Video game consoles are still putting up great numbers seven years into their current generation. But why have their user interfaces remained so bad? I was reminded of this on a popular Giant Bombcast (gaming podcast) from two weeks ago; the hosts talked at length about the sad state of Microsoft’s latest XBox Live UI refresh. Microsoft largely sidelined avatar functionality, one of the rare bits of personalization and whimsy from an otherwise business-like UI. The Netflix interface was overhauled so poorly that the hosts had moved their film streaming needs to other platforms. Common actions now required more taps of the controller than in earlier XBox Live iterations.
Ironically, XBox Live is generally regarded as the premier console gaming network. It costs $50 a year and generates a lot of revenue for Microsoft, a cool billion two years ago. So why isn’t some of that money being plowed back into great UI design?
The XMB, Sony’s navigation interface for the PS3, doesn’t fare well in the UI department either. Among the Roku, Apple TV, Mac, iPhone, and Boxee, all of which I own or have played with heavily, PS3 has the worst user experience. There’s too many actions and layered menus to get more complex actions done. Software updates, large in size and not skippable, pop up frequently before gameplay. (Sony apparently never got the memo on auto background updates.)
Yet UI may be beside the point: clearly the healthy state of console gaming’s market derives from the games themselves. But that market is changing, growing up and moving more mainstream. XBox 360s are being used now more for streaming media than gaming. A “one box media center” for the living room could just as easily be an XBox as a Roku or an Apple TV. Media partners clearly see this; content providers from Amazon to ESPN and HBO are supporting consoles in full, often adding their services to the XBox and PS3 just as fast as other set top devices.
In addition, while a Xbox 360 or PS3 costs $150 more than an Apple TV, that a premium price tag delivers far more capable hardware. It’s hardware that powers more immersive games, along with more responsive and novel interfaces (e.g. the Kinect) than their cheaper counterparts. Beefier hardware also means getting cool tech features (e.g. Dolby Digital 5.1, 1080p) before the competition.
Yet as we’ve seen before, muscular tech, lots of money and media partners will only get you so far without a solid user experience; just ask RIM. Competition is heating up: Apple and the rest of the portable market is on one side, chipping away at consoles’ casual gaming segment. Smaller, cheaper and simpler boxes from the likes of Roku form the other wing, attacking consoles’ non-gaming features. Without a adjustment in UI and other consumer-friendly maneuvers, I fear gaming consoles could be effectively squeezed out in the middle.
Like many other bloggers, I'm wedded to Google for my analytics. That poses a problem on the go; Google Analytics isn't mobile friendly, requiring Flash for their graphs and a lot of extraneous zooming to navigate the core UI.
Enter Analytics, a new app by Wizamin. It gives you just the basics: visitors, page views, average pages viewed per user. Swipe left and right to switch accounts. Swipe up and down to jump to different time periods. Simple, fast, really pretty and colorful for a buck. For at a glance analytics tracking it's great.
Every line of code you write has a cost. It takes time to write it, it takes time to update it, and it takes time to read and understand it. Thus it follows that the benefit derived must be greater than the cost to make it. In the case of over-testing, that’s by definition not the case.
Think of it like this: What’s the cost to prevent a bug? If it takes you 1,000 lines of validation testing to catch the one time Bob accidentally removed the validates_presence_of :name declaration, was it worth it? Of course not.
I see a huge amount of admonishments online for developers who don’t test enough. David approaches the problem from the other side; when does testing get out of control?
Since acquiring YouTube, how has Google made YouTube better? The best quality videos are on Vimeo. The funniest are usually on Funny or Die…
…YouTube still can’t playback video smoothly, it still takes forever to load, it still looks like crap, it still has the worst — most hate filled — comments on the web. It is still a flash laden nightmare.
Fair point, and I’d go even further: Facebook has the potential for a even larger product misstep with Instagram than Google made with YouTube. Facebook has a far more closed ecosystem than Google’s; they’d potentially really gut Instagram’s original intent by wrapping it into Facebook’s UI (which I fear they may at some point do.) At least the wide open, free flowing video + ad crazy nature of Youtube was a more natural fit with Google’s business model.
Ben does exaggerate Youtube’s weaknesses however. Great quality videos are to be found at Vimeo, but ‘best’ is a stretch. Youtube’s content still dwarfs that of Vimeo, and publishers overwhelmingly send content there as a first choice. Vimeo offers a similar playback experience to YouTube as well.
I think the key worry, which Ben nails, is product stagnation. First YouTube, then Flickr…could Instagram be the next to stop evolving?
