Coupling experience & technology

As director of the HP Labs Mobile and Media Systems Lab and as a player, captain, and former coach of team sports, I'll share some thoughts on mobile & media experiences and technology; on managing research, collaborations, and technology transfers; and on management and career tips I've picked up along the way. Please do comment on new and old posts, as I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences on these topics!

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» Coupling experience & technology

So you may have wondered why I wrote the post I'm gonna be a gamer again! I wrote it because it showcases an important theme for research and technology development -- the close coupling between experience and technology.

The technology used for today's console and computer games do not create gaming experiences that work for me, as they are not immediately intuitive and I have not been willing to invest the time to make them so. However, the addition of motion sensor technology into gaming now allows the creation of entirely new gaming experiences that are intuitive and fun, and (ahem) change the game.

Motion sensor technology allows gaming experiences that bridge the physical and virtual worlds -- a punch is a punch, a throw is a throw, and a swing is a swing. Both hardcore gamers and newbies are already finding this fun with first generation technology and first generation games. (Actually, motion sensor technology has been around for a long time, but it has now gone mainstream in console games and it is starting to go mainstream in mobile phones.) And now that the experience and technology is in people's hands, they will want more refined gaming experiences that will drive new technology development forward to create those experiences, which in turn will create the demand for even better experiences, which in turn will drive the demand for even better technologies to provide the even better experiences. This gets into the realm of user-driven technology development and user-driven design.

As you can see, there is an ongoing cycle between experience design and technology development, and I believe that the most successful systems will be those that consider the two together.

So, when you're thinking about what research topic or technology area to work on, it's important to consider both the experience and the technology. Will the technology that you're developing have a visible impact on the user experience? If not, can you steer your research towards a topic that does? Better yet, can you start by thinking about the most important aspects of a great user experience, and then develop the technology that's needed to deliver it?

Posted by Susie Wee on Friday, February 09, 2007 9:09 PM

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