👋 Mustefa Jo'shen — @mustefaj, Ci. Strategy+Design
Engaging in critical thinking within applications
Exploring the integration of design thinking into applications
In exploring critical thinking in applications, the easiest way to go about the conversation is to explore the topic like an RPG.
RPGs create a world that has a system of rules for users. We explore this world by building scaffolding and contextual systems that provide rich 2-way narratives. Think of scaffolding like dominoes falling, or a process leading up to a known end-game because of the impact of all decisions preceding it.
An example of this is systems that transcend UI by using context to explain things. Like adding interactions to co-build next steps together with a user within their workflows (or gaming experiences).
In some video games, you point and click, wait for a result, decipher next action. It’s a linear and sequential expected series of next steps. Very much a platform experience, and not RPG at all.
Pokemon
Here’s a great example of Pokemon creating an interactive narrative with a Pokemon battle. It’s not novel as much as it is an extension of choose-your-own adventure novels.
I loved those because it invited us into a narrative within the book… a framework for communicating with the authors and make decisions based on critical information being communicated within the narrative, mixed with the unknown: our own decision making as readers / users.
Here’s twitter doing it subtly by giving you an environment within which to freely act and define new narratives (non-linear) as a micro-blogging platform that creates social networks. This directly brings the impact of our interactions beyond just ourselves and the computer.
How do we bring these principles back within mobile, web apps, beyond the 1st wave of messaging apps?
Building user narratives is basic concept and something that we take for granted when building applications, that users aren’t just interacting with us, but creating their own narratives through our platforms.
But how do we become ubiquitous as an overlay on-top of someone’s daily communication with the world?
2. Favour interaction fulfilment over interaction design.
Here’s our experience in exploring this through web and mobile applications.
This will be abstract -> specific:
Our focus is back to the user, and only the user, because we’ve stripped away our UI during the design phase. We focussed on architecting and communicating the consumption and interactions between users + a mix of their own data-sets + the data-sets of others.
We approached this challenge from an information architectural standpoint for the purpose of providing pathways to customer fulfilling without any barriers in interaction, access, or usability.
Within the architecture of information presented in our app, our UI should serve the purpose of user fulfillment for their goals. If it hints at being a barrier to that at all, we’re in trouble.
We’ve been in trouble before with complexity, but it’s fun getting into trouble, and we’ve learned so much.
Here’s one of our early versions, in which we were still dealing with a traditional app design. It’s pretty and it works. There’s so much UI, which can be useful again for younger audiences as we engage with k-6 learners with a design iteration.
We’ve been iterating critical thinking, analysis, and contextual scaffolding over 2 years to help people think and write. One of the biggest problems is context.
How can we provide just enough context?
We need to give just enough context for what you’re looking at. but we still had too much UI. Even though it’s a realtime communication narrative with a user (ex. a chat), we’re still working with forms.
This UI is still asynchronous. Point and click apps are all about storytelling, but our communication apps are about building a 2-way narrative.
Our new mission: create HER + Transcendence
1. Distill the interface
Provide fulfillment over IxD, communicate in narratives, and keep it inside of the app.
2. Build a canvas
Take users inputs and thoughts to create a canvas that learns and pieces together an output representing their thoughts.
3. A bot API
At this point, with the emergence of text & bot applications, we realized that the API we’ve been architecting is a rich BOT. A bot for communicating your thinking.
These three points lead us to reimagine how we can provide:
- Context
- 😍 Fulfillment
- A stripped away UI
Here’s an example of one early iteration below that fulfills these principles…
In 2016, we launched our web and mobile beta to over 2000 people worldwide. Here are some screenshots below.
The opportunities are endless. You can download the beta iOS app here. I can’t wait to share what’s next.
Are you using technology to build better communication narratives? I’d love to hear from you. Are you working on augmented intelligence, or looking at performance improvement through technical augmentation, I’d love to speak with you.
🖖🏼 Mustefa, Founder, Principal, C.i. Strategy+Design.
I design systems and frameworks to help organizations operate better through services consulting and product development.
