The importance of Making things Usable

With the continuous influx of technological innovation, it becomes a general perception that any sufficiently advanced technology will hit the market by storm. But that is not always the case.

When a new breakthrough technology is introduced in academic literature or as a proof of concept by a corporation, it merely acts to show what is possible with the current state of devices, networks and architectures available.

Consider the case of electricity. Thomas Edison worked on electricity, day and night, to demonstrate the concept. Yet, the light bulb as we know it today, was a product of multiple iterations to make it more USABLE for the normal public.

The power of computing was demonstrated by IBM main frame processors which were targeted towards businesses and governments. Yet a tectonic shift in the era of personal computing came along when Apple and Microsoft led the way. They made the intimidating devices more friendly and more USABLE.

Similarly, there are countless technologies such as IoT, Blockchain, AI, Robotics of which were are only scratching the surface. The point where we actually begin to see the power of such technologies in our everyday lives is when we can say that they have evolved enough to become user friendly.

I believe that the first companies or institutions that are able to solve the challenge of making advanced technology intuitive enough for end users will lead the charge towards the next wave of computing, like the iPhone did for mobile devices.

And this is where UX steps in. The final design and development of any product is and should be dictated by what the end user is going to experience. This point of Human-Computer Interaction is an interesting place to work at, and much more fun to know about!

Cheers!