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Why isn't People-Centric UI Design taking off?

hanselman.com

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Re: Why isn't People-Centric UI Design taking off?

#51

Post by mattkevan »

Fundamentally, it's because we're tool-using primates. For most of human history we've created things to use on other things to do things.

Selecting an app isn't any different than selecting the right tool for the job at hand. In this analogy, your phone' s homescreen is your toolbox - here are all the things you can do. Personal preference and the specifics of the task count for a lot which is why there's many types of hammers and apps with similar functionality.

From a toolbox perspective, performing an action on a contact - e.g. calling or texting - only involves a few out of the many tools available and therefore shouldn't be the sole way to navigate the system.

However some contexts a person-centric UI is great, and one of iOS' failings. I should be able to go to a person in the contacts app and see all the available ways I have of contacting them depending on what apps are installed.

Maybe when AI becomes so good it knows what I want to do before I do, or when we've evolved to the point we no longer feel the need to hit things with other things, a tool approach won't be necessary. But I think it will until then.

Re: Why isn't People-Centric UI Design taking off?

#52

Post by jackmaney »

VLM wrote: post #20
gerbal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it is first and foremost my device, or at least a UI oriented at me, I shouldn't have to go inside my self to find my stuff. People centric design is great if all you do is communicate with a set group of people, however if you're more asocial, then it's just sort of sad and hard to use.

I justify my sorta-bright idea by being an old married guy with two dressers in the bedroom, mine and hers. Do any married couples randomly intermix clothing, like all shirts go here, mine and yours, even the non-heteronormative couples? So it feels "natural" much as there's his and hers dressers to store clothes (and each kid, too) then the phone would have his and hers phone icons to store clothes, err, to store co…

> Do any married couples randomly intermix clothing, like all shirts go here, mine and yours, even the non-heteronormative couples?

Yes.

Re: Why isn't People-Centric UI Design taking off?

#53

Post by alanlewis »

User8712 wrote: post #13

The article brings up a good point, sometimes it makes more sense to start with the person. For example, let's say I need to get in touch with my friend to quickly inform them of a change to our plans. Open Skype? Not online. Check Facebook, nope, they're not on. Messenger? Nope. Ok, I'll open my contact book, and get their number to call. Wouldn't it make more sense to simply select the person I'm trying to reach, a…

From the platform provider's point of view, it doesn't make business sense to offer features like this to an OS or to other apps. Someone like Facebook wants you to have to come to the experience (app, website) that they control, and that they monetize. Want to know if someone is online? Come to our app and find out. And maybe while you're here you'll browse your feed and see an ad or 2 (probably more like 10).

Re: Why isn't People-Centric UI Design taking off?

#55

Post by DecoPerson »

robmclarty wrote: post #40

The thing about computers is that yeah, they're awesome at communication, but they do a lot of other stuff too that has nothing to do with person to person transmission of information. IMHO task -oriented UI makes the most sense because I use my computer as a general-purpose tool to get stuff done. In all use cases I find myself performing a type of task. Only in a subset of cases do I find myself communicating with…

In this case, the document would be a shared "group". Skype would be the backend application that handles any interaction within the group, but it's the shared conversation and simultaneous voice/video chat within that group that the users care about. You'd have to go to the effort of adding your friends' "people" objects to the group at first, of course.

Re: Why isn't People-Centric UI Design taking off?

#56

Post by joe_the_user »

bcoates wrote: post #6

Communication tools that people use heavily enough to care about acquire a context beyond just "Who I can communicate with". As the recipient, for the majority of my routine communications I get information from medium > sender > content, even though all ways of reaching me just make my phone jingle. The series of decisions that results in me calling someone is so radically different than the one that results in IMin…

Well,

A phone could have a list of people and clicking could activate the preferred communication method. It might have smart algorithms that even choose the people you'd be most likely to communicate with in the context you're in. So the aim of this UI idea, saving keystrokes, gaining flexibility could be gotten even in your context.

The problem is that even if the aim is achieved, if the keystrokes could be saved and the flexibility increased, it would not benefit someone that much. Most people aren't speed typing, most people already can remember all the people they want to communicate with already, etc.

UIs have stayed at the point they're at based on the "good enough" principle. UIs may not be optimal altogether but optimality only matters when you're on the "critical path" and with a UI, thinking may be the critical path and keystrokes, associations and etc may come a distant second.

Re: Why isn't People-Centric UI Design taking off?

#57

Post by state »

bcoates wrote: post #6

Communication tools that people use heavily enough to care about acquire a context beyond just "Who I can communicate with". As the recipient, for the majority of my routine communications I get information from medium > sender > content, even though all ways of reaching me just make my phone jingle. The series of decisions that results in me calling someone is so radically different than the one that results in IMin…

Well, the medium is of course the message — but that doesn't mean that we can't encourage users to think of the medium of electronic communication as a single thing. We know it's all just some structured data being bounced around, why not make that clear?

I think that would be a great thing, and would be the main benefit of pursuing the approach the author is arguing for.

Re: Why isn't People-Centric UI Design taking off?

#58

Post by joe_the_user »

Thinking about it, this is a weak variation of a much earlier failed paradigm. The original idea, document-centered UI, would not have apps at all or rather would have one huge app that was somehow powerful enough for all the users needs, light-weight enough to load quickly and flexible enough to let you link any document to any other document.

If you have that, of course you'd want to start with documents and people.

The problem is you won't find this single app, Google Wave was a failure, etc.

So if you have apps, well of course you do want to decide which to open first.

Re: Why isn't People-Centric UI Design taking off?

#59

Post by mattkevan »

VLM wrote: post #20
gerbal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it is first and foremost my device, or at least a UI oriented at me, I shouldn't have to go inside my self to find my stuff. People centric design is great if all you do is communicate with a set group of people, however if you're more asocial, then it's just sort of sad and hard to use.

I justify my sorta-bright idea by being an old married guy with two dressers in the bedroom, mine and hers. Do any married couples randomly intermix clothing, like all shirts go here, mine and yours, even the non-heteronormative couples? So it feels "natural" much as there's his and hers dressers to store clothes (and each kid, too) then the phone would have his and hers phone icons to store clothes, err, to store co…

> Do any married couples randomly intermix clothing, like all shirts go here, mine and yours, even the non-heteronormative couples?

Yes, and not even sorted by type. This is due more to limited space and getting bored half way through sorting things out and just shoving it all in rather than some thought through philosophy.

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