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Real-Time Design
I recently had the opportunity to attend the Read Write Web Real-Time Web Summit in Mountain View, CA. It was an opportunity to pick the brains of some industry innovators and connect with many excited entrepreneurs and web developers.
It was great to see companies pushing the limit of the web and testing the bounds of that which is Real-Time. It was great to think of how we might be able to help solve the new challenges in user interface design and user experience that the Real-Time Web produces.
Nailing down true characteristics of this thing called Real-Time was difficult, and finding two people who agreed completely was equally as trying. Here are a few observations I've made:
The Real-Time web is:
- Undefined
It seems to mean different things to different people. Some relate it to push technologies, others relate it to online collaboration, photo streams, news streams, etc. It was discussed at the conference that there exists a spectrum where at one end we find person to person interactions and at the other end: machine to machine. In between it transitions from machine to person and vice versa. Most existing web applications seem to fall somewhere within this spectrum. - Untamed
The stream of content that comes with real-time is a bear that prompts one to ask the question, who can possibly digest this much content? I believe it becomes a user experience problem at this point. We must, as interface designers, decide the best way for users to consume this content. We must also figure out a way to filter the content appropriately. This, of course, means quickly learning about the users preferences and serving that content. It also means teaching the user to teach the application and all within a transparent process that is usable and engaging. The real-time web seems to be only limited by the speed of the contributing humans involved. - Untapped
Real-time technology has the potential to change the way we do everything in the same way Television did, the internet originally, and other paradigm-shifting technologies. I was involved in an interesting discussion about the possibilities with mobile devices utilizing real-time geo-location and augmented reality technologies. Bits and pieces of the technology is already in existence. It'll be exciting to watch where it goes in the next couple years.
Overall, the real-time web opens an entire new set of challenges in design and development. We at Elevate are excited to meet them head on.
Posted on Tue, Oct. 20 2009
