Pokémon
Go, Amazon Dash, and the Future of User Interaction
Sustainable success requires the right touch;
sustainable digital success requires the right touchpoints. Already the
fastest-growing mobile game in US history, Pokémon Go’s astonishing popularity
highlights how profoundly touchpoints —
any interaction between your customer and your offer — define and design
user experience. Much of Go’s global appeal comes from an augmented reality
sensibility that literally and figuratively transforms real-world environments
into digital playgrounds. Touchpoints brilliantly coalesce into “touch
surfaces” and “touch constellations.”
But Pokémon Go’s accelerating success
shouldn’t obscure that touchpoint transformation is becoming a transcendental
design driver for UX across industries.Traditional
UX definitions barely mention — let alone describe
— “touchpoint design.” But it’s increasingly clear that touchpoints are
becoming platforms in their own right.
Amazon’s Dash buttons offer a superb minimalistic
example. Individually, they’re simple, dedicated and disciplined to a specific
outcome. Collectively, they represent both a platform and portfolio of options
and outcomes for easy and convenient purchase. With apologies to Nintendo’s Pokémon
designers, Dash buttons similarly augment physical reality.
As one reviewer insightfully observed, “Dash is really an augmentation of
existing hardware. Rather than plucking down ten of these in a column, like a
control panel, they go where they make sense. The one for ordering more coffee
goes on your coffeemaker. The one for ordering more laundry detergent goes on
the front of your washing machine. Put the battery one on the gaming console,
and the Red Bull one on the mini fridge.” Touchpoint form follows touchpoint
function.
My current favorite example comes from
Net-a-Porter reaching out to my wife. The company had been running a sale and
sending her several colorful promotions encouraging her to shop one more time.
Nothing clever there. But the last mobile message came with a touchpoint
inviting her to look at what goodies were left in her size. In
other words, this touchpoint encouraged and facilitated a bespoke search. Of
course she checked.
Simply calling this a clever promotion or
thoughtful UX or engagement marketing misses the (touch)point. My wife received
a highly specific, highly targeted, contextually relevant invitation to touch
something that could save her time as well as money. Of course, it’s part of
Net-a-Porter’s larger UX but, in the moment, what’s perceived and experienced
is a value-added touchpoint.
Four concurrent Ps make touchpoint
transformation work. Touchpoints become:
Purposes:
Networked digital technology has turned the touchpoint from a “point of
contact” to an explicit “point of purpose.” The focus is on a desired or
desirable outcome. Something happens that matters. Like Lego and Raspberry Pi,
targeted touchpoints easily assemble into platforms that can deliver
personalized results. This holds as true for Tinder as for Snapchat filters.
Prompts: They
nudge, encourage and invite the user to touch them, to take a specific action.
Please swipe me/press me/click me and something good will happen. This is as
true for augmented reality games as new Jimmy Choos.
Probes:
Touchpoints let users access more information and insight about the larger
experience. Ideally, users learn just enough to decide whether they want to do
– or play or order – more. (Note that an individual Amazon Dash button isn’t a
probe but that the Dash Button platform/portfolio surely is.)
Perspectives:
Touchpoints provide novel perspective; that is, they enable users to see and/or
experience the service from different views and angles. These perspectives can
be visual or informational. Pokémon Go’s augmented reality and Snapchat filters are perspective
creators. They make it easier to appreciate or understand the probe and/or
prompt the touchpoint proffers.
Aligning these four Ps – or turning them into
a virtuous cycle of touchpoint personalization and customization – will
increasingly become one of digital media’s important UX design challenges. This
will prove as important for mobile devices as for home/office/workplace
environments. Successfully creating and enabling simple micro-interactions that
generate macro results should inspire next-generation design and designers.
My own curiosity and concern around purposive
“purposes-prompts-probes-perspectives” centers on the chatbot future. Chatbots – whether spoken or
swiped – represent precisely the kind of medium where clarity and simplicity of
touchpoints will prove essential to quick, high-impact interaction. How machine
learning and artificial intelligence will sculpt and shape those touchpoints
remains a great unknown. But, as Pokémon Go’s success overwhelmingly suggests,
humans will want bots who make touchpoints playful and play touching.
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