Democratizing Animation

Marketers know that few tools are as effective in engaging your audience as a well-crafted animation. Traditionally, however, this type of material has been extremely labor-intensive – and therefore costly – to produce.

Yet LottieFiles is a company looking to change all that with its open-source tool that allows animators to spend less time learning and deploying complex code and more time crafting captivating content that will wow users and increase conversion rates.

LottieFiles allows designers to spend less time learning and deploying complex code and more time crafting captivating content
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Lottiefiles is a lightweight, interactive, and scalable animation format that allows for customization without having to code, build and render bulky files from scratch. In fact, Lottie files are, on average, 600% smaller than other popular animation formats such GIFs, allowing for a much faster, more responsive, and therefore engaging user experience (UX).

Lottie files are on average 600% smaller than GIFs, allowing for a much faster, responsive, and engaging user experience
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Popular apps such as Airbnb and Duolingo have wholeheartedly embraced this user-friendliness. Use cases for Lottie animations range from app loading and wait screes to gamification and user onboarding, as well a vast array of websites and apps looking to serve meaningful content to their users, according to LottieFiles CTO Nattu Adnan

“LottieFiles has helped hundreds of thousands of developers and designers from over 65,000 global fortune companies like Netflix, Disney, Google and Amazon to ship interactive animation faster and more effectively,” adds the company’s Co-Founder and CEO Kshitij Minglani.

Augmenting Reality

AR (Augmented Reality) has been steadily gathering momentum in recent years, and it is easy to see why. Merging the physical and digital worlds is an exciting proposition that opens up a whole world of possibilities for users, and the companies hoping to reach and keep them engaged.

From new ways of experiencing art to enabling customers to realistically try products before committing to a purchase, Augmented Reality is becoming ever more pervasive across an incredibly broad swathe of industries.

Augmented Reality is becoming ever more pervasive across an incredibly broad swathe of industries.
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“Research shows that AR will evolve from one-off ‘surprise and delight’ moments to provide everyday utility and practical value, right across the consumer journey.  This could include helping people visualize how products look in their home, locating products in-store through wayfinding applications, or getting more out of a product post-purchase through usage guidance,” explains Jeremy Pounder, Futures Director at Mindshare UK

One example of how it is possible for innovative companies to bring their customers the best of both worlds by creating Omnichannel experiences is Canadian start-up StickerYou which offers customized, die-cut stickers online, but also maintains a physical shop where customers can touch and feel the merchandise.

“The broader trend in retail, particularly among millennials, is a shift in focus from products toward experiences. For this reason, many customers still choose to visit a physical shop even if it may be more convenient to order the item online, explains StickerYou Founder and President, Andrew Witkin. “For retailers, this presents an opportunity to leverage technology to literally augment the value of their products for their customers,” he concludes.

Meeting Virtually

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic became the catalyst for what we now know as a socially distanced “new normal,” technology had been pushing us towards having more of our interactions in virtual environments.

From virtual live comedy shows to professional poker tournaments, people had started to not only accept the premise of hosting their familiar interactions and experiences in immersive virtual worlds.

Technology has been pushing us towards having more of our interactions in virtual environments
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Given the continuation of the pandemic, however, we have seen most events in the global conference calendar going virtual in some way or another, including one of the biggest highlights in the tech circuit – South by Southwest (SXSW) which is held in Austin, Texas in March.

SXSW Online 2021 included a variety of online meetings, sessions, musical performances, and many attempts at virtually recreating the interactive experience of SXSW.

As Tech Trends correspondent Laura Kobylecky reports, the world of virtual Austin exists within VRChat, an online, virtual reality, social platform which added a layer of immersion and interactivity to this year’s online conference and left her feeling as if she’d really attended the event.

Tech Trends’  Consultancy services offer support for companies looking to enhance their brand’s digital strategy with immersive and emerging technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a technology journalist, communications consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Top UI/UX Trends for 2021 appeared first on Tech Trends.

