User talk:Sudharshan tirupathi UI Designer

We are web designers and developers. As obvious as our work is (we build interactive media applications) there's a deeper meaning to what we do. We analyze design problems and explore different concepts to solve them. This also means that we think of the communication between a device and the user. We develop that communication. We design what the user sees and does.

You are setting the stage for other people to perform. But you can never tell them what to do. - Jonas Lowgren, professor IxD futureinterfaces-banner Designed by Timothy Reynolds So, why are we exploring the future of interfaces? Simply, because we develop them. As media changes and evolves, so should we. It's worth your time to see what the future might look like, as it will change the way we work and the products we deliver.

Let me give you a concrete example. Ten years ago, nobody had a clue that responsive design would become such an important key issue for our industry. Even to this day, there are still new websites being developed which aren't responsive or have any kind of mobile contingency.

Users Have Changed

For a long time, we've been using a traditional way of working with media. We have a desk, a computer and the keyboard and mouse as input-devices. We have accepted that the internet is an essential part of our lives and it has become nearly impossible to completely disconnect, even if we would like to.

futureinterfaces-mobilefirst Mobile first on Dribbble However, there's a large shift going on at the moment. There's a shift from desktop to mobile devices (and even beyond) and it forces designers to refocus. For most of us, this is an obvious evolution which is going on, but, it changes how we designers should look at the systems we develop.

In the past, in general we had a lot of control over our designs. There is a task and there is a consequence. Web design has become far more complex and it has become important to guide a user through one flow to optimize their user experience. We have to think of behavior patterns, desired outcomes and potential mistakes the user can make. We're no longer developing a static experience, rather, we're creating living, interacting systems.

Users' behavior online also has changed incredibly. Google, for example, has divided their users in three main categories:

The repetitive user: someone checking the same piece of information over and over again, such as e-mail or stock prices. The bored user: someone who has time to kill. The urgent user: a user with a request to find something specific and fast. Your online habits make you a repetitive user on certain websites. Social media websites are great examples of this. The games you play online, or the news websites you check sometimes, are a result of you being a bored user. For example, when I'm bored and not feeling very productive, I like to spend time on Reddit. Finally, the urgent user is the target audience we often develop websites for during client work. They want information and they want it fast, such as the price of a product, a service they're specifically looking for, or the closest location of something they need now. The key issue? Users want to achieve their goal now (or at least as quickly as possible).

For designing the best user experience, it's always a good idea to keep these principles in mind. You should be able to tailor your website to make repetitive (predictable), bored and fast use as integrated as possible.

We're Refocusing Constantly

We are a little bit confused of what's really important in life - Younghee Jung It's amazing how mobile has became engrained in our lifestyle. Particularly since the arrival of notifications, we're constantly refocusing our attention. The best concrete example I'm able to give is in conversations with friends. If you receive a notification or text message while having a conversation with your friends, the chances are quite high that you'll peek at your mobile device.

We have to be aware of the consequences of the products we designers put in the world, as they can change behavior of people. Users' divided attention can be enabling as well as disruptive. This is why the flow between an interactive screen and our real life should be as natural and accessible as possible. Users should comprehend interfaces in a glance.

The Coherent Experience

Digital natives expect that their favorite digital content follows them seamlessly through the world.

One interesting evolution is in the power of the multiplatform experience. Instead of products being accessible on one specific device and platform, slowly, everything is designed to have a fluid experience so you can recognize the same experience on multiple platforms. Saying that, it's important to understand that each device and platform has its own strengths and weaknesses.

A great example is how Twitter translate the web experience to a mobile experience, and make both platforms successful by using the platform specific strengths to improve the features of their product.

Another strong evolution which has become very obvious in recent years is the rise of comfortable computing, with tablets being the perfect example of how our usage environment has changed. It's become more than simply being about getting tasks done.

As designers, this means that we have to focus on the real human needs, instead of focusing on our regular design patterns.

The Future

What does the future hold? I can't possibly know, but we can speculate..

Graphical User Interface The graphical user interface isn't exactly the future, rather it's a current way of designing interfaces. The idea of graphical user interfaces is that you complete visual tasks to receive results, such as clicking on a link to open a new page.

futureinterfaces-gui Calendar Screen on Dribbble (used also as article thumbnail) We guide our users through metaphors (such as the shopping cart icon) and standards we use in web design. Nothing new here.

Natural User Interface The natural user interface is the current evolution we're facing. It's already used today, though to a lesser degree and it isn't really being used in the standard web environment. It's only a matter of time before the integration of natural interaction will become more prominent.

futureinterfaces-nui Touch UI on Dribbble Natural user interfaces focus more on doing. Users interact with the device or platform to achieve results, ideally enjoying the actual interaction as much as the accomplishment itself. The interaction feels fluid, direct and organic. Gestures especially (tools such as the Leap Motion can play an important role in this) are important assets in natural user interfaces.

