Mobile devices and cloud computing are changing the way we interact with others and how we deal with everyday tasks. Our real lives are merging with our digital lives – or is it the other way round?
Wearable technologies are driving this process even further. Interactive glasses, watches or digital bracelets are already a reality, becoming accepted elements in our urban landscape. And they will continue evolving: in the near future cyborgs won’t be such an exceptionally weird encounter anymore. Once we grasp how much these new gadgets can expand our capabilities, many of us will be using them just as we use smartphones today.
Good practices exist for retaining usability when publishing content where space is key: for example adjusting layout and font size to small screens and avoiding annoying pop-ups. But at ZN, we understand some seriously smart thinking is needed to adapt responsive design to fit the requirements and opportunities of wearable devices – especially since 83% of industry experts believe that wearable technology will see huge growth within the next 10 years, and by 2025, we’ll be fully immersed in the Internet of Things.
TIME Photo-illustration. Hand: Milos Luzanin–Alamy
So far, content on the web is generally addressed to all readers. However, we can already tailor advertisements on the web using big data and monitoring user interaction. These techniques could also help us adapt the story we tell to create a fully tailored experience, where users only access content specifically chosen for them.
With mobile devices, other aspects of the user’s environment, such as geolocalization, weather, and time of day, enter more fully into the equation. These criteria become even more pertinent with wearable devices, while their more intimate interfaces break down the barrier of the screen. With Google Glass for instance, we move from devices as tools to access information to a reality complemented with the information we want at any moment. The canvas is not the website anymore, the space where we tell our stories is now reality itself.
Storyboard’s Pavni Mittal and Ivan Pollard, Coca-Cola Company’s Vice President, Global Connections, discuss real time marketing and wearable technology
The future of storytelling is not about keywords or tags anymore, it is about context. We should aim to create content that not only responds to user behavior, but also to their environment: drawing on information relevant to where they are and input from the Internet of Things surrounding them. Our ambition should be to generate a completely tailored, responsive experience in an augmented reality that users will find helpful and comfortable.
Are you ready to provide your audience with a completely responsive experience?
*top image: courtesy of mashable.tumblr.com