Contemporary ways to communicate with users
Applications do not always work at their best and the standard scheme we use to communicate is through written messages as prompts for the users such as “Error” or “Unable to process your request”, by colors and icons (red means action failed, and green means success). Now, why we do that? Is it because people have been using these insinuations from the past? That’s how the major apps have been communicating all through? Have we explored any other means to interact with our users? Especially now, when we are moving towards zero UI or voice-enabled devices, AR, VR, etc., how else can we reach out to our users? Well, I am no pro at this but the thought definitely made me think hard about this. This is me just listing a few ideas that came to my mind that can be used using our other sense organs. Yes right, the sense organs.
Okay so as per the textbook trivia, we have 5 senses organs (Eyes, Ear, Skin, Tongue, and Nose), functioning daily to recognizing our surroundings like anything hot that touches our skin is dangerous, or anything unpleasant like the honking the horn makes us uncomfortable and attracts our attention. How can we use these in our applications to communicate?
Eyes — Most of the apps already use this a lot in the form of colors, text, animations, etc. The most extensively used and the one we are dependent on. The way we communicate through colors, animation or language in our messages or prompts, changes a person’s mood, creates joy or sense of something wrong they are doing.
Ear — An unpleasant noise for failed action and a pleasant one for success. Exposure to intense levels of noise can cause personality changes and violent reactions whereas listening to calm and soothing sounds can have positive responses.
Skin — Use of haptic feedback so even when the device is in your pocket or hand, you don’t have to open it to know the status. Something like Morse code, who they used it to communicate a message by encoding text characters as standardized sequences. The same can be used in haptic feedback.
Tongue — The tongue has receptors that detect whether the item consumed is salty, sweet, bitter or sour. Use these to create a sense. The sense of taste evaluates in animals and humans what are nutritional substances they can consume or prevent consumption of potential poisons or toxins. These phenomena are almost certainly mediated through the central nervous system.
Nose — Can we use smell to tell the user if he is moving towards the right path or wrong one? Maybe following a pleasant scent that attracts the user and foul whiff that makes them turn away. The aroma from natural products has been used for mental, spiritual and physical healing since the beginning of recorded history. Several fragrances appear and a sense of smell plays an important role in the physiological effects of mood, stress, and working capacity.
I am not sure how and what is possible in today’s world but it’s worth to give it a thought. I would love to hear what you think. If you have some creative ideas used in your products. please feel free to share your concepts.
