iPad is generating a level of hype and excitement rarely seen these days for a new electronics product in this gadget-loving nation – Reports from Japan.
This is a gadget loving nation. We find hardcore enthusiasts who do not mind owning a 1000 page user manual and happily read it from start to end. This is the nation of innovation and new products arrive to greet customers every month.
The new electronic products offer superior specifications, beefy hardware, never before seen features.
So what’s making Japanese people line up to pick up iPads?
There could be several theories going around, but I think there is a fundamental shift in the way people look at electronics gadgets.It has been more than thirty years since the most advanced electronic gadget was invented. A PC and the accompanying software is the most advanced electronics gadget ever produced.
The last decade saw an indispensable use of Personal computers at home as well as in Business. PCs are no more new to people.The early adapters have now been taken over by early majority. For the PC to become mainstream, it has to satisfy the needs of early majority. It is no more serving enthusiasts, it is serving a common man. For it to be successful, it needs to work like a Microwave. It just needs to work.
The products have to be designed in a way that make them
• Extremely simple to use
• With familiar/standard interface
• Non-invasive on lifestyle
• Easy to maintain and upgrade
• Interactive
These characteristics point us to a single entity – the User. The new products have to consider user at the center of the design. It needs to start with how users will interact with it. User Experience (UX) is the King!
The UX theory has answers in why people are slowly falling into the model Apple preferred to adopt. Apple adopted a model to design and develop hardware and software that works like a perfect match. This model enabled them to put User at the center of the design. The recent adaption of Apple to design their own Micro-processor chip (A4) inside iPad is extending the same model to the last mile – the Hardware.
Now the User experience has not only influenced the software, but it has gone to the last mile – to influence the hardware it requires to generate that experience. The User experience is driving the chip design.The User experience model is demanding that the battery needs to at for 12 hours and needs to run at cooler temperatures. This may sound like exaggeration, but looks like that’s where things are moving.
It would be interesting to see how companies adopt to this change. The companies who adopt UX in the early stages, or change their existing model to orient towards UX have better chance to succeed.
The software needs to change itself to become as simple to use as a Microwave, at the same time retain it’s value to become a different instrument next moment, to become a refrigerator!