We live in a time of amazing technological advances. From the “supercomputers” we carry in our hands, and the plethora of apps that they offer, to smart appliances and automobiles, and immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality. Technology is advancing at an exponential rate and has the potential to increase our efficiency and quality of life. Unfortunately, too often the primary focus is on the technology, with much less focus on optimizing the interface and the experience for the user (the UI/UX). Although computing power, specialized graphics, controllers, and the like are important, their value is diminished if they don’t engage the user in a way that is natural, and in a way that makes achieving the desired goal easy.

Too often the technological “wow” factor dominates, when what is more important is how the user’s brain and body are engaged in the interest of achieving some goal
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Unnatural UI/UX increases the likelihood of failure, and results in ineffective and underutilized technology. Too often the technological “wow” factor dominates, when what is more important is how the user’s brain and body are engaged in the interest of achieving some goal. Technology for the sake of technology is not an advance, but technology that increases our efficiency by embracing the importance of optimizing the interface with the user and the naturalness of the user’s experience, offers a huge advance. To build technologies that meet these demands one must understand how the human naturally experiences and interacts with the world.

How Humans Interact with Their World

The human body and the brain that drives it, have evolved in a world rich in context. We experience and interpret the world through our senses (e.g., sight, sound, touch, smell) and interact with and affect our world through verbal and non-verbal behavior. We build devices to help us solve problems and to perform more efficiently but all too often these devices offer context-poor experiences, and require interactions that are unnatural. This increases the likelihood of failure and decreases effectiveness. For example:

• We experience and interact with a world that is 3-dimensional, dynamic, and whose views change when we shift fixation. 2-dimensional, static worlds are unnatural and less effective.
• We experience and interact with a world that is multi-sensory (sight, sound, touch, smell) and immersive. Visually dominant, small planar worlds are unnatural and less effective.
• We experience and interact with a world where we can shift our attention seamlessly, but we always have significant awareness of our surroundings. Focused attention with practical oblivion of our surroundings is unnatural and less effective.
• We experience and interact with our world and the world interacts back through sights, sounds, touches, smells, temperatures. Thumb- or finger-only interactions are unnatural and less effective.

We must build devices that offer a context-rich user interface, and natural user experiences
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We must build devices that offer a context-rich user interface, and natural user experiences. To achieve this aim, we need to understand how the human being and its brain have evolved to experience and interact with the world, and to emulate that as much as possible when developing software and technology. One must remember that UI/UX is about the user interface and the user interaction. It is about the user. To understand the user, one must understand the user’s brain; how the brain processes information to achieve goals, and how the brain interacts with technology to achieve goals.

The Psychology and Neuroscience of Human Experience and Interaction

The human brain is comprised of at least four distinct systems that define how humans experience and interact with the world. The experiential system has evolved to represent the sensory and perceptual aspects (whether visual, auditory, tactile, or olfactory) of an experience or interaction with the world. These are the sights, sounds, touch and smells in our environment. The brain processes sensory information in distinct brain regions, but critically the perceptual representations are highly interactive, and yield a rich contextual framework for each interaction. The critical brain regions associated with the experiential system are the occipital lobes (sight), temporal lobes (sound), and parietal lobes (touch and smell).

One must remember that UI/UX is about the user interface and the user interaction. It is about the user
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The cognitive system is the information processing system. It takes sensory and perceptual information, usually in the form of text or graphics, and translates that into information that can then be acted upon. The cognitive system relies heavily on working memory and attention that are both limited capacity and form a processing “bottleneck”. One must always be wary not to overload this system as overloading will lead to errors and inefficiency. This system encompasses the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus.

Neuroscience of Human Experience and Interaction

The behavioral system in the brain has evolved to drive motor behavior. These include moving one’s arms, hands, or mouth in such a way to lift, move, type or speak. This system learns behaviors when they are followed in real-time (literally within milliseconds) by corrective feedback that rewards correct behaviors and punishes incorrect behaviors. Once learned, behavioral repertoires are elicited by context-rich environments that have been associated with particular behaviors. In short, this system learns stimulus (e.g., rich environmental context) – response (e.g. speech or motor movements) mappings. This is why certain contexts elicit behaviors without the user even “thinking” about it. This system relies on the striatum, and dopamine-mediated reward and punishment signals.

