There is a longer post that I’ve intended to write on the device aspect of my talk. However, that’s for another time. Instead what I wanted to write about in this post was the ‘Designing for everyone’ aspect as it’s related to what we’re working on.
In the abstract of my talk I mention the saying “Design for everyone and you design for no one“. I mention it because I don’t believe it holds true any more. There’s truth in it in terms of that we will always need to focus and prioritise, but it’s more about content strategy and content delivery rather than saying that we’re not going to meet the needs of a certain audience. The challenge and the excitement that I see in the development of digital services and products lies in the opposite – how we can actually design experiences that works for everyone. Each and every individual specifically. Of course not every product will or should be applicable to every individual on earth, that’s not what I’m talking about, but within the product’s broader target audience I don’t see why we can’t or shouldn’t aim to design for everyone.
A lot has happened in the last few years
The internet didn’t exist when I was a child. The internet did not exist. It wasn’t that long ago. If you look only a few years back so much has happened in the development of technology and digital products and services. The iPhone, which was the first mobile device that really changed how we experience the web in our hands, has only been around since the 29th of June 2007. The first iPad came into the world just over two years ago. Facebook has only been around since February 2004. Twitter since mid 2006. Though it’s not just about Apple devices, Facebook or Twitter, the iPhone and the iPad are the two devices and Facebook and Twitter the two services that really have had an impact on how, when and where we use the internet. They’ve had a ripple affect creating new markets and products and that’s all happened in the last eight years, or just under six if you count it from when Facebook opened up to everyone.
A greater expectation of personal and tailored experiences
Not only have these products, both devices and services, together with other technological developments changed how we’ve use the internet. They’ve also changed what we expect when we use the internet. With the rise of apps and mobile phones, using the internet has become much more of a personal and tailored experience. Mobile phones and apps are about us and our use of a particular service. The way we organise apps on our home screens and the individual apps we download, or website that we bookmark, are all based on our individual needs and preferences. We’ve made a decision to add them. And if you think about it the expectation of a tailored and personal experience is reflected in each and every app or service we use that either has a preference or settings menu. Each service that allows you to add/follow people, subscribe to content, or submit and share information about where we are and what we are doing. It’s all based on our preferences, decisions and needs. It’s based on what we are after. Not we as a group but we as individuals. It’s personal.
Designing for everyone
As I mentioned in my talk, designing for everyone does not mean giving every user equal weighting. It means being clever about content and delivery of content. It means being considerate and catering for each and everyone, even if it’s as simple as including a link to e.g. a buying guide for baths for those users who need a bit more guidance. But that’s not where the exciting part lies. This is what we should be doing already. No, the exciting and challenging part lies in that there will only be more and more services online in the next few years. It’s already hard to keep up today and the more services we sign up for and use, the larger the amount of content and the number of people that we follow becomes. And with that, the greater an expectation there will be on these services, and the web in general, to work for us to help us get to the content we are after. In byflock we refer to this as ‘Cutting through the noise’. It’s the theme behind our current products. This is the exciting part. How we, with the use of technology can deliver content.
Conclusions
A lot will happen over the next few years and the greater the advancements in technology and the more we learn about what is possible in terms of how we can deliver and tailor an experience based on what we know about the user, the better we are going to become at designing for everyone, and for individuals. But it’s something we should remember and strive for already today.
Every user that ends up on your site, directly, through search, a referring link or social media is there for a reason. If they’ve searched for you specifically, or typed in your url, they have something specific in mind. It may be small or big, but either way, if they’ve arrived on your site why shouldn’t you cater for them? You wouldn’t turn them away or give them a hard time in a physical store so why do it online.
Tomorrow – Day 112 | Not every museum makes you cry
Image source: www.robotshop.com/blog/where-is-wall-e-1391
