LR blog

Can Twitter Help Define User Experience?

Sat, 2 May 2009 12:31:13 -0400

I had a thought the other day while trying to define "user experience" in a way that my mind would actually feel comfortable with - which, up to now I haven't heard, found, or stated personally. I didn't actually come up with the answer... just a pretty good question (it's a start):

If the user experience (yes, user experience requires a "the" in front of it) is separable from the technology, the medium, and the platform through which an "experience" is offered - is "form" then separable from "function"?

Lets assume the "function" of a product as a constant. Is it possible then to create a better user experience through varying just the "form" through which a user interacts with that "function"?

The answer is a resounding "yes"! How do we prove this? Simple, take a product that exists in its original form and then compare it to that same product experienced through a multitude of other interfaces that are also in existence and in extensive use. 5 years ago this would be a somewhat difficult task unless you were comparing GUIS that sit on top of the same linux underpinnings, but in the networked world we live in today, this happens all the time, and everyone thinks they can build a better mouse trap - and some have.

Thanks to exposed and publicly accessible APIs anyone can build a new user interface to an existing product pretty easily, and none are more prolific right now than Twitter clients. There are so many Twitter clients available that it is not uncommon to read about users swapping between different clients on their desktop or mobile through their own tweets. Tweeting about Twitter clients on Twitter. Mouthful.

I have personally tried about 5 clients on my desktop and 2 on my iPhone until I settled on the same application on both machines - Tweetie. The interaction through this application suits my needs better than any other twitter client I have tried - it provides a better overall user experience, even better than Twitter.com itself. Does it do more than the original site? Sure, there are some interface functions that augment the Twitter API - but it is still based on and relies upon the Twitter API for its underlying function. No, this is still Twitter, but how I choose to interact with the its functionality.

Not are there many clients that sit on top of the same engine, but there are many different ways in which these clients interact with and present the data from that engine. Similar I suppose to various video games utilizing the same game engine (Quake for example). How the interaction is designed, the user interface is designed, how the information is presented (or equally important - not presented), how the client integrates into the users computing experience and their communications mental model all factor into varying "forms" a user can experience with the same, constant "function".

Obviously, everyone knows that a good, well thought out user interface layer to a functional product can make or break that product - but is the value of "how" so much higher than the "what"? It appears to be, and as a designer who engineers user experiences for a living this is definitely a positive perspective. I know for a fact, that simply revising the look and feel and the means through which a user is allowed to interact with the functions of a product can drastically improve the effectiveness, efficiency and emotional impact of that product - it can happen every time a product jumps a version number, or is redesigned, doesn't always work out, but it can.

In the best case scenarios, subsequent versions, or unique "clients" of an application can bring significant enhancements to the user experience - and this is because individuals with a knowledge of, penchant for and/ or experience with designing great interactions, information architectures, user interfaces, and functionality - the user advocates - are directly involved in the process right from the beginning, imparting their experience into everything from task-flows, to new features, to feature modifications, substitutions and removal even before the first user interface wireframe is conceived.

I changed course here a bit, maybe a tangent, or just a branch. Basically what I am trying to get across is this:

If a skilled engineer of user experiences can take a good "function" and make it better through "form" alone, then would the skills and thought processes that allow the designer to do so not be even more effective if allowed to help define (or at the very least have input in) not only the form, but the function, and possibly even the business requirements of a product? Would it not be better to improve the experience by first improving the direction of a product and then augmenting it even further through the form created for it?

Beautiful uselessness is still useless. Ugly utility is... well, we all live with that everyday. Lets start from the human, and work backwards - right from the start.

New LR Website Sneak-Peek!

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:23:14 -0400

We don't get to show off our work before it's complete, posted and launched much, so this is a rare treat for us. We've decided to take the wraps off and give our readers a early snapshot of where Liquid Reality is going with our new website.

It's not the complete design, and we are keeping a couple things under cover for right now, but we wanted to share our direction and hopefully get some feedback on the look and feel of both our Desktop website and iPhone specific website....

And here we go:

Desktop Web:

iPhone Web:

Drop us a line in the comments to let us know what you think.

Thanks!

Adam

Mobile Apps - the next 2-5 years

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:08:55 -0400

LR has worked with 2 of the 3 major Canadian mobile carriers to strategize, design, and help develop their online storefronts - Games, Ringtones, Music, Wallpapers - and Applications, which are the focus of this post.