The emotion-motivation system in the brain has evolved to process positive and negative emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, regret, etc.) and motivations such as rewards and punishments
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The emotion-motivation system in the brain has evolved to process positive and negative emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, regret, etc.) and motivations such as rewards and punishments, as well as stress, pressure and anxiety. Positive emotions and motivations can enhance cognitive processing and negative emotions and motivations can dampen cognitive processing. Positive and negative emotions and motivations define the rewards and punishments that drive behavioral learning. The critical brain regions are the amygdala and other limbic structures.

Optimized UI/UX:

Narrowing the Gap Between Human Experience and Interaction with the World, and Human Experience and Interaction with Technology

One thing that is clear from the psychology and neuroscience of human experience and interaction is that it is multi-faceted. It is rich in sensory inputs and perceptual representation. It is 3-dimensional, dynamic, and immersive. Although cognitive and information processing is important, it is only one part of human experience and interaction, and it is also the most fragile because working memory and attention are limited capacity resources. One should not expect this system to do the heavy lifting without significant support. Humans are highly interactive social and behavioral machines. We interact and communicate effectively through speech and non-verbals. We also have a strong behavioral repertoire from gross motor movements like lifting, to fine motor movements like typing or threading a needle. Because our behavioral repertoire is so broad, we should leverage this as we build the UI/UX for technologies. Finally, we are emotional organisms that use emotion and motivation to drive behavior, to remain engaged, to relate to others and to persevere through hard times.

Because our behavioral repertoire is so broad, we should leverage this as we build the UI/UX for technologies
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To optimize UI/UX with technology we need to keep the psychology and neuroscience of human experience and interaction at the forefront. Every step that we take that narrows the gap between how humans experience and interact with their world and how they experience and interact with technology, is a step in the right direction. In general, technologies with the best UI/UX are those that broadly and naturally engage multiple systems in the brain in synchrony, and in a way that minimizes cognitive load, enhances engagement and motivation, all while optimizing the speed and accuracy of motor behavior.

Experiential system: Every interaction with technology is an experience. You do not want UI/UX to focus exclusively on 2-d, static, visual displays, with thumb presses, or swipes as the only form of interaction from the user, and new 2-d, static visual input as the only response from the technology. You want experiences to be rich in context. The more 3-dimensional, dynamic, and multi-sensory the better. Users should interact with technology using visual fixation (without touch), speech, and motor behaviors that use more than the thumbs. Technology should respond to users with a rich array of color, form, motion, sound, and tactile assets. These should be constructed in such a way as to optimize the user’s experience and interaction. The user needs to interact with the technology, but the technology needs to interact with the user.

You want experiences to be rich in context. The more 3-dimensional, dynamic, and multi-sensory the better. Users should interact with technology using visual fixation, speech, and motor behaviors that use more than the thumbs
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The more sensory and perceptual systems are engaged in the interest of achieving the desired goal, not simply to increase the “wow” factor, the more memorable and enjoyable the experience, and the more likely the user is to achieve the goal quickly and accurately. Technologies like augmented and virtual reality hold great promise for engaging the experiential system. Augmented reality does this by overlaying assets onto the real world. Virtual reality does this by immersing the user in a new, virtual world. Technologies that utilize speech recognition also address these issues (e.g., Alexa, Siri, Google). Technologies that utilize wearable sensors or some other method of tracking full hand and arm movements as part of the user interface will be more natural for users. In addition, the plethora of sensors that track the user’s state of readiness including fatigue, stress, and vigilance, can be utilized to more effectively interact with and guide users.

Technologies like augmented and virtual reality hold great promise for engaging the experiential system
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Cognitive system: Too much UI/UX taxes this system without providing support from other systems. Too often technology is purely visual, and requires so much attention and working memory from the user, that they are functionally oblivious of their surroundings. This is hazardous, but also means that any lapse in attention or overload of working memory will lead to failure. The goal is to reduce the cognitive load by providing support from other systems and by providing users with what they need, where they need it, and when they need it. Again, technologies like augmented and virtual reality will be useful here, as their assets can be overlaid on the real or virtual world in a way that minimizes cognitive load and provides an experiential scaffolding.

