Man and its computer, part 2

In part 1, I shared my conclusions about how similar today's computers are. They all run different applications, ranging from entertainment to productivity, from simple to complex. This post will compare in closer detail how graphical user interfaces (GUIs) of said computers help people to get the best out of their investment in these devices.

Desktop and laptop computers

When you use one for the first time, you see en empty desktop. The apps that you bought the computer for, are hidden somewhere else. A few app shortcuts might be visible by default, and the rest are tucked away below multiple steps for user to configure and manage.

 

Indication of an application that has been sent to background, ranges from subtle to quesswork. The desktop wallpaper, as seen in examples 1, 2 and 3, has clearly the biggest emphasis. It's however not exactly why these computers exists.

Phone and tablet computers

Upon starting one of these devices, user sees that applications are also divided between multiple locations, with iOS being the only exception here (example 1). It shows everything on a single location. Android (2) has multiple home screens, with all but few installed apps hidden in yet another place. Windows phone (3) is a mixture, while Ubuntu Phone (4) has much bigger plans than apps.

For an unknown reason, all applications that have been started, are demoted and hidden to a task switcher view. A design that looks and works like an afterthought. Windowed apps are slowly starting to appear, but still feel clunky and bolted-on solutions. The experience doesn't change when the device is connected to a larger screen. Only WP and Ubuntu phone are pursuing scenarios beyond the traditional desktop and mobile divide. Kudos for both for focusing on the future.

Console computers

The same pattern is sadly repeated. The software that user benefits from, is divided and scattered around the main user interface. The current game/app is prominently shown, but when it comes to seeing what else is installed, or running in the background for that matter, it's not what these interfaces are intended for. And consoles are usually connected to over 40" screens, so it's not that they wouldn't have space to put it in.

There's no support for multiple screens, and these computers are sometimes even more limited than mobile ones, due to shortcomings of gamepad input. Xbox OS has an edge over its competition in doing several things at the same time by allowing windowed operation of some of its core features, without breaking the context user was in.

  The verdict

Even though all computers and their operating systems are near identical in terms of what they do; companies developing them have chosen very different graphical user interfaces for them to do it. It means, that:

• users have to memorize different interface conventions between different computers
• multiple OS'es (or variants of them) are needed to support different devices
• only big companies have resources to develop multiple products from different categories
• massive overlap in required effort when developing software for multiple devices and/or operating systems

Back in the days, with just few computers around, there was no need for a common approach to GUIs. Instead, there was plenty of time, ignorance, workforce and money. As a result, we have several user interface paradigms, that all fail with various degrees. The shared mistake is focusing on building physical products with 'art directed' interfaces. A direction based on a personal perception how a particular device should be used, easily masks any digital similarities underneath the glamorous surface, abstracting important qualities all operating systems commonly share.

To sum it up..

Every 'signature charasteristics' that desktop, mobile and other interface paradigms have managed to pile up over these years, are merely distractions. They occupy minds of designers, developers and and end users alike. Our digital world is a hot mess - partly because of our obsession over the current categorization of computer GUIs and OS'es.

If something is certain, it's that software has never needed such arbitrary categorization - and neither do people using them. Future user interfaces will leverage different screen sizes and input types when they become available; instead stubbornly serving a single form factor, like they do today.

How can we help people to see beyond their lust for yesterday? How can future user interfaces better focus on increasing our human potential, if our preferences and behavior explicitly tells them otherwise?


Thanks for reading and see you in the next post. In the meantime, agree or disagree, debate or shout. Bring it on and spread the word.

Man and its computer, part 1

Our world is loaded with different computers that we use for a variety of things, ranging from good to bad, from luxury to necessity. And at their very nature, they're essentially the same. This and the following post emphasizes how similar they are (post 1), and how different user interface designs they ended up with (post 2).

Most importantly, it doesn't matter what computer we're talking about. Value is always generated through some type of application. Gaming, content creation & consumption, communication, and many other domains depend on using applications. Web browsers are eating away that pie all the time, but they as well are applications. Just hugely complex ones.

