VIA Interaction

Thursday, April 17, 2008

This qualifies as an epiphany for most, unfortunately

An article in EETimes describes the way the iPhone is affecting embedded systems design (the design of small gadgets and tools that require a balance of hardware and software to run):

David Carey, who heads the "de-engineering" firm Portelligent, praised the iPhone poetically as a "glass cockpit" whose most significant feature was "almost dispensing fully with the keyboard" and directing the user toward the device's touch-activated screen. The success of iPhone is influencing engineers to reconsider the way consumers use electronic devices, Carey said.

In turn, this reconsideration has shifted design emphasis away from hardware embedded in a device and toward software that enables applications and defines the user interface.

And:

[Tech Online] panelists agreed that simplifying an electronic device, to make it more user-friendly, tends ironically to require a higher level of complexity in software design. "There are layers of functions in devices," said Smart, "and none of it is very coherent." The solution is another layer of software " complicated in itself " that "makes a very complex application seem very simple."

As one who has been trying to sell the benefits of user-centered design for the past eight years, I can tell you that it is frustrating that it requires an epiphany for engineers and product marketers to understand the importance of making products that people can use and enjoy.

But I hope it will bode well for all of us -- the designers trying to sell this largely invisible product (invisible, at least, when it is done right!) and the people forced to rely more and more on gadgets and computers to survive.

posted by Tim Beidel at 4/17/2008 02:01:00 PM

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