At the dawn of the wearables age, the competition among brands introducing smart watches is a proxy battle for who will win at miniaturization, processing and big data integration. That’s why in spite of limited functionality or utility there’s a land rush among brands to stake out positions and develop attentive audiences for technologies that will evolve to sci-fi levels. Initially smart watches appeal to early adopters, gadget guys and geeks of both genders. From the manufacturers’ perspective, gaining early brand preference equals limitless long term potential. Several factors will govern the pace of innovation and the scale of product differentiation. All smart watches rely on the Google-owned Android Wear operating system. Unlike the Android mobile OS, which has morphed into hundreds of variations, Google intends to tightly control this technology; the second version of which is slated for a mid-October release. If all manufacturers use the same basic operating system this levels the playing field. At this moment, all smart watches are satellite devices synched and linked to smart phones. In the future miniaturization and software improvements will enable them to be independent devices. But today they are totally dependent on a smart phone for Internet access and most Read more…

Consumers have embraced mobile devices with a vengeance. Marketers, faced with new and constantly evolving attitudes and behaviors that accompany always-on everywhere access, are scrambling to play catch up. Think about it. Almost half of all email is opened on a mobile device and a third of e-commerce takes place on either a smartphone or a tablet. Then think about the amount of social media and gaming that gets done on-the-go and you realize how fast things changed and how much faster they will change as mobile payments, more sophisticated apps and big data play larger roles in providing utility, speed, information and entertainment to consumers. This puts an enormous burden on designers and marketers not only to catch up but to anticipate and proactively serve the growing expectations of mobile users. We have to rethink how we create mobile assets by partly abandoning and party adapting what we’ve learned about creating websites and digital experiences. As a rule of thumb, the fewer clicks; the better. Consider these 7 important user design factors. Rendering. While the debate between adaptive and responsive design advocates rages, the bottom line is … if your content doesn’t render properly on mobile devices your brand Read more…