Breaking Silos: The Blurring Lines of Digital Interaction

Presented at iSummit 2012. ---- Remember 1993? You probably had one room in the house with a computer, and using it was a special occasion of sorts. Back then, computers were part of our life, bolted on the edge like another tool in the garage. Useful, but only momentarily relevant. That’s changed. Today, our interactions with digital technology are increasingly ubiquitous. From the time our mobile phone’s alarm goes off, to the moment we read that last tweet before going to bed, we’re plugged in all the time. As technologists, this drastic increase in ubiquitous computing gives us unparalleled opportunities that we need to be actively exploring. No longer do web sites or applications act in isolation, they can become a persistent part of our life, exposing a radical new depth to the interactions we have with devices on a daily basis. We should break the walls surrounding our technology products and find opportunities to extend the engagement past what we think of as the typical use case. In this session, we’ll explore briefly how interactions with digital devices have changed over time, talk about what that means to both technologists and business owners, and examine strategies for uncovering new innovation opportunities through smart interaction design. You’ll leave with an entirely new way of looking at how your customer uses technology and interacts with you through it (here’s a hint: it doesn’t just start and stop on your website), and you’ll be brimming with ideas for ways to deliver a deeper and more meaningful engagement to those users. It’s not 1993 anymore…it’s time to stop designing like it is.Read less