This is a nice win for Spotify, and a huge improvement over their previous embed pages. As a Spotify Premium member myself, I’ll appreciate being able to play tracks and playlists on several music blogs I follow. However, in practice the Play button is more a triumph of marketing over real technological progress; with the full desktop still being the player’s audio source is a disappointment. Furthermore, it could easily frustrate those use to clicking on self contained flash music widgets.
A great solution would grant limited access, like playing one song via embed, followed by a prompt to log in and hook up via the standard app. That’s a potentially tricky technical implementation, but a simple IP check could just register number of plays before presenting the paywall.
I admittedly don’t listen to the Write for Your Life podcast often, but this was an excellent episode. Topic at hand: the best blogging platform for starting out (Tumblr vs. WordPress vs. Blogger) and good blogging philosophies.
How long before customers look left, look right, see everyone with the same phone or tablet and start itching for something different? My friend Peter Yared contends that the trend has already started in the UK where the “18-25 class” now favors the smorgasbord of Samsung devices as a relief from the iPhone uniform.
I appreciate what Jean-Louis Gassée is after here but the argument doesn't quite stand up.
Apple's strength derives from its focus, iterating on a few core products endlessly. Multiple iPhone sizes don't mesh with that philosophy.
Besides, the iPhone gets a cosmetic refresh almost every year to keep things interesting. If demand gets high enough, Apple could always crank out a few iPod like color variations alongside the requisite white and black.
To be clear, I could not be happier for the Instagram team. They earned their success. The service is worth every penny. I’m genuinely glad that the team will get to reap the benefits of its hard work.
And buying Instagram was a great business decision from Facebook’s perspective. As I remarked on Twitter, why try to build a competing photo app when you can just buy the best and most viral?
Still, as a user, I can’t help but wonder: how long before Instagram becomes just another Facebook app? How much time until everything that made the service so special disappears into the ether?
As an early adopter, I’ve watched far too many of my favorite apps and services suffer. They have shut down or evolved into something completely different after being acquired by a bigger company.
[Facebook’s] design sensibilities are minimalistic, but that doesn’t make them any less excellent. The problem is that while they do an excellent job of hitting their desired goals with design and products, they don’t set their goals high enough to begin with.
Exactly. My editorial today was more positive in terms of wins for design and development. Yet Garnett nails more eloquently (and with more force) reservations I touched on near the end of my piece.
I was initially as shocked as everyone else when I heard the news of Facebook spent $1 billion to pick up Instagram. But then it came together in my mind: Instagram’s purchase is major win for great mobile design, for online products with high engagement and fast code.
None of those things make sense at first glance. Instagram is a photo sharing app without a proven business model or positive revenue. A company of thirteen (!) employees who’s majority share of 30 million plus users are already Facebook members. A social network that at its core isn’t groundbreaking; sharing photos on a wide scale has been done with Flickr since 2004.
But the deal did happen, and there’s there’s several standout lessons here for designers and developers rooted in the reason why:
If you create a product with very high levels of engagement, you can be a threat to some of the largest tech companies out there. Facebook saw people shifting their mobile time away from Facebook to apps like Instagram and wanted in. Instagram just has a certain cache, or ‘stickiness’ with their app. For now at least, when influencers want a ‘cool’ way of sharing photos, Facebook and Flickr often aren’t their first choice. Instagram is.
Why? Great engagement derives from unique, emotionally driven design. Granted, part of Instagram’s engagement comes from marketing and sheer luck. Nevertheless, Instagram’s design is standout. For example, other apps use photo filters, but not with the same range, fun naming convention or ease of use to jump between them; Instagram makes post processing fun. It’s been one and a half years since Instagram’s debut, yet how many other apps can make that same claim?
High engagement levels can be retained with simple, straightforward design. Instagram was one of the first apps to make sharing to multiple social services so damn easy. It doesn’t take many more steps than your typical iPhone shot: capture, pick a filter, pick who to share to and you’re done in three taps.
High engagement is generally maintained only from a quick, responsive app or platform. This is where blazing performance at the development level comes in. Earlier in the year an in-house engineering blog post revealed some of Instagram’s tech under the hood. It’s straightforward, well thought out and was able to scale to 14 million in a year.
Nevertheless, a lot of positives about this deal can’t stop skepticism on my part. I don’t trust Zuckerberg’s claim that sharing with non-Facebook social networks will remain unaffected. Facebook has reneged on its promises repeatedly and likes a tightly controlled ecosystem. I’m thus also worried about the app’s “independent” future long term.
Overall, for a company of Facebook’s size, 1 billion isn’t crazy, “we’re in a bubble” cash. It’s a buy with stellar engagement levels and a mobile weapon to keep away from the other big tech players: Google, Amazon, and Apple. Given the stakes in this arms race between these four companies, don’t be surprised if the numbers only ramp up in upcoming years.