Experience Design teams don’t just put a couple of nice new UI levels on top of applications. They design the application experience top to bottom for simplicity, mobility, and extensibility.
Today, customers move across devices. Depending on the task that they need to do: a simple task that they can complete on their wearable or phone, a more complicated task that they might complete on a tablet, or a professional-level task that requires them to go deeply into the application on their laptop, desktop, or headset.
The experience stretches across devices. The platform isn’t the device—it’s not a watch or phone, or a tablet or a laptop, or headset. The platform is all devices and how they work together.
Everything, including how the information is organized, is being designed to adapt to whatever device your customers choose to use, in whatever space they happen to be in.
Glance, Scan, Commit Design Patterns
“Glance, scan, commit” is a design philosophy. Your customers use the device they choose to glance and see if they need to do some work, scan for more information if the task requires it, and commit to doing a task if there’s something they need to work on. This philosophy lets us design for multiple devices across all layers of the application.
Smart designs use the same interaction patterns across devices – wearables, mobile, tablet, web, VR, or AR. Your customers should be able to check something on their wearable or hand-held device, then move to a tablet, laptop, or headset if the task warrants it. The patterns are the same, so they don’t need new training for different devices.
Note that some device may have slightly different form – but the general interaction patterns should be consistent – tapping the icon on a watch, phone, or in a virtual or augmented reality should be a similar experience.
Customer Feedback is Key – Test Early, Test Often
Customer feedback is the key to getting the experience design right. Ensure that you test your designs with your target audience. Observe them holding, touching, and using the experience you are designing. We get the best feedback from giving people the product and seeing what they do with it. Test early. Test often.
Look for signs of participation, because helping your customers make the best decisions as easy as possible is the goal. We ask customers how the design works for them, not whether they think it looks pretty. To get the answer, we take them beyond the home screen and through a complete task.