{"id":25551,"date":"2019-02-07T20:10:34","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T12:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hongkiat.com\/blog\/?p=25551"},"modified":"2019-02-07T18:26:03","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T10:26:03","slug":"anticipatory-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hongkiat.com\/blog\/anticipatory-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Anticipatory Design: When Choice is Removed From Decision Making"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever thought about how the web would look like if we could anticipate user needs<\/strong>? The idea to personalize user experience<\/a> and serve different content to different people based on their interests has lately appeared in the discussions about web design.<\/p>\n

The new approach is called anticipatory design<\/strong>, or sometimes context design<\/strong>, and takes experience design<\/a> to the next level. It anticipates what customers need before the specific need even pops up in their mind, and customizes the content accordingly.<\/p>\n

Read more: <\/strong>Why Experience Design is the next big thing<\/a><\/p>\n

When I heard about the new concept for the first time, I was fascinated, and eager to learn more about it, as it seemed to be an awesome idea. As I\u2019ve read and thought more and more about it, I\u2019ve begun to understand the concerns as well, and my initial enthusiasm has started to turn into skepticism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Anticipatory<\/figure>\n

Since then my views on anticipatory design have been back and forth between optimism and pessimism. In this post I will demonstrate the opportunities <\/strong>and risks <\/strong>the new approach can bring into the field of design, so you can take your own stance on this yet controversial subject as well.<\/p>\n

While reading, please keep in mind, that anticipatory design still takes its baby steps, its rules are not final yet, and still can change in the future a little or a lot.<\/p>\n

What is Anticipatory Design?<\/h2>\n

The term of anticipatory design was coined less than a year ago by Aaron Shapiro in a brilliant post on FastCoDesign<\/a>. The article claimed that designers tend to give too many choices to users<\/strong>, which distracts them<\/strong>, and makes user experience stressful<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In turn, this leads to poor quality decisions and less satisfied users. The recommended solution for this problem is a new approach called anticipatory design.<\/p>\n

In anticipatory design the designer\u2019s job is to create an environment that eliminates as many step-by-step interaction<\/strong> as possible, and to simplify processes<\/strong>. This means people won\u2019t have to run through tons of options in each app they use. Instead, smart algorithms will make most, if possible, all decisions for them.<\/p>\n

This smart decision making process will be possible by making use of:<\/p>\n