Thursday, June 16, 2016

Magic with Computers

The expectation from a computer is always to do something which surprise us, which complement human brain in terms of memory, processing, decision making, thinking and imagining. When I say computer, it includes smart phone, tablets or wearable devices. When we compare it with washing machine, refrigerator or lift, we always expect more out of a computer.
First time when ATM machines were introduced,  people were amazed how banking can be experienced seamlessly. You can deposit money in one location and withdraw from a different location instantly. When we first time sent an email, or did video chat all were magical experience.

But Now a days all these look normal and nothing great about it. So for a programmer whats next ?
what are the things or feature will get that "wow" from the user, keeping in mind now a days almost every one has been introduced to Facebook and google.

I feel below points will help to do the magic.

Simple UI

Its very easy to say simple ui, all of us know and its a quite old rule. But still it holds good and the people consciously or sub consciously decide whether to use or not based on user experience.

There is no rule or some way you can measure whether the one design is better than other. But certainly there are lots of good practices. I believe deeper understanding of the problem and solution based on user perspective, knowing different attribute of your target audience like region, language, age group, popular culture of target audience will certainly help enhance for better user experience.

User experience is so important that, if you skip reading the below points from now, still you can get a wow from the user.

Input / Command

We appreciate some one obey the commands and do our work, But we love and addict to those who do the required task with out the command.
The less input,intervention is required for system to work enhance user experience . While designing system we can follow some philosophy like  don't ask for explicit input, rather than observe it from the environment or historical data.

Prediction

Dare to predict and suggest and improve your prediction based on time. Always try to add some more value to the user.

Its a continuous process, reiterate the above point  time to time.

Let me know your thoughts how to get a wow ....