After so much technical development we are now at a stage where there is a paradigm change from the product to user. The product development has gone too far/mature that now product is no more the focus. Now the spot light is on the user, the human, which will eventually lead to a human centric society, the intelligent society. Below we will try to have a look on few of these examples.
Software Development
Being a development person, I will begin with the application development. The trend in the software development was to implement the required functionality and then train the users as per the design. This application development has gone too far that now almost all the competitive applications/product have almost the same features. So to attract the users/customers they have updated their strategy and they try to make the application as user friendly as possible. A very recent example is the Start Button/Menu in Microsoft Windows. After decades of usage, Microsoft tried to make a change and in Windows 8 they ditched the start menu for the start screen. This missing option along with the redefined Metro Style got a very negative response and Windows 8 got a very low adaptation rate. They tried to overcome this in Windows 8.1 by adding a start button only. This was a slight change which let the negative impression to get decrease. Now based on the much stronger user demand and feedback, Start Menu will be available in Windows 10. The preview of Windows 10 is available for free download and critics are praising it very much. It is expected that all those users who have not adopted Windows 8/8.1 will jump directly to Windows 10.
Start Menu in Windows 10 [PCWorld]
Modular Phones
How many times you have wanted to upgrade a portion of your phone, it could be the processor chip or simply it could be the storage chip but every time you end up in purchasing a new phone as you have no other choice. Now, this thing is in progress and will be common in near future. Many independent companies have started with this goal to provide users a custom built phone. Based on the potential of this idea, the tech gain Google is also heading for such custom built modular phone: Meet Project Ara, the Modular Google Phone of the Future.
Google Project Ara [Time]
Wearables
It started with smart watches and it has reached to health kits. With the passage of time these devices will be transferred from the accessory grade to the necessity grade. When we talk about wearables, there is a lot of variety available i.e. smart glass, smart clothing, smart band, smart shoes etc. Consider an example of a band attached to the wrist of a patient and transmitting the patient stats via built-in WiFi module to the Dr. in the hospital.
Wearable Devices [Atmel]
Bio Stamps
Even though wearable gadgets have been around for quite long they are still popular in common people. In the meantime, there is a completely innovative stuff in the market which totally remove the external stuff and the only product is you i.e. human. A stamp will be marked on the human which will do the job. You can simply consider Bio Stamp as a Digital Tattoo. A small radio frequency identification (RFID) chip is implanted under the skin in the hand. This approach is in very early stages but it has the maximum potential.
Digital Tattoo [BBC]
Similarly, if we explore, we can a lot of scenarios where the human factor is dominating all the other aspect of the product/application. The combination of IOT (internet of things) with the human centric approach will lead the technical development spectrum in the days ahead.