interface technologies that can make them difficult or delightful.

Intentionally hiding the phenomena and materiality of interfaces, smoothing over the natural edges, seams and transitions that constitute all technical systems, entails a loss of understanding and agency for both designers and users of computing. Lack of understanding leads to uncertainty and folk-theories that hinder our ability to use technical systems, and clouds the critique of technological developments.

As systems increasingly record our personal activity and data, invisibility is exactly the wrong model.

By removing our knowledge of the glue that holds the systems that make up the infrastructure together, it becomes much more difficult, if not impossible, to begin to understand how we are constructed as subjects, what types of systems are brought into place (legal, technical, social, etc.) and where the possibilities for transformation exist. – Matt Ratto (2007)

In other words, as both users and designers of interface technology, we are disenfranchised by the concepts of invisibility and disappearance.

His other points: 

2. Invisible design falls into the natural/intuitive trap — ‘does not give any insight into how complex processes might actually become simple of familiar’.

3. Invisible design ignores interface culture — ‘To declare interfaces ‘invisible’ is to deny them a cultural form or medium’.

4. Invisible design ignores design and technology history —  ’we must critique the clean, orderly, and homogenous future that is at the heart of these modernist visions’.

Go read the whole piece.

Source: elasticspace.com

13 March 2013 47 Permalink

Scott Forstall Forced Out Of Apple: The End Of Skeuomorphs

Rumors have been flying about Senior Vice President of iOS Software Scott Forstall’s hurried departure from Apple. Among other misdeeds he apparently was unwilling to sign the iOS 6 Maps apology letter, leaving it to CEO Tim Cook.

From the viewpoint of someone who loves most Apple design, I am not surprised to learn that Forstall was the man behind the ugly ugly skeuomorphs in iOS and Mac OS X, like the stitched leather in Apple calendars. He and Jony Ive apparently couldn’t stand each other, and Ive will now be leading Apple’s user interface efforts.

Apple stock should shoot up on this news, but the average market analyst is unlikely to be able to parse the impact of this on Apple’s future.

Related articles

• Why Firing Scott Forstall Means iOS Will Get A Lot Better (cultofmac.com)
• Apple’s Scott Forstall’s fatal mistake was not signing iOS 6 Maps apology letter: sources (theverge.com)
• Forstall Out (daringfireball.net)

30 October 2012 28 Permalink

Prezi Releases New Interface

Prezi, the infinite canvas style presentation tool, has released a new interface. The company is making an effort to simplify the somewhat arcane user experience of what is now known as the ‘classic look’.  Which means the distinctive — but counterintuitive and slow — ‘bubble’ menu is gone.

In particular, the new approach creates a default ‘path’ — the sequence of screens in the infinite canvas that define a presentation — based on the order of frames created in the canvas. This default can be overridden, but making the path explicit and always present will decrease the cognitive load of Prezi.

I will take another, longer look at this tool, which I tried a few years ago but rejected because of the nausea-inducing swooping in transitions. I never understood why I couldn’t simply move from one frame to another without animation. A quick look suggests that this is still not an option, which is a shame.

Related articles

• PowerPoint Killer Prezi Launches New Interface (techcrunch.com)
• The new look in Prezi (prezischool.wordpress.com)

30 October 2012 25 Permalink

A Heart Is Different From A Star

How Airbnb Evolved To Focus On Social Rather Than Searches - Cliff Kuang via Co.Design

For a couple years, registered Airbnb users have been able to star the properties they browse, and save them to a list. But Gebbia’s team wondered whether just a few tweaks here and there could change engagement, so they changed that star to a heart. To their surprise, engagement went up by a whopping 30%. The star, they realized, was a generic web shorthand and a utilitarian symbol that didn’t carry much weight. The heart, by contrast, was aspirational. “It showed us the potential for something bigger,” Gebbia tells Co.Design. And in particular, it made them think about the subtle limitations of having a search-based service. “You have to have search,” Gebbia says. “But what if you don’t know where you want to go?”

It’s the little things, people.

Source: fastcodesign.com

9 October 2012 30 Permalink