A cocktail that is waiting to be mixed…
Where excitement is shifting for both makers and consumers in ux, product and magic
Ten to fifteen years ago cell phones were exciting, it was the time when simple web pages started to open on smaller screens, and games saw full proliferation of java on mobile, and yet it was in mobile phones like no other gadgets where every few months you could see how wild, experimental and brave the market was, small players would dare to go the ways they thought were right without looking back at competition, some like Neonode were even ahead of their time, while bigger brands were also taking risks and bringing niche to mass production(of course many got burned badly like Siemens with Xelibri).
What does it have to do with anything, and especially with user experience design? Well the shift that happened ten years ago had pretty much everything and a little bit more to do with where the excitement really starts, where it went and would go next. When technology and thus sensation of magical novelty, qualias and excitement manifest itself in a small physical device like a phone we see all aspects of modern life and culture rush towards it, we see games on Nokia N-Gage, Bluetooth and mobile photography being born pretty much at the same time simply because phones reached the critical performance / penetration / market acceptance point, a perfect storm condition and we are just about to make yet another round towards it.
Getting out of the vacuum.
The only difference is that it is no longer about phones, it is about sensors and ecosystem, about control meaning vs interface dynamic meaning, and what we as designers would do with it. We are almost ‘there’ and it is time to start making video games, applications and simply designing experiences for the digital age, asking yourselves what else our user would have beyond the ‘four screens’ around him, what would make sense due to the human condition, what can we bring into life and what can be done better in a different way, different because we are one step from a new world and not just a better one. We have all the ingredients scattered around us, we need to link them, link software with what it means to control it, link information around the user we can get and the experience we provide in the applications or games.
A great example of control meaning unitized at its best in game design could be the Monument Valley — a game that feels like a toy house full of puzzles, a real life toy house and not a video game. I wrote a piece on games designed as physical objects last year that may be a bit vaguely but does investigate the approach we are talking about here, understanding that a software can reach out beyond the screen, reach out to emotions, expectations and also surprise on levels not only conceptual but physical and unconscious is crucial for making a new grade of experience in applications and games today.
We know what weather is outside your window when you play the game, we know what time it is, and where you are yet those are left for utilization by what considered to be artistic applications, and that is a retrospective approach. Immersive experience comes not from simulation of a realistic camera tilting when you are wearing a VR headset, immersive experience comes when what you play or use is being integrated in your existence of a moment and when it makes sense. Same fifteen years ago when smartphones were getting its momentum there was a PC video game, a horror genre wrapped around point and click mechanic, that game would only allow you to play it at night, or rather should i say — when your computer clock thought it was night, that is a very good example of what doesn't make sense…
So what’s inside the cocktail?
Technically it is all data, data about the body so that control meaning can be synonymous with dynamic meaning when we need it, data about the user so the content may be really meaningful, data about what surrounds the user, and importantly one more thing — what cell phones used to be as a condition for the perfect storm, now small wearable (and not only) devices full of sensors and communication that surround us are. When brainstorming the game play for a new game or interface shouldn't we think what an information from a wrist could add to it and what can we send back there, and what if it is not event the wrist.
New excitement is going to things, objects and experiences that tide the moment of our existence, all its details and meaning to the activity we volunteer to participate in (gameplay for example), that is where the next generation of services, interfaces, games and products will be headed very soon, and so should we if we want to be there on time…
