Posted By
Robin Stevens on 05/01/2009
Waxing poetic is dangerous, but I’m going to go for it. My iPhone probably qualifies as my favorite technology purchase ever. I don’t consider myself a Mac addict, just a fan. As a UX practitioner, I’ve no choice but to appreciate the people-centered design.
The iPhone has a satisfying weight, and holding it makes me feel as if I’ve got the world at my fingertips. It’s not the product design, though, that truly endears it to me, it’s the function. It has redefined my relationship to information. iPhone apps are my new enabler.
iPhone apps have given me the most visceral moments of technological delight in over a decade. My first demo was from a friend, who had me use the maps function to search for flower shops in Portland. The results displayed as familiar pin drops on a map, but amidst major arteries pulsing green, or yellow, or red as traffic indicators. A couple of touches later and I had directions from my current location to the closest shop. I remember thinking “You’ve got to be kidding!” That fairly simple experience reshaped my visceral understanding the potential of technological change.
One of the first fun apps I downloaded was Shazam. I thought music track recognition sounded like a cool concept. But it wasn’t until I was on a road trip and wondered about a song on the radio that I had that next moment. One app launch and 5 seconds of tagged music later, I named that tune as “L.E.S. Artistes” by Santogold. Getting that answer in that manner in that moment was delightful.
How quickly technological change moves from delight to expectation. Some colleagues have reminded me that there are Blackberry apps and other touch screen phones. But in this case it truly matters: Apple did it first. It matters because of the amount of customer-centered thought and the investment in user research that has gone into the development of the iPhone-Web-at-our-fingertips paradigm. Apple innovated through research and there’s something we all can learn from that.
Within months of the iPhone’s introduction to market, user experience practitioners the world over began grappling with the implications of the pinch-flick gestural interface. And almost every client is now able to imagine the business potential of mobile Web applications for their business. I’ve a feeling my love affair with the iPhone has just begun.
Tags: Interface Development
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