Trendwatch

User experiences for Internet-connected devices are constantly evolving, sometimes to adapt to new technologies and sometimes because people have just figured out better ways to do things. The following are a couple of examples of innovations that are improving the way people interact with computers.

Search experiences have been enhanced by offering a way of beginning a query with simple keyword search terms, then being served contextual browsing options to easily narrow the results to be more specific to the user’s interests, greatly increasing user’s ability to find the content they are looking for. This method is referred to as faceted search and is being embraced by a large number of major brands including Amazon, most car dealers and many others.

The rise of mobile computing has given way to new, innovative ways of interacting with applications, namely through touch interfaces. Doing away with interaction paradigms requiring a mouse, touch interfaces used by mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and Palm are redefining the way people interact with apps. It will be interesting to see how interactions such as touching, tapping, swiping, pinching and flicking will influence the design of digital user experiences for the next generation of personal computing. People were unilaterally impressed by the futuristic touch interfaces on the computers portrayed in the movie Minority Report a few years ago. Once again it seems as though the future may be closer than we thought.