User Experience @ CES

Among the many reports from CES 2012, this one is really interesting to me because it focuses on User Experience. Indeed, how boring all the hype around device specs when really all that matters is the experience that device grants you! But this is just a reminder of how difficult it is changing mindset, forgetting about details no one really cares about, and focusing on those details that really provide a benefit in terms of user experience and usability.

The trends that CES discloses for this year are: 3D, touch-able, visual retrieval, and voice control as the frontiers of UI for 2012. This all makes sense and is somewhat confirmed by the recent patent Apple disclosed about a “three-dimensional (“3D”) display environment for mobile device”, let alone the recent Siri introduction, with its lights and shadows.

Now, those (3D, touch, voice, visual) are just words that appeal to our minds, but they are still far from ensuring a User Experience which is pleasant and effective (as the Siri case itself is there to show). Touch technologies were there well before the iPhone made its appearance, still it was only with the iPhone introduction that they got to the level of refinedness, coherence, and completeness that made them turbo-boom in the market.

Ideas are ok, what matters most is how they are made into real things.