Amy Troppe

Your 2 year old knows how to grab your smart phone out of your pocket and figure out how to play a video. As technology becomes more intuitive to use and more integrated with everything we use on a daily basis, designing a user-friendly experience becomes easier to do. All this exposure that we have to technology teaches us to expect objects we interact with to act in a certain way and when we like how it works, all we have to do is copy it to create the next new product. But what about when we don’t like how it works? This is when you can learn from your grandfather that can’t figure out how to place a phone call on the same smart phone that your child is using to ask Siri the answers to his homework. Sometimes it is great to jump on board with the newest trend, but sometimes it’s beneficial to think about why a trend has become popular. This gives you a chance to take a step back from technology and consider how it fits in to the world around you, and is something that life experience will compel you to do more often.
I learn from my experiences as a mom and sometimes apply the same techniques when brainstorming for a new product: How can I simplify my instructions enough that a child would understand it? How can I design something that will be used in the way I intend? Will the outcome be what I expect? (If I pack a lunchbox with a whole wheat sandwich, a vegetable and cookies, can I really expect that it will be returned to me with any leftover cookies?) How can I clean up this mess in a way that it won’t happen again (ok, that one I’m still working on…)? We pay close attention to the feedback we get from the people who use our products. We use this combination of life experience, research, data and exploration to constantly make them better with each iteration.

Recent technology advancements have opened new possibilities for responsive web applications that are at the forefront of changing the way we think about designing a new product. We can maximize impact at all screen sizes because we are not limited to a design that is a compromise between all possible use cases. Usually this means keeping things flexible from a technical standpoint and design that is fluid and meant to change. This flexibility can start to translate into infinite possibilities.
At its simplest level, making a web application responsive means making sure that the design looks as good on a mobile device as it does on a desktop computer. When we design responsive websites we consider how it will be used to help decide which features should be eliminated to fit into the available space, which are altered to better fit the user’s needs, and eventually what we need to add. Sometimes it means simplified design trends such as flat design, which adapts easily to all device sizes and is starting to break free of the restraints of pixel-based graphics. At the same time it enables design with extra bells and whistles like full-screen, high resolution graphics and videos that can be removed for slower device connections.
As we continue to make improvements to these applications we think about maximizing the potential benefit we can offer the user. We may start to realize that the user is more interested in using this application while on the go than while sitting at a desk. Suddenly the users are no longer sitting at a desk, but maximizing their time while waiting for an appointment or checking on critical data while in transit. Maybe they even want to use the site on mobile and desktop at the same time. What starts with adapting a design to look good on all devices leads us on the path to developing products that evolve to help us discover new use cases.