UI – the Good, the Bad and the Scary

In The New Polymath, I was generous to the auto industry for innovating UI “with new approaches involving haptics, voice, and location.” Reading Consumer Reports over the last year, I may have been premature.

The MyFord Touch interface in particular has come under scrutiny “We have found that the voice commands don’t always work, and the busy touch screen can be awkward and complicated to use. We’ve also had problems with slow response time and, once, the system rebooting itself while driving.”

In the enterprise software world, we likely will say “welcome to the club – we have long put up with poor UI”

The big difference is year after year, release after release we wait in enterprise software. Ford is already working on revamping the interface and its competitors are blazing newer trails like Mercedes with its Gloria.

My book had also singled out Sonos for praise for its UI. No stumbling there. Last week the New York Times had a feature “How Sonos Outshines Apple in Home Audio”.

And in the last year, we have seen Apple Siri, Kinect, new form factors like Mattel’s Mindflex Duel, the Nest thermostat, the Immersive Cocoon and the Logitech cube mouse whet our appetites even more.

Yes, enterprise software needs to shed its ball and chain, er mouse and keyboard, if it wants to makes a UI leap.