Until recently, most mobile users relied on their carrier to tell them what applications were available for purchase... which, by the way always lead to interesting user experiences when carrying these storefronts over to the desktop web (which apps to show for which models / makes etc...). Then the iPhone SDK, and the App Store on iTunes hit the scene and essentially changed the entire mobile application distribution channel, shifting the control of application promotion, sales and distribution from the carrier to the OEM, the people that made your phone, the people that wrote the software that your phone runs on... not a network operator that manages thousands of devices from 20 some-odd device manufacturers... Go ahead, filter that storefront to make it easier for people to find apps for their specific device (fine, Liquid Reality did it, twice)... I have a hard enough time finding what I want on the iTunes App store.

Which brings me to a short sidebar: Apple is known for it's outstanding user experience design, but, I have a hard time navigating the iTunes App Store relative to other online store experiences. If I don't know exactly what I am looking for I have two options - navigate an arcane grid style layout best suited for album covers and movies... or, come back each day/ week to see what's new. Here's what I'm thinking... They didn't live up to their user experience design standards not because it was easier to just jack the code from the music storefront... but because it does make users come back more often to stay abreast of the recent releases. Why do I think this? In the first collection of items in the app store layout it's not just "new" apps that show up, but "new and noteworthy". The first thing I see when I enter the App Store is a filtered list of the new items... not necessarily all new items. Also, there seems to be a lack of a "new releases" option as is available in the music store... there are 25,000+ applications in that store... cool for the first two weeks... but not anymore... navigation, cross promotion and organic similar- content suggestions need to be included - or there's no way I'm going to find that Gem of an application unless Apple thinks I should, a lot of customers buy it and it shows up in the "top apps" section, or a blogger writes about it and provides a link.... but I digress in a huge way. Rant over.

So back to the point of this post... which surprisingly is not App Stores, but rather the apps themselves. I've started to see a trend in mobile applications that I think is worth noting.

From what I see in both my own app collection, and with those of the app collections on friends' iPhones I have perused is that beyond the games, or novelty apps that provide temporary distraction, the applications that I can see being the most widely used, and here's the most important part, earning a permanent position on the home screen - are apps that fall into the following categories: Native Web-Application wrappers (Facebook, MySpace), Communications & Social Networking, Cloud Sync / Share, and Location-Based Services.

Web-App Wrappers
Some of the most used Apps on my iPhone are native apps that essentially provide a device-specific experience for webservices/ websites or use cloud-computing features to allow me to share information between my mobile device and my home computer. On my desktop, I have a Facebook widget on my dashboard and a Twitter client permanently running off to the side of my screen. But why have a desktop app, or mobile app, that basically communicates via an API to a website that pretty much has the exact same functionality when I have a very capable browser on the same device? At first I thought logically about it... the Facebook iPhone app is faster than launching Mobile Safari, because 90% of the images the app uses are pre-installed in the application itself... so I must prefer it because it only has to download text and thus must be faster. But then why the Facebook Widget (mind you, I don't actually use the widget since I got my iPhone)? Or why my desktop Twitter client?

On my iPhone I have Facebook, Twitterific, and Linked In - and I use these apps extremely often. As mentioned above, the functionality of these applications are generally limited in comparison to their web applications (a tremendous amount actually) even when accessing via Mobile Safari, so why do I prefer to use the apps? It could be the native user experience afforded by an app, or the reduced data transfer as a result of having the UI and many of the standard graphics used by these sites pre-loaded into the app itself, or could it be something else. Could it be psychological?

In many ways I think that the issue here is definitely psychological, on both the development side and the consumer side. As developers, the most logical step is to build a front-end to an existing API - a great way to get acquainted with the technology. Having your application on the home screen of the consumer will definitely increase use because it's always there, staring them in the face - one touch away.
As a consumer, this issue is slightly more interesting. I think that the average user still has an issue with seeing the web browser, whether it be mobile or desktop as an operating system and web applications as software. The fact that it is being viewed from a remote server may have the effect of distancing the user from the experience - and having a dedicated native application, again, either on the desktop or on mobile may give the user the sensation that they have control of the experience, that they are USING something rather than VISITING, that because they launched the app from their home screen or desktop that the connection and the data is more safe, and more secure, and that they actually own the overall interaction.

Communications & Social Networking
Although most social networking applications can easily be, and were, grouped with the concept of web-application wrappers, social networking tools such as Linked In, My Space and Facebook need mention for their "social" aspects separately. Much of these tools have been created with the use case that members will jump online once in a while (or extremely often in many cases) and review the activity of their "friends". Staying in touch, outside of the base features of a mobile phone such as Phone, SMS and Email, has catapulted the social networking applications to the forefront of App Store downloads - even though the experience is reduced, limited or in some cases, flat out useless. There is a need to bring traditional desktop web-based applications in full to the mobile channel, ignoring the "status monitor" state of most native mobile app wrappers - and embrace the enhanced experiential features afforded by mobility.

