Device Multiplicity
Demands Magical Continuity
appropriate, given the physical or
cognitive context, such as social,
audio, or lighting cues of the
surroundings.

There needs to be a kind of “smart ghost” that pervades the system as it extends across devices and platforms, via the APIs and protocols and handshakes, to serve as a connective intelligence to enhance continuity and support the perception of a unified, smooth experience. Thus, when you pick up and interact with one device, your other devices know what you did and when and perhaps for how long, and in what sequence, and physically where it occurred. There’s knowledge of battery power and of social gestures such as sharing and liking. There’s knowledge of when to pick up where a task was left off from one device to another, across platforms, across networks—even across identities and profiles. And, of course, there is knowledge of device form factors (screen size, resolution, and orientation) to further enrich a magical sense of awareness.

Yes, the system magically “knows” (or more accurately, employs sophisticated machine learning algorithms and sensor-based techniques) how to fluidly support natural, distributed cross-device behaviors, so it’s more than just pretty screens rendered nicely on different slabs of glass—which will eventually wrap around your wrist or even your neck! In effect, these responsively designed screens become a powerful kind of coordination and camaraderie that help you get through your day.

There’s one more thing needed to fully realize this “magic”: knowing when to expose the seams and edges of that continuity. The smart ghost must allow for users to break apart

Hello, welcome to my new column!

It’s my hope to add to the ever-evolving discourse on design through the reflections conveyed here. My belief is that through “some radical notions” we can reinterpret the ordinary to achieve the extraordinary, perhaps in unexpected ways, and advance design progress in the world. So, with that, let’s talk about something commonly suffered: too many supposedly smart devices!

It has become quite routine to present a multi-device graphic, complete with laptop, tablet, and phone as a unified happy family when selling a branded product or service. This imagery ostensibly promotes cross-device flexibility, if not uniformity. Today, that’s simply a baseline expectation, given that many people use multiple mobile devices over the course of a day, or across many days. And yet, underneath this benign ubiquity there’s the ominous specter of interminable, inescapable notifications/alerts/ messages (i.e., “attention-disrupting entities”) distracting you anywhere, anytime. With the emergence of wearables, there is the dubious sense of being alerted on any part of your body—of devices buzzing with thrilling delight, yet not in a pleasurable way! So many different sensorial indications combined with temporal gaps of “information jet lag” across devices amplify the tedious annoyance of playing catch-up, or being redundantly bothered across different screens and devices. Turn off one alert and another is buzzing—it’s truly a game of modern-day Whac-A-Mole, with distraction and dispersion of attention. My, oh, my! What can we do?

When you think about it, this
insistent push for the multiplicity of
data in a variety of forms demands a
continuity of experience and, thus,
intelligence of the system. There
needs to be a nicely arbitrated model
of interaction between the user and
all of her means of engagement and
modes of expression. This necessarily
goes beyond a coherent visual design
system—although that is a vital
benchmark—and possibly includes
moments of breaking consistency.

At a macro-interaction level, there
must be a well-defined set of principles
around contextual awareness and
smart defaults, with a silent, magical
sense of “knowing.” Ah, there’s the
rub! How does a device (and more
accurately, the app, service, or system)
know anything about you? Sure,
there’s historical data and deductions
based upon user gestures (likes,
recommendations, etc.) at the micro-
interaction level. But what we need is
a richer sense of knowing that involves
an interrelated mix of the following:
• smart assumptions made by the
product team, including engineering
and product management, informed
by customer insights
• smart adaptations to contexts and
situations, to provide the right data, at
the right time, in the right format per
context or activity in progress
• smart inconsistencies to break
the visual or behavioral model where

There needs to be
a kind of “smart ghost”
that pervades the
system as it extends
across devices
and platforms.

INTERACTIONS.ACM.ORG 20 INTERACTIONS MARCH–APRIL2015
COLUMN THE DESIGNERS’ SPEAKEASY
Uday Gajendar,
CloudPhysics