User experience in multi-screen times

With the development of mobile phones, flat panels and smart TVs, users face more screens than computers, and the use of other devices is gradually increasing, and user interaction with the screen is much higher than the traditional media. The main way to get information in the past is radio, newspapers and magazines, and now mainly through the electronic devices equipped with screen, and more convenient and fast, people's lives and work can not be separated from them.

Before the advent of the mobile phone, to http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/38182.html "> Use of computers, young people gradually away from television." Now, mobile phones and tablets have been using longer, slower computer growth or even some of the functions (such as search) in the use of time is falling, 5 years later, Smart TV will become a home entertainment center.

Think about how we will use these devices in a day. Watch the morning news on TV on the way to work, watch offline video on the road to work, use computer to draw pictures in the evenings, watch TV dramas or movies after night, and use tablet to read e-books before bedtime. It can be seen that there is a division of labor between the equipment, the main uses of different equipment are different.

This is mainly caused by screen size, the device screen size is different, so the distance from the device is not the same, the larger the screen, the farther the use distance. Cell phone screen is small, the use of the shortest distance, usually about 25 centimeters, and the use of television is about 3 meters.

Screen size, in addition to the impact of the use of distance, but also determines the device's portability and use of the scene and other characteristics. Mobile phones are the most intimate and not suitable for performing overly complex tasks. The television is suitable for the family to share, the privacy is also the worst. Different devices are suitable for different uses, such as television is the most suitable to watch high-definition video, computer suitable for work, mobile phone suitable for the micro-bo chat micro-letter in a fragmented time.

Screen size determines device variability, and the user chooses which device depends on the environment, tasks, and time required. Focus on time-consuming tasks, usually with a computer, a task fast, such as checking emails, usually using a mobile phone, and a flat for a single person at home, while many people will choose a TV set for recreation and entertainment.

These are the devices that are used interchangeably to perform different tasks, but there are three other things that can happen:

1) Alternate use to perform the same task. Equipment can be synchronized between the data, easy to switch operation equipment, suitable for use in different scenarios, such as browser bookmarks between the synchronization, on the road can continue to browse a Web page. Mobile phone as a portable equipment, real-time stay connected state, the most frequent interaction, but also the most likely to become the task of the starting device. For example, on the phone to receive e-mail reminders, use the computer reply long mail. And this kind of behavior, using multiple devices to achieve a task 90% is done on the same day.

2) use at the same time, perform unrelated tasks. But there is also the use of multiple devices at the same time, such as watching TV, users are no longer preoccupied, while the use of other devices for more and more time, different devices at the same time to perform different tasks, it is common to watch TV using mobile phone to chat with friends, or use the ipad shopping. Since mobile phones are portable and most likely to be used at the same time as other devices, more than half of the users watching TV may use their mobile phones, creating the possibility of interaction between mobile phones and television.

3) use at the same time, perform related tasks. For example, by ariplay the iphone video on the TV to play, to get a better audio-visual experience, and to control the playback progress. Multi-screen simultaneous use can also be multiple people, such as two iphone as game handles linked to the ipad to play games.

From the above analysis can be seen that the use of multiple screens has been very common, commonly used applications have supported multiple screens, such as mailboxes, synchronous reading, file synchronization and browser synchronization. Design will inevitably need to consider how to improve the product user experience for the above three kinds of situations, on the one hand, users need different time to use different equipment, on the other hand, can better play the characteristics of each device, more effective to complete the task, bring the experience will be better.

Source: http://daichuanqing.com/index.php/archives/4510