Cloud Sync / Share
As often used as the web application-specific apps are, they are by far not my most useful or important apps. This honour goes to the cloud-based apps, where data is stored or synched/ stored on a remote host and the clients update themselves via communication through the internet. Sound similar to the previous group? They are, except these are apps without a web application, simply a data file stored on a server somewhere (I'm taking advantage of Apple's Mobile Me service). The two top apps for me productivity wise are OmniFocus and MobileFiles. OmniFocus is a great GTD client that I have both on my desktop and on my iPhone - and they stay perfectly in synch via the cloud. Mobile files is simply an interface to my existing Mobile Me cloud feature called iDisk... a remote disk that I can load to my desktop and drag and drop files onto. This proves extremely valuable when showing projects to clients (images/ PDFs etc.).

Fortunately for all iPhone owners, Apple was smart enough to include some cloud-computing or synchronizing apps with the launch of the first iPhone including Address Book, Mail, Photos, iPod and the Calendar. These apps, through desktop tethering or nearly instant synch via Mobile Me servers keep all my core data aligned between my desktop and my iPhone.

For third party apps, those I am personally waiting for with baited breath are actually not new apps from random unknown developers, but extensions of the apps I use most frequently on my desktop working with personal data - I'm talking about companion apps. For invoicing and payment tracking I use Billings 3 - they are coming out this year with an iPhone app - I can then track my effort in time no matter where I am (Billings includes a project timer so you can specify a rate and a task and start timing your work). For project management, gantt charting and resource management I use an app called Merlin - also coming soon as an iPhone app. Click here for some of the apps / features I wanted to see from Apple.

Location Based Services
So far, as far as mobile apps with location-based services go, I haven't yet seen many that have given me reason to keep using them. I tried a few, some with quite interesting and innovative uses of geo-location, so far I have yet to use the location-based features of many apps because they feel tacked on, and for those apps that have location-based services as a core function of the application - I haven't found the value that engaging. This is not to say that I don't value location-based applications, on the contrary - I think they will become some of the most impressive applications on the market once they start to utilize the functionality in such a way that it does add a tangible value, and not just as a "stick on" feature for the sake of using the API. To be fair, persistent location awareness is not possible with the iPhone, as it cannot be run as a background task on the device while it sits in your pocket - but there are ways around this, and some enterprising developer will definitely be bringing a true location-based application in the not so distant future, I am sure.

What I am trying to get at here is that the most prominent, most used or most valuable apps I have are not islands. I don't throw data at them while they're tethered to my desktop and call it a day... they get the newest data (including my geo-location) when I need it or when it changes. My data is ubiquitous - my applications are clients whether on a desktop or on my mobile device.

In other words, and not surprisingly, valuable mobile applications keep me connected - to my friends, to my social networks, to my data, to my files and allow me to transparently interact with each while on any device.

Furthermore, applications that let me bring my experience (and obviously my data) seamlessly from my desktop computing experience to my mobile computing experience (not just contacts and calendars, but project planning and invoicing) in such a way that even though the information I am accessing via my mobile device is actually stored on a server somewhere, the application that I am using to do so actually makes me feel that my information is just there. Ubiquitous, safe, and mine. Data persistence, accessibility and personal ownership are huge factors in the success of any application that allows users to connect to that data from more than one device.

So, in conclusion, for the time being and the next few years, I'm betting that mobile applications will see the most growth primarily in the connectivity, social, data accessibility and location-based services areas. Native applications that wrap a web-based product will expand to incorporate all the features of the desktop web versions, and the underlying services will grow to add mobile-specific functionality that will further enhance the user experience of their products while on the go. More and more applications will surface that let users continue their work while mobile, and more desktop applications will begin to take advantage of cloud computing to allow companion mobile applications to sync and allow access to the same files the user was modifying minutes ago on their home or work computer. Location-based services will come of age, and users devices will talk to each other, make recommendations to connect (real-world networking) based on pre-set criteria and proximity detection - not as a gimick, but as a highly valued service that takes the social networking aspects of Linked In or Facebook and brings them to your walk through the grocery store, or the airport bar, or the conference floor.

