Navigating Towards the Great User Interface In The Sky
Really helpful people will tell you that If you want go 'there' then you shouldn't have started from 'here'. Yes thank you for that. In your mind the destination will be marked with a big welcoming neon sign – but flashy signs are rarely what they seem.
I am reaching saturation point with the quantity/quality ratio of Applications these days. All promising the Earth in lurid neon lights but delivering about as much quality as the average TV talent show on a bad night. You know what it says about the destination when the neon flickers.
It's The Journey AND the Destination
Regular readers will know how much really I like the way most travel systems work. Airports and public transport are amongst my favourite things to experience. I love them. At each step there is new data to consume and at every turn a new challenge. Plenty of neon signs all over the place but at least Bates Motel had a shower that worked.
It's the same for Apps and UI's right?
Out of around 1000 Applications (bought or downloaded for free) I probably use 20 fairly often. I wouldn't say I am entirely happy even with them but I give them the benefit of the doubt given the adolescent era we are currently in. The occasional one takes my breath away and reminds me that there are seriously talented people out there who deserve all the credit they get.
What makes a great App? – A great user interface!
A great user experience is the aim but very few actually get there. The design approach needs critical thinking. The main ingredients: An initial 'end-to-end' design, no matter how sketchy – experienced creativity - market awareness and a clear end point in mind. 'Design thinking' in this way means iterating, making lots of prototypes to test – allowing everyone to make good decisions along the way.
A lot of this comes down to asking the right questions –
- Why do we need an App?
- What will people actually do with it?
- Are other people doing something similar?
- Are we capable of knowing what a good app looks like?
- Is the UI going to deliver a good experience for my customers? (More than once? At all?' )
- Are we prepared to invest the right time and effort in designing it and keeping it fresh?
In addition do we have the real insight into what our customers really want?
I react very positively when I think I have found a true insight. These insights need to be the kinds of things that take your breath away with their profound nature. Without an insight to go on I am prone to send myself through an airport for no reason at all – just to remind myself what lack of inspiration looks and feels like
With a true insight I can hop one-legged across a wobbly rope tied across the Grand Canyon. I can.
But seriously if you are alive and in business today then you will want the best for your own UI and fast.
You will need the right approach – a plan that understands that the game has totally changed. You will need people who have been somewhere near this stuff before to help you with clues. You will want someone or something who can be a companion for the journey and you will want to know that you can stop with comfort at various places on the way to check progress.
If you aren't alive today then none of this will be any help whatsoever.
Unless of course this writing has lasted so long that you are now borne and reading it and I will probably (thankfully) have passed on to some other multiverse and be talking Varsic 8 code. With a big neon sign saying 'Slight Progress' (written in Varsic of course). Time to clean up the act. Time for the humble UI to put its name in lights.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain
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