Existing examples include websites which have the functionality you can swipe (on tablets for example) to navigate through a gallery slider.

For quite some time, there's been reference to Minority Report and Iron Man for an example on how the future of interfaces could be. The prospect excites people. The problem with these ideas is that much is focused on interface eye candy, rather than that we actually try to design more intuitive and effective ways of interface design. It shouldn't just look good, it should work as well as it looks.

futureinterfaces-mailbox Mailbox is a great example of a recent natural user interface! Content comes first, navigation comes second.

A key element in natural user interface design is direct manipulation. Users love to have the feeling that they're directly engaging with a screen (use of gestures).

Another key element is that content becomes a major part of the interface. This concept already exists, such as your albums in iTunes or your books in iBooks. Our interfaces become a general framework users see their preferred content in. Content will become more aimed at the specific needs of the user. This is already happening, the best example being social media. My news feed on Facebook is obviously completely different than yours as I'm receiving content based on my preferences (my friends, in this case). This concept means that we're trying to decrease the amount of navigation tremendously by providing the correct content in the first place, so that navigation is required as little as possible.

Provide immediate value whenever you open a website or application.

Organic User Interface While we're still slowly moving from graphical user interfaces to natural user interfaces, a third spectacular evolution is on its way. Although it may take a while before we see and use it, it's closer than might seem at first sight. An organic user interface means that we manipulate the actual physical shape or position of a device to control it.

futureinterfaces-papertab Papertab I'm referring in this case to bendable screens, and although this technology is very much in its infancy, it offers so many incredible opportunities to interact and navigate through devices.

Naturally, an organic user interface offers way more possibilities for input (and even output) than the previous interface concepts. At the moment we're used to point and click, though we're getting more involved with gestures, touch and (thanks to gyroscopes in devices) tilting and rotating, although it's still limited on the web. Eventually, we'll be bending, deforming and manipulating actual physical objects.

If you're interested in these kind of projects, the Human Media Lab has quite a collection.

Conclusion

We can conclude that these are exciting times for us as web designers. Our function appears to be shifting more towards the job of interface designers and information architects. With devices and their interfaces changing, so too will websites and their functionality.

How do you see the future? How will our role change? What new technology will we adapt? Although much can be questioned at the moment, one thing is for sure: we'll be stepping away from the classic job of web designer as we know it today..

No Compromises on the Users’ Experience To make the Magic Band work, Disney had to wire an entire new infrastructure into its parks. Stores and restaurants needed to be outfitted with the new payment systems. Every hotel room needed new lock systems to work with the Magic Band’s RFID transmitter. Radio systems needed to start alerting the characters when a fan is nearby.

One billion dollars is a lot of money, but it’s easy to see how all these changes added up quickly. Yet, at any time, the team at Disney could’ve decided to cut corners. They could’ve said, “That’s a nice idea. Maybe we’ll do that in the second release?”

But they didn’t compromise. They decided to make the magic really work. After all, that’s what Disney is all about.

Just a decade ago, Disney was struggling to provide great online experiences. In those days, guests trying to make reservations found the system confusing and difficult to use. It was common for someone trying to book a resort stay through the website to have to call the customer support center to complete the transaction.

The real achievement of the Disney Magic Band is the transformation the organization has gone through to make it work. They made it past what we call the UX Tipping Point.

The Journey to Beyond the UX Tipping Point The UX Tipping Point is the moment when an organization no longer compromises on well-designed user experiences. Before they hit the tipping point, they might talk about great design, but they’ll still ship a mediocre experience. However, once they’ve passed it, design has become an embedded part of their culture and DNA.

Many organizations take a similar journey to get beyond the tipping point. A typical journey might look like this:

The UX Dark Ages: At this point within the organization, there’s barely a mention of user experience. They build poor designs and deliver frustrating experiences, but don’t have any notion of what to do improve that. Often, the organization’s priorities are focused on delivery and features, no matter what the design looks like.

Spot UX Projects: Someone in the organization is now feeling enough pain to create a couple of unrelated UX projects. It’s easy for these spot projects to succeed and get the attention of senior management, often because the thing they were improving was so bad, even the smallest improvement is notable. However, beyond talking about it, the UX “fever” rarely spreads beyond the manager that commissioned the initial projects.

Serious UX Investment: Senior management has caught the bug and thinks something should be done. Investment in outside help happens, whether an agency or consultancy, or maybe even hiring someone full time. More extensive projects are scoped. If they’re successful—producing solid, clearly identifiable results for the organization—more investment follows. Design starts to move from something done at the end of a project, to activities that help shape the project’s direction from the start.

