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I predict a move from user-centred design to a user-centred web, and eventually to a user-centred world. Imagine a world where all of your relationships, communication, interests and interactions are wrapped into a single digital communication portal. This portal would save all of your contact details, conversations & messages, whether these be phone calls, instant messages, emails photos, videos, music & other media. Importantly, this portal would transcend any one device and any one software or hardware provider. It would not be just on your PC. It would not just be on your mobile phone. It would not be just through your TV. It would not just be through Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! or Facebook. This portal would sync with any device that you use, at any time, for any reason. Imagine also that this portal could interact with you in your real world as well as your virtual world. It would track your position through GPS on your mobile phone (say) and give you directions to reach your friends in the vicinity. Maybe you would exchange contact details with new contacts just by bluetooth, and this would automatically sync with your online services such as your email, blog or birthday reminders list. Why would we want this? Why not? The digital era is getting ever so complicated. I've lost count of how many logins I have for different sites and services. Even keeping my contact lists up to date gets a little crazy... Mobile phone (personal, work), Outlook (personal, work), social networking site A, social networking site b, webmail a, webmail b, webmail c, address book at home. Why should I have to keep of these devices in sync? As a human being my life is being carved up arbitrarily by the fact that different companies supply me with different devices, software and services. Do I care? My friends are my friends. My family is my family, and my work colleagues are my work colleagues. Real life is not divided into mobile phone, email, IM and social networking providers. I want to interact with the real world as easily as possible. I want to have everything in one place. That one place is ME! YOU are the centre of your universe and I am the centre of mine. (OK, some wouldn't agree, so don't get all philosophical on me now - let's keep this simple shall we!?) I want to interact with people I like, need or can help. I don't want to interact with the rest of the world - life is too short! I want to interact with companies that offer me things that I am interested in. I don't want to interact with companies that are polluting my life and time with things that I don't care about. (Don't try and sell me a bed shorter than 2 metres in length (I won't fit in it). Don't try and sell me a steak (I'm vegetarian). Don't try and sell me shoes unless you stock size 12 - you're wasting my time. However, if you offer me a DVD subscription service better and cheaper than the one I have now, I might just be interested). Anyway - if I could interact with all these people and companies through one profile, in any place, on any device, in a way that suits me, well that would be the user-centred world. User-centred design can deliver commercial success. I predict though that the user-centred world will be absolutely more commercially successful than our current world. It's the ultimate "long-tail" in action. This is already happening and I believe it will accelerate over the next few years. What example trends are there in this direction? Users requesting information (pull, not push) Contact across multiple devices Mapping relationships and sharing interests Infrastructure 10 steps to the user-centred world 1. User interests will be saved against user profiles and will be updated in real time in response to user activity Consumer demand for simplicity and convenience will ultimately take us down this path. Remind me to read this post in 15 years time to see if we've done it. | |||||||||||||||||||
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Vote:
November 2007 I agree this would make life easier - surely Dan's spreadsheet idea below could be translated to a single page dashboard which stored all your passwords etc and you could click simply through to everything from the one dashboard - banking, facebook, linked in, etc etc  Reply
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Vote:
November 2007 Good article, dcnorris.
Anyone read Neuromancer (William Gibson) lately? Reply
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4.00 (Good) Vote:
November 2007 Yes! How and where do I sign up!!! Isnt technology supossed to make life easier? Funny how we need programs to store all the login info we MUST use. I want one profile, one login, and the rest of my time to enjoy my life. Thats the intention right?
Great post. Reply
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4.00 (Good) Vote:
November 2007 Reminds me of a Minority Report world in many respects. It'll be interesting to see if we do make it there in 15 years time and even more interesting to discover how our roles as online marketeers change over these years.
I hope it becomes a reality, I for one know my life would be much easier!! Reply
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4.00 (Good) Vote:
November 2007 If this is the case, then I would imagine the security of this data will be a necessity. Therefore the market for such a thing would be astronomical. Imagine ALL that data in the wrong hands?
Good post. I agree things have gotten out of hands, way too many profiles, contacts, website logins etc. to remember now a days, and I am sure it will only get worse. Reply
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Vote:
November 2007 Agreed.
with so many sites in BETA and just launching..and wanting to try them...it is hard to remember them all. I started a spreadsheet with: site name, purpose, login, password, my own notes just to keep them all tracked Reply
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Vote:
November 2007 Thanks that is a great tip - I have an inbox called keys which is just full of welcome emails with passwords etc - but a spreadhseet is clever Reply
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(November 2007) (