Even so, much more attention is needed to reduce cognitive load, even with traditional 2d, planer technologies. Breaking a task down into small, manageable units (much like microlearning in Learning & Development) can reduce the cognitive load, and increase the chance of success. Every incremental increase in cognitive load is an incremental increase in difficulty, likelihood of failure, and likelihood of abandoning the technology. Technologies that are effective at achieving these goals are usually the most successful. Although perfection has not been achieved, and advances are still necessary, incorporating speech, natural language processing, audio and more natural behavioral interfaces will go a long way toward addressing some of the bottleneck associated with cognitive load.

Advances are still necessary, incorporating speech, natural language processing, audio and more natural behavioral interfaces will go a long way toward addressing some of the bottleneck associated with cognitive load
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Behavioral system: Technologies that optimize the naturalness of behavioral interaction are rare. This is surprising given the large body of groundbreaking research on procedural and motor skills. With the majority of UI/UX being haptic and click- or touch-based, understanding this system is especially crucial. Three critical findings are relevant. First, a high-quality user interface builds a collection of relevant behavioral repertoires through real-time immediate feedback that will facilitate interaction with the technology today and will enhance the ease of interaction in the future. This means that appropriate behaviors should be clearly rewarded, and inappropriate behaviors should be clearly punished, in real-time. Simply moving on to the next step following a correct action is not enough. Provide a highly motivating, immediate feedback signal, and that behavior will be more likely to follow in the same context next time. Second, a high-quality user interface implements related tasks with similar motor behaviors and unrelated tasks with dissimilar motor behaviors. Motor skills can be complementary or competitive and this should be incorporated directly into the UI/UX.

Motor skills can be complementary or competitive and this should be incorporated directly into the UI/UX.
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If two interactions with a technology achieve a similar goal, then the motor behavior to achieve those goals should be similar (e.g., to accept some choice, swipe right). On the other hand, if two interactions achieve different goals, then the motor behavior should be qualitatively different (e.g., swipe right to accept and swipe left to reject). Finally, a high-quality user interface needs to use natural motor behaviors to achieve goals. If my goal is to use virtual reality to practice a medical procedure that does not involve button presses, then there should be no button presses as part of the user interface. Too many virtual reality training tools show realistic virtual objects, but the interaction is not realist and is unnatural. This trains associations between unnatural behaviors and outcomes. We need to move beyond thumb- and click-based behaviors, and beyond unnatural hand controllers. Speech and full hand gestures must be incorporated using sensors and other methods of tracking.

Emotion-motivation system: UI/UX that effectively engages the emotion-motivation system is critical. When training behavior the UI/UX must be such that behaviors are rewarded or punished in real-time. Without this behavioral learning will be suboptimal. Technologies like virtual reality are especially effective at engaging emotion and motivation centers. The ability to be transported into any situation, whether emotion-laden or not, is critical for building situational awareness that is so important in so many aspects of our lives. In addition, the ability to be transported into another person’s shoes, to see the world from multiple perspective, and to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” will go a long way toward building the people (aka soft) skills and empathy that are central to success and to a positive workplace and society.

UI/UX that effectively engages the emotion-motivation system is critical. When training behavior the UI/UX must be such that behaviors are rewarded or punished in real-time
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The immersive technologies of virtual and augmented reality go a long way toward addressing many of the UI/UX concerns raised above. First, and foremost, they are grounded in context-rich experiential learning that is 3-d, immersive and dynamic. This is our natural state. Immersive technologies offer the promise of minimizing cognitive load, but often there is a conflict between efficiency due to reduced cognitive load, and “flash”. Good solid iterative experimentation can address this concern. Although there is still work to do to incorporate truly natural haptics, as well as speech recognition, and real-time measures of physiology, augmented and virtual reality offer great promise as tools to train behavior. Finally, immersive technologies, especially virtual reality, can train situational awareness, people skills and empathy by effectively engaging emotion centers in the brain.

The most important take-home message, and one that continues to be missed by so many, is that technology is there for the user. The best technology conforms to the user’s natural tendencies and leverages those to achieve goals. The worst technology requires the user to conform, and expects unnatural tendencies to get the job done. The more we place the user at the center, and not the technology, the better.