There is a roadblock that seems to be holding this admittedly very young market hostage: the perception of mobile applications as a subset of the functionality of desktop web applications. This is a mentality that has not grown sufficiently with the advances in the capabilities of today's mobile devices. The fact that the screen is smaller is not a reason for limited functionality, and frankly it's a pure cop-out. What is needed is two-fold:

1. A general and wide-sweeping shift in the way that mobile user experience vs. device capability is perceived and understood.

2. More thoughtful planning, design and development of unique techniques that not just accommodate the medium, but take full advantage of it's inherent advantages over tethered desktop web applications (i.e.: location-awareness, persistent connectivity, proximity detection, etc...).

We will probably see an evolutionary growth as businesses, developers and users become accustomed to the capabilities of today's and tomorrow's devices, and it will take some time before the perception of what a good mobile application should be catches on in each of these segments. It's safe to say that for the next 2-5 years, as more and more App Stores arrive from BlackBerry, Samsung and Microsoft, more and more developers are going to be stepping up to the plate with their wares, first replicating the collection of apps already on the iTunes App Store, then forging forward with new innovative solutions for their respective platforms.

There are still a huge number of consumers using non-smartphones, as they upgrade, and get accustomed to the features of today's devices, they will be at the same place we who had iPhones were when the App Store was launched... low expectations, intrigued by the possibilities and willing to give an application a try for a few bucks. As these consumers make the move to the smartphone, they will also become new mobile application consumers - bringing new first time buyers to the marketplace, affording developers new potential customers by the thousands. This reality will unfortunately slow the rate of innovation, as new people are brought to old products - no matter how old the application is, it's new to them. I can only hope that it doesn't cause the market to stagnate for too long.

Is user experience enough?

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:30:23 -0400

In the process of re-imagining the Liquid Reality brand, we are examining and re-evaluating nearly everything that LR is, was, and wants to be - a huge task to be sure - and something that has recently struck us as a small issue is the concept of user experience and how well it actually describes what we do for our customers.

User experience, as defined by Wikipedia is "a subset of the field of experience design which pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a user's perception of a device or system. The scope of the field is directed at affecting 'all aspects of the user's interaction with the product: how it is perceived, learned, and used.'".

Until recently, we have described our focus as user experience design, or the creation of branded-experiences - because user experience only covers the interaction of the user and the software. Somehow, neither of these descriptions adequately cover our purpose, capabilities, and most importantly the value we bring to the projects we work on.

As we see it, there are a few key elements to the services we bring to the table:

1. Product strategy.
2. Brand embodiment.
3. User experience strategy/ design.
4. Creative/ graphic/ brand/ User interface design.
5. Front-end development.
6. Back-end development (through trusted partners).

Certainly, we do more than user experience design as identified by the 6 items above (not a full list by any account, but a sampling of our more frequently requested services).

Items 4-6, although always benefitted by awareness of each other, can easily be chunked up and delegated to separate teams or individuals as long as there is a tight and open line of communication between the teams that are performing those activities.

As LR examines our core value, we know that each of our capabilities are significantly enriched by our complimentary wealth of understanding of each of our other core competencies. We are better user interface designers because of our depth of knowledge and experience with the deployment medium (Mobile, Web, Flash/ Air, Software) - yes we do, or have done, our own development production in each of these mediums. I personally have taken projects in each from A-Z.

Here's the question: Can user experience be performed as a service without consideration of the other five items in the list? And furthermore, can items 1, 2, and 3 be undertaken as independent activities or are they intrinsically bound by the efforts and results of each other?

Are product strategy, brand embodiment and user experience strategy and design so bound together that it would be a disservice to the product, customer and end user to undertake one without a direct involvement in the others? We certainly think so.

We are not a branding or branded-experience firm, although we do help companies create and define their image, and we always strive to build a companies personality into every single click, task flow and screen we build. I would however prefer to stay away from the term "branding" as much as possible. Recently I have noticed a sentiment of dissent against the concept of Brands, or Branding in general, possibly due to the fact that branding as a service has become, or at least has become perceived as, a cosmetic depthless act by organizations to revitalize a product. Unfortunately, true brand doesn't come from your logo or packaging or advertisements - brand is the personality of your company. If you change your "brand" without changing how your company operates and interacts with your customers.... all you really did was an identity update. But I digress.

We are definitely a company that offers excellent user experience strategy and design, but we're not just a user experience strategy and design boutique. User experience is all about the optimization and simplification of the interaction between a human and a product.

Having said this, defining LR as a branded-experience or user experience strategy and design boutique is misleading and undervalues the services we offer our clients. But how do we then describe ourselves?

