Richard,
a senior associate of user experience at Sapient’s
Atlanta office, began his career doing CD-ROM design; there were
no defined interaction rules and enough data space to integrate
video, animation and sound. He later moved into narrowband Web design.
His training provided the perfect skills for designing for broadband
services.
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Computers and the Internet have done wonders for advancing people
beyond basic, “I can’t even set the time on my VCR,”
interaction. While today’s end users are more accustomed to
interacting with information and devices, they also desire ease
of use. They don’t want totally different interactions as they
move around their homes. Appliances will need to function independently
but also be harmonious with the other devices in a household. The
ability to design a spectrum of interfaces will be the defining
factor of a positive user experience. A greater amount of personalization
will be needed to accomplish this.
Understanding what level of motion and interaction an interface
needs and how that transfers across different devices requires a
different approach. People involved with cross device and broadband
projects will need to both widen their skills and gain understandings
of other disciplines. Consider this thought process in a more classic
environment: Think about a team including, a movie director, a brand
strategist, an animator and a photographer, and how they would work
together and what new skills they would need to integrate motion,
interaction and design with a brand across PC, TV and PDA.
The movement of technology and emerging devices will require designers
to widen their skill sets, both in the way they understand the restrictions
across different devices as well as the convergence of motion, information
and interaction. We’re seeing this on the Web with Flash and
also in game design where developers are forging ahead at full speed.
These multidisciplinary designers will help lead the way because
they understand the three-dimensional experience of interacting
over time.
Technology
is spawning devices and services at an amazing rate, diverging user
experience and tasks as each one is conceptualized. I see the designers
role in this progression as converging the user experience into
a consolidated lifestyle experience. Users need or desire the features
but are apprehensive about the task of understanding multiple systems.
The Web has taught us a lot about how people interact with technology.
Real-time feedback and research of how users interact with and use
services has allowed us to design and reiterate navigation systems
and design approaches so users can jump straight into a service
and get what they want without having to learn a whole new system.
This knowledge is transferable.
We know that the way a user interacts with information and devices
changes dramatically when they have an always-on connection instead
of a single-sitting experience. (Think how many times you check
your e-mail at work versus at home.) In addition, our pace changes
dramatically throughout the day and requirements for information
change with it. Replying to e-mail, writing a design brief and researching
problems requires multi-tasking and high resolution devices with
advanced input (a keyboard and mouse). On the other hand, deciding
on which film to see after work requires much less interaction;
viewing theater timetables and film trailers is much more suited
to a PDA or cell phone display. There’s definitely a correlation
between levels of interactivity and the complexity of devices (obvious
but true). People will begin breaking up their daily tasks between
devices.
Graphic and interaction design play a huge role in how these different
types of information are digested. The challenge is to decide on
and design interfaces that will allow users to log off and on different
devices to get the information they need.
Expectations of design
change as what’s being designed becomes an integral part of
everyday life. As technology and connected devices further infiltrate
homes, designers will need to deliver fresh, useable, engaging designs.
And as design moves onto a wider range of devices (each with their
own settings) the designer will have to think in broader dimensions
in both the physical and interactive arenas.
Designs, and brands, will have to work seamlessly across print,
Web, TV (both interactive and linear), phones, PDAs, appliances
and a wide range of future devices. Designers will have to create
visual systems that work across any display from tiny phone or PDA
screens to TV and high-definition PC and plasma displays. Scalability
of design and interaction will be key.
Designers classically have worked in print or broadcast or the interactive
arena. But as these media converge and diverge there will be a higher
demand for cross skillsets—broadcast designers who can understand
interaction or print designers who understand the restrictions of
designing for a TV and a PDA.
Some of these skills can be learned easily but some will require
a larger shift in thought processes. Any good designer can learn
how to avoid chroma-crawl or work with Web-safe colors, but making
the shift from a linear broadcast to thinking about user interaction
is much harder; just as is telling a story or conveying a brand
through movement would be for a pure print designer.
The skills are currently being developed across the design community
but in pockets. A huge amount of collaboration and development will
be required to make broadband and cross device projects run as smoothly
as a standard Web projects. Adding time to a standard Web page wireframe,
for example, will pose new challenges for a whole development team,
a greater level of movie-style direction and storyboarding will
be required. Animators will need to work with interaction designers
and information architects and skills developed in the movie industry
will need to be leveraged.
What’s cool and exciting on the
Web or broadcast TV might become annoying and stale in a different
setting due to the technology and the way it’s used.
Think about how annoying it is (however great it was the first time
you saw it) when you leave a DVD on its main menu and you hear and
see the same thing over and over again. On the flip side, moving
from rich powerful sound, animation and graphics in broadcast TV
to a static, although interactive TV screen can be just as disengaging.
Fluidity and motion are key, whether that means the actual motion
or the depth of the graphic treatment. This metaphor works for me:
Imagine running down the street with the graphics and sound of MTV.
You press an interactive button and all of a sudden, everything
stops. With the right design style for interactive TV you can slow
that run down to a jog and keep the viewer/user moving along at
a happy, engaging pace.
This is a time where the
designer can really shine in the eyes of the user and define new
systems that enhance experiences from the outset. How designers
create interactive TV services now will pave the way for interaction
models in the future. In other words, a red button on a remote control
will probably always have the same function, so there’s this
great opportunity to again be a defining architect of the future.
Advertising is an exciting area that will have new frontiers to
explore; a networked home and a plethora of devices will encourage
different approaches to advertising. Thinking will have to go beyond
media in a case-by-case approach to a totally cross-channel experience.
More thought will have to be put into where and when different types
of advertising are appropriate and how to integrate them into a
particular device or service without being too intrusive. User experience
modeling techniques will play a large part in understanding how
people interact with new technologies and advertising campaigns.
As I see more and more Flash sites that are beautifully designed
but kind of like the last one I saw I really wish that creative
minds would push their ideas beyond the browser (try to implement
their ideas on a PDA or restrict themselves to also making something
work for TV). Designers often thrive with restrictions and create
brilliant solutions for problems. This is a great time to change
the box into a sphere and think outside of it.
I’m a senior associate of user experience at Sapient’s
Atlanta office. We help Global 2000 clients identify and achieve
explicit business goals through the rapid application and support
of advanced information technology.
Designing at Sapient is a fast-moving, iterative process. I work
with a cross-functional team, with varied skill sets, on large-scale
projects; we begin our process by identifying business drivers,
then reach out to users and subject-matter experts to ground our
designs in an understanding of peoples needs. We create prototypes
and perform user experience and technology proof-of-concept testing
which ensure that our designs are useful, easy-to-use, compelling,
flexible and maintainable while helping our clients achieve business
value
Before moving to the U.S. I lived and worked in the U.K. I was lead
designer for the convergent media team at Deepend London and had
the great opportunity to work in the defining stages of both interactive
and QuickTime TV. I worked on iTV projects such as TV e-mail, interactive
program guides, enhanced TV, shopping and games.
I began my career doing CD-ROM design; there were no defined interaction
rules and enough data space to integrate video, animation and sound.
I then moved into narrowband Web design. All that was left was for
me to realize that I wanted to transfer my skills into the broadband
arena. Since iTV deployment is more prevalent in the UK than in
the U.S., the skills I developed there were ultimately a perfect
fit for working here.
My Apple AirPort
wireless network. It’s really allowed me to change how I use
the Web by enabling me to use my laptop anywhere in my apartment.
I never want to have to plug-in again.
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