The pulse of Alexander Interactive

At 7:15 the alarm on my iPhone goes off, notifying me that it’s time to wake up. I briefly check my email, waiting a bit for my mind to snap out of its drowsiness, and then pull myself out of bed. Today the TV in my bedroom stays off, but I flip on the set in the living room to catch the headlines and weather while I make some coffee. Next, I sit down at my computer to fire off a quick email I forgot to send out the night before, sync up the news articles on my Kindle for the commute and head out the door to work. I see seven different screens in my first hour; three more are waiting for me at my desk at work. This is my typical device-filled morning.

Our current technological environment plays host to thousands of digital devices. People move from one screen to another, increasingly expecting their gadgets to integrate into a consistent experience across all platforms. Because of this it’s becoming more important that businesses, app creators, information architects, designers, and code slingers take responsibility for providing their clients with strategies for a multi-screen playing field– thinking beyond the smartphone to other devices. But solely creating several applications and scenarios for each device won’t cut for much longer. It’s time for us to start thinking about the relationships between different devices and how people utilize and interact with each of them.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the BrandPerfect Tour NYC. Design consultancy Precious hosted a workshop exploring several multi-screen patterns, the context of the user, and connections between devices. Their documentation of these relationships gives us a clear picture of current possibilities between devices and provide some great solutions on your next multi-platform project.

PSFK has published a report (disconcerting, damning or riotous, depending on your station) showing that many top luxury brand websites don’t function on the iPad. (That image above is the Prada home page.) Given that Apple buyers are often luxury product consumers, this is a glaring omission for some of the world’s strongest brands.

The iPad is a reminder that the web is now rapidly moving away from the “build a website, let it run” strategy. A growing diversity of web-enabled devices is going to force companies to build websites that make usability the prime directive. The direct problem is the use of Flash, but the real issue is the lack of universal accessibility.

The growth in broadband mobile networks has led to rapid adoption of web access by consumers. Smartphones are nearing 20% of the American cellular marketplace and are expected to reach 30% soon. Ai clients saw growth in mobile traffic as high as 600% over 2009 alone.

The iPad is the latest and most profound bellwether in this usage shift. Contemplating how to service users with 1.5″ BlackBerry screens was one thing; dealing with iPad users, with their 1024×768 screens and just-like-a-laptop-only-better expectations, is entirely another. And while the iPad may be just a first step in an evolution, a million unit sales in a month suggests someone found the keys to the steamroller.

Computers are not going away; manufacturers shipped 68 million of them in 2008 alone. More important is the fragmentation of the marketplace, which, years after homogenizing almost entirely in Internet Explorer for Windows, is now an open landscape. Four different browsers have substantial (greater than 3%) market share. And dozens of devices are now displaying web pages in displays ranging from 320 to 1920 pixels in width, both with and without Flash.

The requirement for 2010, then, is to adapt to the fragments. Good websites need to actively identify visitors’ platforms and deliver user-centric results–not just the Amazons and Facebooks of the web, but the many small- and medium-size sites that encourage exploration and engagement. As platforms continue to diversify, creating flexible, accessible sites is a must.

From our flu-infested president (and reluctant blogger) Alex Schmelkin came this email last week:

I’m lying in bed with two horrendously uncomfortable pillows. Down feather nonsense. Popped onto amazon. Found the cheapest synthetic pillow. $9.99. Cart. x2. One step checkout.

The amazon ecommerce mobile site is phenom. It’s fast. Super easy. Recognizes you’re coming in on a mobile and serves the correct pages. Login in. Has all your addresses and credit card. Search. Checkout.

Alex sent this email to the team as both a cajoling boss and an impressed consumer. Lying in bed, playing with his BlackBerry, he went dit-dit-dit through the world’s largest online store and completed a transaction as easily as he’d send an email.

This is the future of ecommerce. It’s already happening in Asia, and it’s a matter of time before it gets here, spurred on in part by the iPhone. Simple, clear mobile interfaces. Fast-loading pages. No-nonsense engines and processes. Nothing but goal-oriented transactional functionality.

Look for much more of this in 2008 and ’09. And try it, too. Usage drives evolution.