Article

Software interfaces look to the future

The days of the purely functional interface are over, giving way to the "citizen designer" and the rise of a new aesthetic.

August 6, 2006 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

Just beneath the surface of consumer culture, a change has taken place. It came with virtually no fanfare, but it affected everything from the products we buy to the documents we produce to the amount we're willing to pay for a cup of coffee.

Ten years ago, Target sold functional household goods; today, it sells furniture by Isaac Mizrahi and Michael Graves. Ten years ago, only computer professionals and printing-press operators knew the difference between Arial and Times New Roman; today, most grandparents can spot a serif at 20 paces.

That sea change is affecting the way self-service devices must present themselves. The green-on-black text of the original ATM is humorous at best, a red flag of an institution that is behind the times, at worst.

Recent months have seen a new aesthetic — largely influenced by European styles and sensibilities — making an impact on self-service interface design.

"Consumers have a higher standard in terms of design and aesthetics," said Heinz Horstmann of SiteKiosk, a German software company whose product enables kiosk developers to customize their browser's look and feel. "At the very beginning of the Internet (era), customers were pleased if applications were functional and working. In today's world, they take it for granted that things work. They focus more on the design aspects."

Two driving forces: Apples and Offices

Although graphical user interfaces, or GUIs (pronounced "gooeys"), date back to the early days of computing, they didn't rise to prominence until Apple introduced the Macintosh in 1984. The notion of personal computing — indeed, of ordinary individuals having any need to use computers at all — was just dawning, and as such it was unclear whether such a user-friendly interface was a stroke of genius or a mere novelty.

It turned out to be the former, and Microsoft adopted the concept in its first incarnation of the Windows operating system a year later. Both products would advance incrementally in the ensuing years, as it became clear that computers would soon take their place alongside televisions and microwaves as must-own consumer appliances.

Although GUIs taught "ordinary" users how to operate their machines, it was another Microsoft product that experts say helped spark the era of the "citizen designer": Microsoft Office. Erik Johnson, chief technology officer for Visionstate, a Canadian company that places information kiosks in public locations like shopping malls, said Microsoft Word forced average users to become aware of design considerations that had previously been hidden from them — things like fonts, point sizes, and the general impressions that text and graphics on a page convey.

The ViCCi kiosk interface uses an animated avatar to give information to users.

"Europe has always been a style leader in many aesthetically driven industries — fashion, home décor, automobiles," he said. "We surround ourselves with these objects and create our physical environment in the process. It makes sense that when we design interfaces, we look to these styles to create a virtual environment."

Style vs. substance

In the rush to embrace new aesthetic sensibilities, many companies have fallen into the "design for design's sake" trap. Adam Aronson, principal for Arc Design Consulting, said designers must always strive to balance style with substance, and keep in mind that the goal the user is trying to accomplish is often a simple one.

"The main thing is to avoid adding unnecessary bells and whistles that don't actually do anything," he said. "Audio feedback can help, but do you really need every button and switch to bleep?"

Feedback of some sort — tactile, visual or audible — is essential, but it should never get in the way of the interaction. "The user should never be asking himself, ‘Why did it make that bleep?'" he said.

An interactive location guide from Norway's NIT combines a touchscreen with an actual map of the facility being described.

"Neither example would be psychologically transparent," he said. "They both have emotional content to deliver."

As for emotion, Visionstate may be taking that part of the equation to a whole new level. The company's ViCCi (Virtual Customer Care Interface) kiosk, which was recently deployed in malls in Edmonton, Alberta, uses a three-dimensional animated avatar — named, of course, "Vicci" — to give the software a human touch.

"The role of interfaces has been gradually evolving from its primary job of presenting information," Johnson said. "Interfaces now need to go beyond this and give the user a quality and entertaining experience. Good graphics is key to its success, but smart animation and quality sound also contribute to transforming an interface into a virtual environment where the user will spend time exploring."

Medium vs. message

In his landmark 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously noted that "the medium is the message" — in other words, the means by which content is disseminated is ultimately more important than the content itself.

That is still a controversial notion; McLuhan's words have often been extrapolated in the study of TV, of whether what we watch on the tube really matters or just the fact that we're sitting in our homes watching it.

A similar, more optimistic inference can be made about interface design: Using these devices makes us feel a certain way, and that feeling is independent of the task we are performing. Paying a bill is a decidedly un-fun task, but a well-designed interface on a billpay kiosk can elicit a smile, thanks to the elegance and fluidity of its design.

Early interfaces were built upon the notion that functionality was everything. Today's consumer takes functionality for granted, and wants a compelling experience on top of it. Once again, the medium has become the message.

"We have produced compelling objects of desire since we formed communities," Aronson said. "The difference now is that the general public has access to many of the tools that used to be confined to extremely technical specialists. Now that it's out of the box, it's not likely to go back in."

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