As I wrote yesterday – I use technology when it’s faster and easier than the alternative. In the same vein, I’ve found that technology must be easy and intuitive or I won’t want to continue using it. This isn’t a new concept – it’s common sense.
If you look at technology that’s been wildly successful – like Twitter or the iPod – you will see examples of things that are dead simple to use and understand. Nobody has hours to spend learning how to use or configure new technology, we just want something that works, out of the box, with little or no configuration.
You can see this in pretty much every successful social media outlet – Twitter and Facebook are both easy and intuitive to use (I would argue Twitter moreso than facebook, though more people get and understand the idea of facebook than understand what Twitter is for). This simplicity and the ease of which you can use them has helped them become wildly popular and successful. In most cases you don’t think about how to use them, but rather you think about and consider the content you want to provide. The use of the technology frees you from the how, and enables you to consider the what.
When designing new technologies – whether they’re gadgets and devices, software, or websites - it’s important for the designer to keep it simple. Think like the end user and pretend you are them using the program/device/site. Is it easy to use? Do you have to think about HOW to achieve what you want to do? If so – go back to the drawing board and rework it until it’s intuitive. This is one lesson I learned first hand from my day’s working on Proxito. Our interface was not easy or intuitive, which ended up being a huge hinderance. We made a lot of strides on that front, and had a much higher degree of success with Bouncepad, but it was too little too late.
Linux has also suffered greatly in this regard – it has consistently failed to take hold in the desktop computing space because it’s not intuitive or easy for the average end user. Nobody wants to learn a new way of doing things – especially on the level of a new operating system – because it’s just TOO complex for them to invest much time in it. Ubuntu has made great strides in this area – making desktop linux much more accessible for those who take the plunge, but it’s still not 100% there.
Apple owes at least part of it’s success to making beautiful looking products that are also incredibly easy to use and work great out of the box. That’s what made the iPod a huge success, as well as the iPhone, newer Mac’s and the iPad. They look great, function great and because of that lots of people want to use them, and enjoy the experience.
Technology is a great and wonderful thing, when applied appropriately. If designed to be easy to use and intuitive in it’s purpose it can, and likely will, go far. It will also likely make doing something a whole lot faster and easier than otherwise would be possible. It’s when these criteria are met that I choose to use technology.
