Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Best and Worst Digital Products

Technology has become an essential in almost everybody's life. Children, parents, grandparents are mostly all familiar with a computer or a phone. Throughout the development of technology many different stages were created. Nowadays the current stage is the consumer stage meaning it is no longer about understand the technological bits of the machine but for it to be designed in a way that everybody can understand how to use it without being an expert. Designing for Everyday Life "describes the challenges designers face in making this powerful technology fit easily into people's everyday lives, rather than forcing their lives to fit the dictates of technology."
Since the second I woke up I have been dealing with different technologies. Most importantly the IPhone has created a whole new field of digital products, that have to do with the apps that we use everyday, everything is slowly being shifted towards the digital world.
In my opinion there is a large number of great applications on the Iphone and some really horrible ones as well.
My favorite digital product is Seamless, being a college student, it is one of the application that I use the most to order food. Seamless is a delivery service that combines all the restaurants that deliver in NYC and from that application you have acces to all the restaurants around your area and you have the choice to look at the menu and to order from this one application without having to talk to anyone. No only is the application extremely helpful it is very easy to use, the screen is clear and all you need is available on the page. I really like the way it is organized and the fact that you can write down special instructions for the food that you are order if you wish to have your sauce on the side for example. Although I find it one of the most helpful application to use in NYC as a college student, I think that the application is lacking one thing: the use of pictures, something that Yelp (another application) provides us with but not seamless, people tend to like pictures, and not having any makes it harder to choose where to order from. 
Although most applications on the Iphone are great there are a lot that are not so great, my least favorite application  is Viber. Viber's function is great it allows every Iphone user to call for free even if it is international calling, however the application is very poorly designed. The applications shuts consistently when it is being used, and rarely ever rings when someone is actually calling me. Skype for example is sort of the same type of application both apps do the same things however Skype is designed in a much more appealing way, it is easier to use and contains many more customization. 

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