Apple Watch - An interesting platform?

Apple Watch, another neat product out of the Apple factory in Cupertino.

This summer I got my Apple Watch. My intent was to use it for sports and recreational activity. So far I am still wearing my mechanical Swiss watch in professional life. - Why? - I did not find the day to day benefits yet.

Yes, the activity monitoring is interesting, and I keep on taking it as motivational tool for more activity in my daily life.
The tracking, heart beat monitoring, and even communication functionality is useful.
I regularly use this when going for a run, or a mountain bike ride.

But, do I need all the notifications and possibility in taking phone calls or viewing emails and messages on my watch during work?

As you can see, I have ambiguous feelings towards that device. I do not see it yet as my day to day companion. And I am wondering how this will develop.

The device itself is well built. The usual simplistic usability, minimum number of buttons, even navigating the touch screen is going well.
What I am not super comfortable with is the trigger for switching on of the display. Somehow is my wrist movement not reproducible enough so that reliability of switching on is random.

The sensors such as optics and ECG are interesting and I assume there would be more possibility to do with it.
The ECG is a nice feature but I don't see the real use of it. - And there I might not be alone. What does this help unless I am a chronic AFib patient? Hence, for me as an average user there is only the motivation of contributing ECG readings of a healthy individual to the data pool.
What I am wondering is, if there would not be ways to monitor pO2 in blood continuously. And why not body temperature?
I see it very interesting for research purpose to get a data pool of healthy individuals through such a controlled time series data acquisition device. This can help in several disease are research.
The approach is only limited by availability of reliable and robust non invasive sensors, and sensors that do not require an enduser intervention for measurement, such as the ECG.
And how about some blood pressure measurement?

Motivational notifications. This is definitely a way to drive behavioural change and prevention. As usual different people will exhibit different susceptibility to the approach and flavour of implementation.

In combination, given the app capabilities and available sensor measurements, the Apple Watch is an interesting platform for applications serving wellbeing needs. I am wondering what innovations we will see in the upcoming years in terms of sensors for more relevant monitoring of vitals and blood biomarkers. 

My new iPad Pro

I recently got an Apple iPad Pro. - Yes, the one with the fancy pencil, and the fancy keyboard.

Once again I was impressed by the overall user experience. Starting with the evaluation phase in the internet. Reading through the specifications and reviews. The lean product photography is already appealing and raises the desire to hold respective product in my hands.

Why do I want to buy an iPad Pro? - My old iPad Version 4 is seven or eight years old. Performance is getting limited, and that bulky pen with the balloon rubber bubble tip was a great user experience increasing usability especially when reviewing articles back then but not necessary today any more.

Why am I reaching limits in performance of that old iPad 4? - Probably mainly because my user behavior changed somehow. I am more often switching between apps, I am having several apps simultaneously open, and pushing the resources of that device. Everything else is working fine. It has been one of my best devices bought ever.

And then that fancy Apple Pencil on the new devices. - A gadget designed to the maximum of usability. But to experience this I need to go to the shop. No e-commerce will make me feel that experience over the internet. Haptic feeling and my biggest fear - will it work for left handed people - drives me to the next Apple shop.

But it‘s not only the hardware of this device which sounds appealing. It is also the imagination of what new possibilities such a setup could open up to me.
All my private and professional office in a small pocket, the possibility to do work wherever I am, bringing creative ideas - yes, the fancy pencil functionality again - to my digital devices as soon as possible...

I am walking into the shop. I tell the seller that I am interested in buying an iPad Pro. He asks me if I would be using it mainly for private or rather for business. My answer is - both!
Yes, private and business is blending more and more.

I am deciding quickly and walking out the shop with three well designed clean white packages. Spent some money on a new device which should bring some more joy to my life.

Am I a victim? - A victim of consumption? - Or, a victim of excellent usability and user experience design? - How did this all influence my buying decision?

Develop for the better - The new Netflix App swiping left and right experience

Netflix, a company known for innovation, creativity, and user experience.

Their recommendation system has been developed in a co-creational way using crowdsourcing in order to match best user experience. This competitional approach even made it into a Harward Business Review. This, as an example of user centricity and focus on the client.

And now, with the newest release of the Netflix App on the Apple TV I am back in stone age when it comes to swiping through these recommendations. - Why? What happened?

The entire user interface is built to scroll left and right for selection within one of my automatically identified favourite categories. And to scroll up and down for selection of respective categories.

