Category Archives: Design Strategy

Why should you invest in interaction design?

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Now a days, more than before, customers are getting in contact with products and services providing a real good user experience. Customers of these know now that good experiences are possible and their exigencies are becoming higher and higher. There is no way back, offering bad interactions to your product will make users angry.

I would like to give you some examples of successful products and services that are changing the way customers think:

Flickr

Flickr HomepageFlickr Homepage

When Flickr started it showed users that storing and sharing pictures online in a clean an easy way was possible. Flickr takes detailed care of their interface and provides an overall good experience.

Amazon

Product description page on AmazonProduct description page on Amazon

Is there any doubt that Amazon provides the best shopping experience of the web? A functional and fast website makes customers’ life easier. The ones used to this interface will require the same from competitors.

Mac, iPhone and iPad

Apple iPad with touch screenApple iPad with touch screen

This is a recurrent but important example, specially if you are producing software. Apple taught consumers that they should be taking care of their personal stuff and not of their computers. People are paying a premium price for their Macs, iPhones, iPads and iPods because they know they are reliable and they can do stuff faster, thanks to a superior interface.

Facebook

Facebook homepage

Why is it Facebook the undeniable number one social network that is being used even by 70 years old ladies? Facebook has a team of more than 30 interaction/user experience designers taking care of the interface. It’s clear that Facebook is very user centered and its interface is easy to use for everybody. The masses know that good interfaces are a reality.

Multifunction and Single-Purpose Devices and Applications

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What’s better, multifunctionality or single-purpose? If we refer to digital gadgets and interfaces design there are several good and bad examples for both approaches.

Is there a limit for multifunctionality? The following imaginary design illustrates the problem of multi-function devices and applications: the solution reaches a point where a big amount of features offered block the access to them and makes the whole product unusable or difficult to understand.

Multifunction Swiss army knife

An overwhelmed Swiss knife

Multifunctionality could be also a problem in graphical interfaces. In the following picture there is a screenshot of the FStream applicaton for Apple iPhone, an application to listen online radios and other sound streams. This app used to have only 3 visible options at the bottom:  Play, Favorites and More. Now it is already showing the option “Record”, which, I assume it is only useful for limited amount of radio listeners. Ohh… it’s so easy to add just one more feature!

Multifunction iPhone App Design

FStream App for iPhone

Google Android phones (and iPhones) are a good example of multi-purpose devices. Thanks to their good interface design users are able to manage a huge range of different tasks: music, pictures, work, maps and more. Still, they are victims of their own success; multitasking people could feel the need for more than one phone: users can do several things with them, but not at the same time.

Multifunction Android Phone

Picture from Google Mobile Blog

Logitech Harmony Remote is a device that remotely controls 225000 different devices, including televisions, DVD players, radios and video games. A real do-it-all device. Unfortunately the interface description on the Logitech website is very vague but if the interface is well done it could eventually be a good product for geeks. But they are not going to sell it to my mother…

Multipurpose Logitech remote control

The Harmony Remote controls 225000 devices

“Reading is an important activity and deserves a purpose-built device”, said Jeff Bezos to the New York Times. He might be partially right, probably many users don’t want to see more features on the Amazon Kindle. Many think the audio book feature is already redundant (why would you need it if you have a great pocket size iPod?). On the other side, Bezos’ statement might just lack of sincerity; maybe he is not putting more features just because the device is limited by a low resolution, black and white, slow, not touchy screen.

Single purpose Amazon Kindle

The single purpose Amazon Kindle

Few devices can be more purpose-specific than the WikiReader. Many laughed at it when it was announced, now it’s a top seller. Simple interface design makes it a king in the only thing it does: accessing Wikipedia information without complications. Maybe someone using an iPhone won’t need it but what about children?

Single purpose Wikireader

The single purpose WikiReader

Make sustainable products attractive (but still sustainable!)

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Now a days, life seems to be impossible without electronic devices. We need them and want them but if we not change the way we produce and consume them the impact on the environment will be too much for our little planet. As designers we need to make products sustainable in an attractive way to be able to reach the masses.

TDK Designer Solar Panel

The TDK Designer Solar Panel. Picture by Engadget.

A good example is the TDK solar panel design that has different draws and patterns on it. It could be argued that this device may not be as efficient as a normal solar panel but making the solar panels attractive could do a lot to make the adoption of the technology faster; and that’s important. The real potential in this technology is for use in big surfaces (like buildings) and maybe not just as personal devices.

Docomo touch wood telephone made of woodDocomo Touch Wood phone

Many could think that the Docomo Touch Wood phone, made of wood, looks good. As this is avoiding the use of traditional plastic this design could be going in the right direction. In comparison to bio plastics, wood could last longer and, eventually, the case box could be reuse. Can we imagine updating the inner part of a wood phone instead of throwing away the whole thing?

Novothink solar charger for ipodNovothink solar charger for iPod

I am a little bit more skeptic about the greenery of this specific-use gadget. This is yet another gadget and the amount of resources needed to build it is probably big (water, energy, plastic, etc.). This is a big question we should ask ourselves as designers if we design a product to be marketed as “green” or sustainable: with this thing, do we save resources or do we consume more out of the planet?

Samsung phone made of cornThe Samsung phone made of corn

Bio plastics are a very interesting material, still their advantages are questionable. They could be made of different sources, like potatoes and corn, fact that makes them not only less polluting but also morally incorrect (many people would argue). Of course that might depend on the efficiency of the producing of these materials: how many potatoes do we need to produce a kilo of bio-plastic?