The official introduction of the iPad has sparked quite some discussion. Personally I don’t care at all about the specs or if it has Flash for that matter — I do care about the user experience and consumer strategy. I’ve found several articles of visionary people in which they concisely describe this strategy. I think the iPad is an example of a goal-directed device. I’ve loosely based the term on the design process (goal directed design) coined by Alan Cooper in his book About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design. Let me share with you the articles which I think correctly describe the context of the iPad.
The first article which struck me was the article by Steven Frank called ‘Old World and New World computing‘. In this article describes the shift from an old-world of computer characterized by:
[...] computers are general purpose, do-it-all machines. They can do hundreds of thousands of different things, sometimes all at the same time.
To a new-world of computing in which the computer:
In the New World, computers are task-centric. We are reading email, browsing the web, playing a game, but not all at once.
He continues his article by describing more in-depth that the iPad represents an ideology rather than being a particular successful or great product.
Secondly the article in the form of an open letter to iPad competitors which I read ealier today called ‘How to compete with iPad‘ by Matt Legend Gemmell. I’m in Europe so I haven’t read it earlier. News and products do still take time to travel — even in a flat world. Gemmell gives a step-by-step guide on how iPad-competitors should interpret and compete with the iPad. I think he does so in a true marvelous way. I urge you read (and print) his article even if you aren’t an iPad-competitor. He describes the trend of shifting from a computer to tablet. He defines the tablet experience:
the tablet experience. It’s not hardware alone, but the inseparable union of hardware and tablet-specific software which creates a device other than what they regrettably know as a “computer”.
The articles don’t surprise me at all. Apart from the fact they are well written, the vision they propose is known. Right? I’m just a humble UX-guy but I’ve read the The Invisible Computer by Norman, and before that in 1979 (!) Jef Raskin coined the term information appliance. I just wonder about two things:
- Where are the UX-designers up to in this world? This is their raison d’etre.
- Let this be a opportunity for an European company to get and hear this message. And stop complaining about a world dominated by America and China.
If you are able to understand Dutch you can read a similar article on this topic called ‘Een Nieuw Computertijdperk‘.
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