Is there a term, or a word, or something short and sweet that would encapsulate LR's core competencies/ core value? This we'll have to ponder for a while.

If you have a suggestion - we'd be happy to receive it!

Mobile Applications as Products

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:21:28 -0400

Ok, so maybe, just maybe, I come from the old school when it comes to software applications. When I think of an app, I think primarily of tools that I use daily or frequently that help me do what needs to get done. It must simplify my life, provide value that I cannot get elsewhere (or provide a similar function in a more intuitive manner than another application), and have lasting benefits that I can use over and over. These are the criteria that I use to determine what apps to purchase for my desktop computer. I don't have to use the app every day, but in six months, it needs to be as useful as it was the day I installed it.

Until recently I have applied this mentality to mobile applications as well - out of a mental model of what an "application" means to me. When deciding whether I will purchase an iPhone app, for example, I first had to decide whether it will be of value to me on a long-term basis... I mean, it's going to be installed on my phone and take a slot on the home screen, and it will probably cost me some minimal amount of money. It better be of high value and continue to be so for a long time... right?

I realize now that this might not be so true after all...

I have seen a lot of apps come out since the Apple iTunes App Store launched, many of which I have dismissed as fluff because they have limited time-based value. Just add a web-service, or additional web-based updated content, social interactions etc... make it valuable, and not static - it's an application after all... isn't it?

A good example is music artists releasing albums as applications. That's not software, it has a single purpose, it's closed, you can't use it to manage files, open other files, you can't communicate with it... or do anything other than play the songs contained in the product. Once I'm done listening, it becomes useless. What is the purpose of this type of application? Where's the value after you've played it? Why should it stay on my home screen?

It's like a mobile video game. Use it once or twice, randomly, or finish it and the value ends. In fact, Liquid Reality has worked on a few of these "limited-value" applications for mobile over the years. Only recently have I realized what these applications actually are...

Mobile Products. Not applications, but products with contextual or temporary value.

I own a lot of things that have no value after their use - books for example. I have shelves upon shelves of books that I have read and will probably never read again, but they are proudly displayed on wall-to-wall bookshelves in the den. Are they any less valuable to me because I may never read them again? No, because the experience of reading them was of high value to me both during and after having read them (for most anyway). A book isn't an application, it's a product.

This is much in the same vein as mobile video games. It is a self-contained product, not an application. But games are one of the best selling mobile product categories. I realize now that mobile products don't necessarily have to be functional tools, or provide long-lasting value - we're talking about content, context and experiences. They just need to provide a temporary value, and yes distraction from reality is a value, and as long as the price-point is appropriate for the value - then it is a useful product.

....

My old perception of applications resided in a stationary or somewhat mobile (laptop) context - whereas the mobile phone is actually quite different. It's always connected to the network, always with me, in my pocket when I have nothing to do (this is a significant point), and the first thing I turn to when I have a spare second (rare). In the mobile context, I have recently realized that I am not buying just applications but moments. Yes, moments. Something to do with my time, something to share with friends, something to experience while riding the subway. If I want to take a tour of a city I am going to visit, I can download a mobile product that can give me all the information I need about the city I am visiting while I am there. The product has absolutely no use once I have returned home, but, while I am there it can be essentially my tour guide. Sure it's taking up a spot in my application icon grid - but so it should. It may be telling me the best gallery to visit or the best bar to have a Manhattan in. That's worth a $1 and a place on my home screen.

As with music, movies, and books - electronic distribution has become, or is in the midst of becoming, the de-facto standard. It's the digital channel. The mobile phone is now able to support much more from this channel - mobile products don't have to be an application that helps me stay organized or in persistent communication with friends, although these definitely have prominent placement on my home screen, it simply has to be a product that is best suited for use in a mobile context - while I am on the go, in transit, or have a spare moment.

This, in combination with the micro-economics of short-term-use / high-temporary-value mobile products, is a whole new model - and one worth paying attention to. We're in the infancy of this evolutionary market, one that will grow significantly now that mobile application / mobile product distribution has been yanked from a purely carrier-owned (and moderated) market to a OEM market thanks to Apple's iTunes AppStore - and all the me-too plays by Microsoft, Blackberry, Samsung to name a few.

The world of mobile applications and products just changed for me in a big way. However, I don't think that even this recent realization comes close to understanding where the mobile products market is going. It really is a new paradigm, and one that I am glad to be a part of - even though I didn't fully grasp it's implications at first.