"Designers will be creating not products or interfaces but experiences, a million invisible transactions."
An article from Wired Magazine called "Like Magic" speaks to our class discussions about technological trends and how the consumer experience, particularly transactions, will look in the future.
This article uses Disney as a great example of companies that are heavily invested in automating the user experience. They have been spending the last four years developing wearable "MagicBands" which automates payments wherever you go in the amusement park, removing the requirement to carry cash or credit cards while you enjoy your day of magic. Of course, this type of technology benefits Disney as much as it provides a convenience for the consumer - every transaction is embedded in the experience: seamless, invisible, easy.
The article emphasizes the importance of making all user experiences 'real'. As we move forward, it won't be enough to be a developer that solves one problem, but actually "considers every nuance of our everyday activity and understands human behavior every bit as well as novelists or filmmakers." This creates a new era of product development needs: understanding the root psychology of an individual and providing solutions that match, movement by movement, the actual world in which we live.
For the full article from Wired Magazine (I highly recommend it!):
http://www.wired.com/design/2013/08/design-and-the-digital-world/
PS - If anyone wants to do a small field seminar to Disneyland to test their new wearables, I'm in.
Good post to look at trends that impact not only the design of product but also service delivery. Physical design of products and interfaces will radically change and we also need to explore the nexus between nuances of products/services in use and the information that is collected and exchanged when multiple individuals experience the same set of products or services. How will the broader system (such as Disney) cope and make use of the information from such experiences fine-tuned and constantly adapting... It is indeed an area worth watching and thinking about.
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