Designing Multi-Device Experiences

Chapter 8. Transforming Challenges

Along with the huge promise of multi-device experiences, there are, of course, also development and adoption challenges that we must navigate. These obstacles exist both on the consumer side and on the product development side. In this chapter, we’ll look at such challenges, explore ways we might transform them, and consider examples of how the future might take shape in the midst of this new, connected world.

New (and disruptive) technologies bring not only new opportunities but also new challenges. Up until now we’ve discussed the opportunities multi-device experiences introduce in this newly connected world. Yet if we want people to jump on the ecosystem bandwagon and get it moving (let alone steer it), we need to first properly examine the obstructions.

Multi-device experiences, especially those that expand into the Internet of Things (IoT) realm, present a large set of technological, societal, ethical, legal, business, policy, and standardization challenges. Going into each and every one would require a separate book. However, within the scope of this book, we’ll look at several key challenges that we already struggle with (even when the experience is focused on the four core devices) and that are more closely tied to—and thus more significantly impact—our daily lives as product designers and developers. These challenges can be grouped into two types:

Ecosystem design and development challenges

Organizational structure, walled gardens, and resources ...