Trends in gadget and appliance UI (BBC video)

Check out this BBC video on usability trends in designs of products. Five minute of voiceover, plus sound bites from manufacturers.

post-nikon-gui

I was especially interested in:

“Nikon has added live animation to [the UI of] some of its newer cameras.” (timepoint 1:30)

 


The Beeb’s text under the video uses extreme phrases to catch attention, such as “why the user manual could be a thing of the past,” but here are some of the real take-aways:

Hardware manufacturers are looking to software for models:

  • Apple for simplicity of UI
  • apps like DropBox that do only one thing but focus on doing it really well.

The impact of social media’s instant word-of-mouth:

  • increases the ROI of good user experience
  • lets product designers take advantage of the instant feedback.

“Ease of use” now means: can I use it immediately?


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2 responses to “Trends in gadget and appliance UI (BBC video)”

  1. Ann Avatar
    Ann

    “Nikon has added live animation to [the UI of] some of its newer cameras.”

    My instant reaction to that was “Oh, great. Another battery/power sucker on the camera.” Hardly a positive.

    1. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      Actually, I think a still or animated image will use the same amount of juice. Just lighting up the display is the big power suck. The “redraws” of the screen with animation use a bit of CPU and RAM, but shouldn’t affect the power usage of those components.

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