The User-Centred World

I predict a move from user-centred design to a user-centred web, and eventually to a user-centred world.

Imagine a world where all of your relationships, communication, interests and interactions are wrapped into a single digital communication portal. This portal would save all of your contact details, conversations & messages, whether these be phone calls, instant messages, emails photos, videos, music & other media.

Importantly, this portal would transcend any one device and any one software or hardware provider. It would not be just on your PC. It would not just be on your mobile phone. It would not be just through your TV. It would not just be through Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! or Facebook. This portal would sync with any device that you use, at any time, for any reason.

Imagine also that this portal could interact with you in your real world as well as your virtual world. It would track your position through GPS on your mobile phone (say) and give you directions to reach your friends in the vicinity. Maybe you would exchange contact details with new contacts just by bluetooth, and this would automatically sync with your online services such as your email, blog or birthday reminders list.

Why would we want this?

Why not? The digital era is getting ever so complicated. I've lost count of how many logins I have for different sites and services. Even keeping my contact lists up to date gets a little crazy... Mobile phone (personal, work), Outlook (personal, work), social networking site A, social networking site b, webmail a, webmail b, webmail c, address book at home.

Why should I have to keep of these devices in sync? As a human being my life is being carved up arbitrarily by the fact that different companies supply me with different devices, software and services. Do I care? My friends are my friends. My family is my family, and my work colleagues are my work colleagues. Real life is not divided into mobile phone, email, IM and social networking providers.

I want to interact with the real world as easily as possible. I want to have everything in one place. That one place is ME!

YOU are the centre of your universe and I am the centre of mine. (OK, some wouldn't agree, so don't get all philosophical on me now - let's keep this simple shall we!?)

I want to interact with people I like, need or can help. I don't want to interact with the rest of the world - life is too short!

I want to interact with companies that offer me things that I am interested in. I don't want to interact with companies that are polluting my life and time with things that I don't care about.

(Don't try and sell me a bed shorter than 2 metres in length (I won't fit in it). Don't try and sell me a steak (I'm vegetarian). Don't try and sell me shoes unless you stock size 12 - you're wasting my time. However, if you offer me a DVD subscription service better and cheaper than the one I have now, I might just be interested).

Anyway - if I could interact with all these people and companies through one profile, in any place, on any device, in a way that suits me, well that would be the user-centred world.

User-centred design can deliver commercial success. I predict though that the user-centred world will be absolutely more commercially successful than our current world. It's the ultimate "long-tail" in action.

This is already happening and I believe it will accelerate over the next few years. What example trends are there in this direction?

Users requesting information (pull, not push)

Google's iGoogle (personalised homepages)

RSS feeds

Customisation of desktops in Windows Vista

Tivo TV / Sky Plus

Podcasts

Contact across multiple devices

IM on mobile phones and PC

Email on a Blackberry

Mapping relationships and sharing interests

Social bookmarking (e.g. del.icio.us, Reddit)

Social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and others)

Business networking tools (Plaxo / Linkedin)

Infrastructure

Open-source software (e.g. Linux, Android)

Open source knowledge bases (e.g. Wikipedia)

Web enabled phones

GPS

Fingerprint based payment systems

Retina scanning security systems

Wi-Fi

10 steps to the user-centred world

1. User interests will be saved against user profiles and will be updated in real time in response to user activity
2. User relationships will be saved, categorised and constantly modified
3. There will be eventually a single user profile for each user
4. User locations will be tracked in the real world as they move about
5. Profiles in the digital world will transition to real world
6. All communication devices will centre on the same user profile
7. Content will be delivered to the user at the user's request
8. Advertising will be requested by the consumer, (pull not push)
9. "Popularity" will become increasingly more important in driving brands
10. Globalisation will allow faster networking of individuals and companies in a single digital reality that is entwined with the real world

Consumer demand for simplicity and convenience will ultimately take us down this path.

Remind me to read this post in 15 years time to see if we've done it.