Depending of what we're doing with a computer, and where that happens, we use different input devices to help us. Keyboards, mice, trackpads, styli, cameras, game controllers and microphones, just to name a few. The line between computer specific input devices is blurring, as devices increasingly support a wider range of peripherals.

A displays is the dominant output device when it comes to computing. With a larger screen, you can see more without scrolling. Smaller screens are more portable, but the screen content needs to be scaled and restructured to make up for the reduced screen area. The more different display sizes a computer can support, the less limiting it is for the user.

To sum it up..

The way most common computers generates value for the end user, is identical. The way we control them is too, as well as the way they respond back. In the next post, we'll have a look at some of the most common computer categories and their graphical user interfaces. Stay tuned for the next post.


Thanks for reading and see you in the next post. In the meantime, agree or disagree, debate or shout. Bring it on and spread the word.
 

What is keeping Sailfish OS alive

Image by Jolla

In my previous post, I used Windows phone as an example of how focusing too much on design can hurt your product. This post is a follow-up for it, focusing on the importance of design intentions and the overall reasons to do things in the first place.

Be realistically ambitiuos

For the sake of comparison, let's pretend that Jolla chose the strategy everyone expected it to choose: follow iOS and Android to join the mobile OS and smartphone business. Just close your eyes, and picture Jolla offering the same experience what Apple, Samsung and others already do.

Wonderful, here's the thing: that strategy has been perfected by Apple, Google (later Samsung et al.) since 2005. They will keep doing so in the future, without any intentions of slowing down. 7 years later Jolla was ready to compete against industry giants, with the announcement of Sailfish OS.

Enough pretending. Competing with this strategy, against these guys, is like trying to race against a bullet train, with a bicycle, without pedals. You will get nowhere; even if you pretend to. It's utterly silly to think you can beat them in their own game they've rigged beyond recovery.

You'll be spending all your time on things you can't compete with. And since everything you implement has a cost, it's more logical to find a simple solution for all those things that make your product a reality. Move through the mandatory feature list as fast as you can, so that you can save time and effort to use on what, in your vision, makes you relevant.

This is where Microsoft stumbled. WP tried to create value too close to competition, instead of building on top of and strengthening existing ones; those that made Microsoft relevant. In the end WP sabotaged Microsoft's opportunity to not limit its users to stationary computing. Their ambition to build a smartphone OS ended up instead limiting people also on the go. Looks like they're finally fixing this with Windows 10, so let's move on.

Be honest to what you exist for

Three years after the Windows phone launch, Sailfish OS rolled out as a very limited and rough experience. You were all set, if you had enough interest and patience to wade through tutorials, reviews and forum posts. It worked if you knew exactly what you were doing, but it didn't leave any room for user errors. There was hardly any guidance to help user. To be open about things, we shipped it with a beta stamp. Digital pioneers and average consumers alike received their copy, installed on the finest hardware we had access to; a mid-range phone on all accounts. A failure by industry standards.

But the thing is, we're not competing solely within industry standards; things what others already master. We have our minimal solutions for those, but our real business is where others cannot easily go. Either because they're too scared, lack the required vision, or don't really care as long as they can convince people buying their next wave of latest and greatest.

People deserve more natural and focused interfaces than current industry standards require. We need more openness, collaboration and sustainability =  a thorough value domain reset. Automation and computing in general are less about the technology, and more about finding a common direction to increase human potential; everyone deserves more time for things that are defining humanity.

What makes Jolla and Sailfish OS relevant, is our reasons to exist in the mobile space, and what our actions stand for in contrast to the competition. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what keeps Sailfish OS alive. Not what it can directly offer, because it's not much at the moment. There's a mountain of work remaining -- actually -- make that two mountains; the operating system alone is not what you need for your computing tasks. It's merely a start.

We still need apps, more supported services and other natural functionality integration points. They are paramount in making sure Sailfish OS also stays relevant. There's a big functionality debt we owe our community. It's through their passion and trust, that we've given this chance to make a difference.

Respecting that debt would not only be human, but also an exception that this industry sorely needs to change.


Thanks for reading and see you in the next post. In the meantime, agree or disagree, debate or shout. Bring it on and spread the word.