And now, this "home", "search", ... menu bar has been moved to the very left and pops up every time I want to swipe left in order to go back while scrolling.

Going back, since the invention of computer terminals and the back space key, probably the most widely used function. The functionality of reflection, of reassessment, and of reconsideration.

I am wondering, what would happen to usage statistics, if you would take this "going back" feature away from the user experience.

So, Netflix in a way did, and probably knows these figures.

What I do not understand is, what designers expect me now to do? - Why has this been implemented?

Do they expect me not to reconsider any more? 

Meaning, always move forward, don't look back, think only about what is coming and do not reflect what you have experienced a fraction of a second ago.

Do they want me to not remember the order of my favourites in "My List"?

Why doing it this way then? Would this not be easier with just randomly sort and resort those lists in the same way grocery stores work against our consumer habits by changing the place of items in the shelfs from time to time?

Do they want me to quit from Netflix on Apple TV? 

If I get annoyed by non intuitive behaviour of the user interface, I will spend less time on the app, I will get stressed, and - since Netflix is rather part of recreational phases of my life - I will not turn back.

This can not be the goal!

So, what were they thinking?

Do they want to teach me to think prior to scrolling?

Slow down, decelerate, relax, ... If so, it does not work!

Now, how was the situation before deployment of respective change a couple of weeks ago.

Same, issue hit the end user actually while scrolling up and down in a way. Just, that the "home", "search", "settings", ... menu bar was seamlessly part of the rest of the experience. Integrated into the categories of favourites. And given the usage of respective functions, I am not sure why this was not a good solution.

I can understand that technically this was not the most logic way of doing it. But it worked.

Or was I just part of one subgroup of users who perceived this implementation as intuitive, while a majority of end users did not.

Is this the struggle with usability? - On one hand everything gest more granular and more personalised. On the other hand, when it comes to simplicity and reaching populations of users with simple implementations one needs to make tradeoffs in disfavour of certain populations.

Is this what is happening here? Is this what I am experiencing as a Netflix user on Apple TV? - Am I traded off against a statistical majority of other users?

Never mind. The current solution feels so odd that I can not imagine above scenario to be true. - But, who knows?

Apple OS X Lion's scroll direction

It seems that the "natural" feature is not very popular:

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/07/21/poll-lions-natural-scrolling-vs-reverse-scrolling/

What does it mean if almost 50% of users consider the "natural" way not to be the most intuitive way?

"Natural" might be intuitive on a touch screen display. However, using navigation devices such as a mouse or a touchpad our brain still needs to project the action of the navigational device to a visual reaction on the screen. Hence, popularity of "natural" is a question of imagination not of intuition.

This leaves the question out: when will Apple come up with Mac Books and iMacs exhibiting screen touch features? - Probably soon.

Changing Customer Habits

Recently introduced by Apple Inc. the new Mac OS X Lion confronts its endusers with a 180° change in the response of up/down scrolling direction using a mouse or a track pad.

For years, we got used to scrolling directions which, if we are honest, are counterintuitive. However, everybody got used to it and never thought about wether the functionality was implemented the right way around. 

Now, with the most recent introduction Apple Inc. wants us to change. - And they call the new mode "natural".

Wouldn't marketing experts tell us, that introducing usability concepts against customers habits was a bad idea?

The mouse scroll wheel was introduced 16 years ago. And nobody complained about the scrolling direction. Why should we change now?

A couple of days ago I upgraded to OS X Lion, struggling with the new scrolling direction. But, only three days later I find it intuitive and I am starting to struggle with my old PC mouse at my workplace.

Which way is the intuitive now? The one I was forced to for the last 16 years, or the one which I am getting used to against my habits in a couple of days only.

Back to my fundamental question. - Is it a good idea to change usability concepts endusers got used to for several years?

That the context on the screen was not following the users finger movements was never a question. Does it matter in the end?

Scrolling mouse wheels and swiping fingers over track pads in the end probably has no intuitive connection to moving context. It is a usability concept everybody has to learn.

And, the average user usually learns much quicker than one would think. Hence, changing some fundamentals in the usability concept is a hurdle to take in the very first moment, but it will become intuitive to each and every user very quickly.

Will it kill your business now, if you change something in the usability concept of your products even if your customers have been following another concept for several years and generations of your products?

How quickly can you change your habits?