Nest and the Umami of User Experience Design
Good service experience, like great cuisine, is made from ingredients we already have.
by Paul O’Connor, Executive Creative Director
If recent news is any indication, 2014 is shaping up to be an exceptional year for users of smart products and the services they deliver. Since being purchased by Google, Nest has wasted no time developing the next round of devices that will revolutionize your home (and the ways they can collect data about it), and dozens of other companies are following suit. We now have an array of smart locks, smart sprinkler systems and smart security systems available to us, all benefiting from the kind of pro-active sensing and customizability that made Nest a smash hit. Apple is working with designers from Nike’s Fuelband team to develop a smart watch that people will actually wear. And cloud-based services like Evernote, Dropbox and Google Drive are integrating their mobile and web offerings so seamlessly that you may never have to sync anything again.
The common thread running through these developments isn’t exactly advanced technology — the hardware and software that make them possible have been around for years, in fact. What connects them is a more nuanced and rigorous approach to experience design. Companies, and the designers they employ, are finally getting serious about interface and integration, and explicitly focusing on user behavior instead of feature sets and aesthetics. As a creative director who’s dealt with these issues for years, I want shout, “It’s about time!” But it also raises some interesting questions: Why now? And how did we get to this point?
The best explanation is that the current revolution in UX is a response to consumers’ shifting priorities. Average purchasers of smart devices and digital services have ceased being satisfied with new functions that are poorly delivered in a pretty package — we’ve developed a taste for accessibility and sensible workflow, and we’re not going back. Blame Nest or Apple if you want, but the story of a better alternative ratcheting up the bar for an entire category is not new. Look, for example, at what’s happened in the way we eat and talk about food over the past few years.
A new taste that’s been around forever.
Umami, the Japanese word for the mysterious “fifth taste”, shows up on the menus of countless restaurants these days, and in the Food & Wine sections of newspapers around the world. But “umami” is actually a much more straightforward concept than its exotic name and newfound popularity might suggest. Just as our tongues have receptors for various sugars, and register their presence as “sweet”, they’re also sensitive to a class of compounds called glutamates, found in everything from seaweed to anchovies to a well-seared steak. The sensations they produce are not new—humans have hungered for these rich, savory flavors since prehistory—but our understanding of where they come from has altered the way we cook.
In a similar way, the widespread demand for better user experience isn’t because of a recently realized need, nor are designers employing some magical combination of skills and technologies to address it. We’ve always valued coherence and thoughtfulness in the products we use, whether it takes the form of a nicely weighted hammer, or a logically laid-out car dashboard. The difference today, in both cuisine and user experience, is that our expectations have evolved, and we finally have the vocabulary to describe them.
The real lesson of the “umami revolution” is that you don’t need a new ingredient or even a new technique to improve an experience. The LA-based chain Umami Burger has been capitalizing on this culinary trend for a few years now, but the ingredients in its signature burger—shiitake mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, caramelized onions—have been around for centuries or longer. Even the “umami bomb” dishes created in some high-end restaurants are just intentional combinations of existing glutamate- and nucleotide-rich foods. Chefs (and savvy home cooks) are taking advantage of an improved understanding of what underlies the experience, and not just going off in search of new flavors.
The ingredients are already there.
The relationship that talented designers have with user experience is a lot like that. The individual components that make a Nest Thermostat delightful to use are familiar, but combined in a way that maximizes accessibility and personalization. The same goes for all of those digital services, that succeed not because of a new technology, but the intentional application of existing ones. The “umami” of good user experience is not embodied in a single feature or aesthetic flourish, but in a quality shared by its details: a context-sensitive menu; a physical design that suggests how to use something unfamiliar; an interface that provides clear feedback to every user action.
This is a big part of why good user experience can be more elusive for established companies than small startups. For the former, there’s a long history of relying on new features for competitive advantage, and of viewing “design” as a purely visual tool — just as fine dining was once defined by exotic ingredients and beautiful presentation, rather than technique. When I say, “It’s about time,” I’m echoing an understanding that permeates design-driven startups, who’ve come to realize that consumer tastes have been evolving for decades, and that the ingredients are already in front of us. A company clinging to the notion that new features are what sell and design is all about presentation risks looking like a fussy 1970s steakhouse in modern day Manhattan: bland, failing and out of touch.
Paul O’Connor is executive creative director at Ziba, working across various industries including consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods, healthcare and education. Paul’s previous clients include TDK Life on Record, Lexmark, Logitech, Nike, Sirius XM, Procter & Gamble and Wrigley. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Art degree in Industrial Design with honors from the University of Illinois at Champaign–Urbana and spent a year abroad at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle, England.
