Chris Rider: "There is an interesting interaction problem here. If I carry different devices depending on what I'm doing on a given day, how do easily I tell the carrier which device I want to receive calls on?"
I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. A brief study in failed product design; http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2009/081709-heisler-apple-disasters.html Excluding products that were released before the technology was affordable enough we can look at the Macintosh TV & Macintosh Portable as examples of products that neither one thing or the other and end up being the worst of both worlds. I believe this is the case with the ever changing attempts at the one-size-fits-all swiss army knife killer device holy grail. Such a product is a myth, golden rule: do one thing, do it well and dont spread yourself thin. Smartphone-netbook-tablet-laptop, each does something very well that the others cannot due to an immovable constraint of physical size. No such single product will every meet the needs of varying everyday contexts. However, as Chris suggests, as we are the single consistent component in each and every interaction then the solution will lie in some method of each device becoming the primary connection to our data and services as we interact with it. A level of seamlessness to the degree that when I pick up my smartphone and open the browser it contains the same sites I was looking at a minute ago on my tablet. Swiss army knifes are nice, the right tool for the given job is better. /pauric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=44734 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
