Design ideas for evolving notifications in the context of multiple devices: “actionable notifications,” treating them as new objects in the time stream of a user’s PDI. (post for a PDF download).
From February 24, 2013:
ownCloud is a free software suite, written in PHP, that provides file storage, synchronization, and sharing. It provides the same basic features of Dropbox or Box.net. It also provides a whole lot more.
via Meet ownCloud 5, The Open Source Dropbox | TechCrunch.
Installed on your own computer, you could have most of the benefits of Dropbox, and then some, without storage limits. Anything on your computer, available anywhere and from any device? Very interesting.
From the perspective of this connected device fantasist, if ownCloud could be extended to watch for files that have been saved, modified, or otherwise accessed anywhere in your ecosystem of connected devices and services and build a chronological and otherwise sortable and searchable representation of them, then we could have the foundation for an ecosystem-wide "File Stream", which, by analogy to iOS' Photo Stream, could be stream of every file you've touched recently (subject to options and preferences, of course), automatically making them more easily available.
This would definitely be one aspect of how my fantasy Personal Digital Infrastructure (PDI) or ecosystem of devices would serve me elegantly. It would make it that much easier to work or play seamlessly as I switch devices throughout my daily life. Hmmmm.
(Interested in ownCloud? See owncloud.org and owncloud.com.)
Disclaimer: I have no relationship with ownCloud.
Published by Edwin in Cross-device UX
Smartphones should not interrupt users’ video recording sessions when calls come in, especially if users choose to ignore those calls, whether through inaction or via tapping "ignore" on a notification. Yet, this is what happens with the phones running the current leading mobile Oses, iOS (5, 6.1) and Android (including 4.1 JellyBean). In contrast, webOS v2.2.3 and Windows Phone 7.5 only stop recording when users choose to take the incoming call. The quick UX lesson is easy—that the latter behavior is how it should be; do not interrupt users’ activity unless absolutely necessary. The larger UX lessons include: prioritize users’ activities over system ones when possible and offer both more flexible multi-tasking and more thoughtful use of unobtrusive notifications to accommodate that prioritization.
The Amazon MP3 store is now optimized for iOS devices….[so now], you can purchase music from Amazon's catalog…directly from an iPhone or iPod touch…. Additionally, purchases will be available for immediate streaming and download from within Amazon's Cloud Player iOS app.
via Amazon now selling MP3s directly to iPhone, iPod touch users | The Verge.
This is Amazon fleshing out their coverage of user activities—with their ability to give you access to your already-purchased content from so many different hardware-tied ecosystems (iOS, Android, PC/Mac) already, they had a pretty thorough coverage of the user-focused goal of "my content, anywhere, from any device" (e.g., their Kindle, Cloud Player, and their respective apps). This move adds the coverage of the user activity "adding to my content" in a way that makes it immediately accessible—again, anywhere, from any device. That coverage of most of most users' music and other content activities is a key part of iTunes' success.
Along with their recent AutoRip feature, which puts any AutoRip-enabled CDs that you purchase or have purchased from them going back to 1998 automatically, instantly in your Cloud Player, Amazon's music buying options may well be the fastest way to make your music purchases available "at any time, from any place, no transferring or synching--your music, everywhere" (from one of Amazon's Cloud player videos).
More of what most users will want to do with Amazon's content will now be even more platform-independent. This is Amazon building out their their content-delivery and storage ecosystem to out-flank all the hardware-tied ecosystems' obstacles, offering those users a way to loosen those other ecosystems' hold on them.
What could be next goals for Amazon in this vein? Maybe giving that same freedom to the other content that they sell: books, hopefully in various bundles with their ebook and Audible audiobook versions, and movies (offering bundles or just straight bundling streaming rights or digital copies with purchases of DVDs and Blu-ray discs).
Freeing users of arbitrary constraints? That's a good thing.
Published by Edwin in Cross-device UX
…Project Wintermute [is] a platform agnostic voice recognition service that lives in the cloud…. intelligently saving search queries and context across platforms.
from Nuance hopes to make cross-platform voice recognition a reality with Project Wintermute | The Verge.
As a platform-agnostic personal assistant, Wintermute would be perfectly positioned to free users from vendor-delineated ecosystems. Its ability to work with multiple—in an ideal world, all—vendors' ecosystems, would free users to use whatever ecosystems' components they wanted, with Wintermute serving then as a PDI-level (Personal Digital Infrastructure, i.e., the users' ecosystem of hardware, software, content, services, and social connections) service, or a property of the PDI.
Imagine: Whatever you want to use or access, regardless of whether it is beholden to iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, webOS, or Blackberry—just talk to Wintermute, and she'll take care of it. Not quite Jarvis1, but a step in the right direction.
1 Jarvis is the name of Tony Stark's, a.k.a., Iron Man's, AI assistant in the "Iron Man" (2008, 2010) and "Marvel's The Avengers" (2012) movies.
Published by Edwin in Cross-device UX
Tags: PDIs