I read an article yesterday about how we need to get rid of window chrome - that stuff used to decorate application interfaces to make them look like real-world, tactile controls, even though they’re just displayed on a screen. For example, some applications - particularly the ones that edit video and audio - include a lot of knobs in their interfaces. The knobs simulate real knobs, but they replace a control, the spinbox, that would work equally well, probably better if you’re not used to the real world editing tools that use knobs. And now that it’s more likely you’re doing editing on a computer rather than some kind of studio rack, there’s really no excuse to continue simulating what you might never have seen and used in person.
Have you noticed the same thing I have with the evolution of cell phones that each new iteration is still missing things that consumers might demand? There are a couple of easy answers for why companies don’t make the ultimate phone. One is that they think it would be prohibitive in expense for people to buy it. Another is that they’re purposefully mixing all of the features up to keep consumers confused and sell new phones. I think paranoia has me believing this latter option.
But I wonder if it all comes down to a lack of pairing user experience design disciplines with practical implementation with good sales and marketing. A recent tweet crossed my reader about how you need to be able to either sell or build to make a successful tech company, and while that might be true, I suspect that it might be more of a triumvirate that includes a designer. So it’s sell, build, or design. And in this way, I think I’m slamming together design in both an experience sense and a graphic sense. Because who wants to use an ugly product?