Embedding UX Into Teams: Senior management realizes that UX is worth more investment, but also understands that integration into the teams is more effective. It gets faster results at a lower cost. Internal teams get staffed with UX folks who coordinate with each other while they work closely within the teams. Being embedded in the teams means that design is now an ongoing concern for the product or service, instead of being just something applied to a single release. Design roadmaps and visions start to appear.

It’s during this last phase that we see organizations crossing the UX tipping point. When UX skills are first embedded into teams, it’s still tolerable to ship a less-than-desirable design as a compromise to hitting business objectives. However, with more investment (that shows up as more UX skills added to the teams), the tolerance for compromising on design reduces. Eventually, a compromised design is more of an exception than a common occurrence.

Once the organization crosses the tipping point, we’ve found there’s still one more phase in their journey:

Integrated UX and Services: This is where Disney is with the Magic Band. User experience is no longer something delivered with a web site or an app. It’s every part of the organization. Non-digital service and product teams work together with their digital counterparts to provide a seamless, delightful experience for the customer, user, and employee. In this phase, it becomes impossible to separate out the investment in UX from the rest of what the organization delivers.

Startups Have the Tipping Point Advantage Not every organization goes through all of these phases. The most notable exceptions are startups. If the founders understand how user experience and design will give them a competitive advantage, they build it in from the very beginning.

We see this with organizations like Cirque du Soleil, Uber, and Nest. These organizations didn’t need to prove the value of design to the senior management. Nor did they have to overcome legacy cultures and systems that never accounted for good design.

Instead, they jumped into creating great experiences from their very first day and kept running with it. Their competitors suddenly found themselves in a game of catch-up, trying to rush through the phases to pass through the tipping point.

In many cases, those competitors never quite got there. Look at Microsoft. While they’ve had some successes with products like the XBox, they’ve never made the shift of lowering their tolerance for poorly designed elements. When push comes to shove, they’ll ship something that is a less-than-ideal design to make their deadlines, instead of tailoring the ship date to when they can achieve an excellent design.

In these organizations, the rewards given senior management are for shipping features, not for delivering an excellent experience. With the rewards out of alignment, the UX Tipping Point won’t be crossed.

This Has All Happened Before Look around any business today and you’ll see technology working in every nook and cranny. Yet it hasn’t always been that way. Just a few decades ago, there wasn’t any technology in most businesses. No databases and networks, no personal computers, and probably not even a mainframe sitting in a water-chilled room somewhere. The information technology that runs today’s businesses is a fairly new phenomenon.

Like the current UX Tipping Point, an IT Tipping Point appeared about 25 years ago. Before the IT Tipping Point, businesses got along just fine doing all their work by passing papers and relying on people to talk to each other. The business was slow and often didn’t scale very large.

When the technology came along, and then got cheaper to own, some businesses adapted right away and crossed the IT Tipping Point with glee. Others were dragged across it, kicking and screaming all the way. Many more never crossed it. They are no longer with us.

Like the UX Tipping Point, new companies of that era were born without having to make the journey across the IT Tipping Point. Because they started with the right technology in place, and a thorough understanding of how to use it, they were instantly competitive against the old mainstays in their industry. Old businesses that thought they were impregnable found themselves suddenly vulnerable to startups who had the right technological know-how.

That’s what we’re about to see with the UX Tipping Point. Suddenly, businesses that thought they were market leaders will be undermined by startups providing their customers, users, and employees great designs that don’t compromise on a better experience.

UX Literacy and Fluency: Keys to Moving Beyond For an organization to move beyond the UX Tipping Point, it must first become literate in user experience, then fluent in how to produce great experiences. This doesn’t happen all at once, it can take years. However, if it never happens, the organization won’t make it beyond the tipping point.

Design is the rendering of intent: What does the organization intend their experience to be? Realizing they have control over their design, and the way it affects their users, is the first sign of movement in the journey.

Exposure to the current experience: Has every decision maker been exposed to the current user experience? Seeing that their intention isn’t what users are experiencing can motivate them to invest in improving their designs.

Preventing experience rot: Can the stakeholders see the decisions that will degrade their experiences in the future? Thinking beyond a single release and understanding how new features today means complexity down the road is essential to curating a great experience.

Building the organization’s UX skills: Do product and service teams have the full set of skills necessary to deliver great experiences? Not just people with the title of designer, but everyone on the team that influences what the experience will be.

All this builds the underlying substrate that helps the organization work to a point when they feel they no longer need to compromise on good design. By understanding how to render their intentions with a team that is fully-skilled in up-to-date UX design practices, the organization can now regularly produce great user experiences for their customers, users, and employees. They’ve made it beyond the UX Tipping Point.