Todd Maddox is Science, Sports and Training Correspondent at Tech Trends, and the CEO of Cognitive Design and Statistical Consulting. Follow him on Twitter @wtoddmaddox

The post Why is UI/UX so Important? appeared first on Tech Trends.

The results of Adobe’s 2016 Digital Marketing Survey give insights into how data is being used to create targeted online experiences

Tech Trends was recently invited to the Adobe customer experience conference. At the rather swanky event at the Ham Yard Hotel in Soho, they announced the results of a 2016 survey conducted among 735 digital marketers from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France and Germany.

Adobe's survey provided insight into digital marketing strategies
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The survey provided insight into the priorities, strategies, and future direction of digital marketing in a variety of sectors such as media and entertainment, retail and commerce, travel and hospitality, among others, and uncovered some interesting trends:

Almost 90 percent of survey respondents rank creating a connected experience and campaign orchestration as a top priority. And 88 percent say they’re focusing on having the right tools to help them meet customers where they are at any given moment.

It is a fascinating report that shows how big businesses are mobilising resources like never before to stay as close as possible to the bleeding edge of technology. Although acknowledging that many businesses have so far lagged behind in terms of leveraging technology, they are now rapidly adopting the use of AI, machine learning, predictive data analytics and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools.

Leading companies are realizing the importance of using algorithmic attribution based on advanced statistics and machine learning to measure the precise impact of each marketing touch point along a customer’s path to conversion—from display ads, to social media, blog posts and videos.

Companies are now tapping into the potential of big data to not only personalize their offering, but to understand and predict their customers’ next moves so they can reach them at the right time, with the right message.

The data that makes up your online presence improves our interactions with the world and others but it also changes how companies, brands and businesses perceive us, and has evolved the relationship between brands and consumers beyond recognition. In our recent article about analysing your quantified self we in fact discussed how the increasing quantity of personal data we produce will effectively produce a digital version of ourselves.

Data has changed the relationship between brands and consumers
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What emerges from the report is that the biggest brands out there are pouring money into staying a step ahead of the competition by not only meeting, but anticipating consumer needs through analysing our online behaviour. The graph below quantifies this and shows that the 10 most valuable data sources for marketers include our online activity on desktop, mobile, social media and search engines.

This data is used in two ways; to draw a complete picture of the consumer, and to design predictive marketing personalized to match each person’s profile.

Data by itself isn’t all that powerful. The key is to combine data from multiple sources so you can determine the complete sequence of events that leads a customer to buy products—not just the first or last click.

This of course raises questions and presents challenges around privacy and use of personal data; Does having that much information about consumers give companies an unfair advantage? While on the one hand consumers should retain freedom of choice, on the other these technologies do offer us better, faster, easier services much more suited to our individual needs. The trick is in finding the right balance.

The most successful companies are tending towards using a single platform such as Adobe’s Marketing Cloud – which incorporates services like Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, Adobe Social, Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Audience Manager, as well as real-time dashboards and a collaborative interface – to integrate all of the processes, technologies, and tools necessary combining advanced analytics, personalization, and campaign management.

Services like this enable marketers to combine data, insights, and digital content to deliver the ideal brand experience to customers, and it gives companies everything they need to get deep insight into your purchasing habits and build personalized and unified customer experiences.

The key benefit of these platforms is unifying content and UX across desktop and mobile
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The key benefit that these platforms bring is in unifying content and UX across desktop and mobile. Consumers want – and demand – a seamless user experience, so that whatever platform they choose to access a service from, they can access the same content and services.

Companies are taking a holistic approach with a common digital foundation and centralized marketing platform that gives them the data, agility, and the resources they need to create and deliver relevant and personalized content across all their channels and touch points.

As companies become even more digitally advanced they are studying the consumer’s digital self – i.e. their behaviours, spending habits, preferences, opinions, passions, locations and interactions – to better target and predict their future tastes and behaviour, and this trend will only become more pronounced in future as mobile technologies continue to advance.

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post Digital Marketing is all About UXperience appeared first on Tech Trends.