Most of us are closely following the standoff between Apple and Adobe over Flash. It is now clear that Flash won’t be available on Apple devices anytime soon. Folks like me hoping to use Flash as a cross-platform tool for different mobile devices and web browsers have to look for alternatives. There are clear signs that mobile industry is going to be a fragmented one. So, writing code for each individual platform is not really optimal. What we need to achieve very quickly are the following:
An interesting study conducted recently could shed some light on why some of the new-age companies like Google and Apple are scoring so well compared to the erstwhile leaders like Microsoft and Yahoo!. The study from Cornell, published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, shows that experiences are better than possessions. The study essentially says:
The satisfaction we get from buying vacations, bikes for exercise and other experiences starts high and keeps growing. The initial high we feel from acquiring a flashy car or (more…)
Over three years ago, Andrew McAfee wrote an insightful post on The 9X Email Problem. In the post backed by research of a colleague from Harvard, Andrew makes a case for Enterprise 2.0 software to be nine times better than Email to be accepted by businesses and their decision makers.
The number nine, he and his colleague say, comes from the multiplier effect of two pieces of irrational behavior displayed by consumers. (more…)
We have a new white paper that identifies Interactive User Experience, or IUX as the next frontier in human-computer interaction. IUX combines three types of interactivity, which in turn exploit unique platform capabilities such as direction, touch, orientation, location, movement and proximity. The transition from user interface (UI) to IUX is as revolutionary as the transition from command-line console to GUI three decades ago. The paper explains IUX, the three types of interactivity that enable IUX, and presents examples based on Apple’s iPhone, the pioneer and by far the most successful IUX device.
Request Interactive User Experience: Going Beyond Interfaces white paper today from our website.
The Apple iPad is bringing in a new kind of user experience to our lives in front of computers. Just like computers reinvented themselves from a command-line-based console interface to a window-based graphical user interface (GUI) three decades ago, they will now have to reinvent themselves from graphical user interface to what I call, the Interactive User Experience (IUX) or First-person User Experience.
My earlier post introduced the concept as a user experience that puts the user firmly in control of the context of interaction in addition to the object of interaction. It is rooted in three principles that are (more…)
First-Person Tetris is a truly unique take on the old game of Tetris, and exemplifies out-of-the-box thinking in interactivity design (quite literally).
What makes First-Person Tetris really interesting is that it turns the concept of the game on its head. In Tetris, you interact with the objects through your keyboard to place them properly in the box. First-Person Tetris makes you, the user, manipulate the context, which is the box, to ensure that objects fall into place properly.
When I came across this, I shared it with a few friends. One of them replied with a simple, “Love the idea!”. Most people I have shown this to have had similar reactions. For some inexplicable reason, the idea of rotating and moving the graphic computer shown in the game appeals to us, and so I think there is a very fundamental lesson here for all of us. And here is the lesson: (more…)
Bonnier R&D came up with the following great concept for an e-Magazine Reader that offers great colors, animations, user interface and reading experience.
We at Harbinger are passionate about interactivity and user experience, and have built great user experiences like flip-book on desktop, web and iPhone. The advent of a new breed of devices with touch-screen, accelerometer, GPS etc. opens up great opportunities for software product vendors to create wonderful user experiences. After all, we humans have a fascination with intimate interfaces on flat surfaces to do our work on – think of the amount of time we spend on papers, boards, desks and pads. The computer just had it coming!
So, 2010 is touted to be the year of what is variously named as tablets, slates or pads, and Apple is rumored to be announcing an ‘iSlate‘ this January. Do you think 2010 will be the year when the computer finally starts going flat?
