I have been reading the book Designing Interactions and particularly liked David Liddle’s simple approach to categorizing the progression of technology development.
He suggests there are 3 stages to technology adoption:
1. Enthusiast Stage:
A small group of users adopt a technology because they love and appreciate technology in an aesthetic way. The fact that the technology may be a bit difficult to use is attractive and fun to enthusiasts. They are most interested in exploiting capabilities with little regard for actual productivity gains or lifestyle motivations.
2. Business Stage:
Once enough enthusiasts are using it, one of them figures out how to do something with it in their work to add productivity. It is in this stage that the technology’s interface are somewhat stabilized and some uniformity emerges. The technology may still require special training but the productivity gains are worth the burden.
3. Consumer Stage:
With the technology now in a growing number of hands for business use, the technology now begins to reach a price point that is affordable for the masses (or those picking up the tab for the masses, in the case of marketers). It is in this phase that the important controls become automatic and the learning curve is fast. The style and the technology’s affect on lifestyle are the key motivations at this stage.
I liked this breakdown as I think it provides an interesting way to look at the current state of the virtual worlds industry. Of the technologies I’m aware of currently available and in development, there seems to be solutions at every one of these stages.
What do you think? How would you classify our industry when mapped to Liddle’s stages?
You can watch an excerpt of the interview David provided for the book here.
译文:
一个关于Liddle采用技术的三个阶段的问题
我已经在读的一本名叫《设计干扰》的书，并特别喜欢David Liddle简单归纳的关于科技连续发展的一种方法。
他暗示人们采用科技有三个阶段：
1、 追求阶段：
有小部分人采用科技，是因为他们喜欢科技，并认识到科技在美学上的价值。这种科技使用起来可能没有多大困难的事实，对科技追求都产生很大的吸引力和兴趣。他们只对科技开发能力有兴趣，而没能考虑到现实的生产收益和推动生活方式的发展。
2、商业阶段：
一旦有足够的追求者正在使用科技，他们之中就会有一个人思考如何做才能将科技应用到他们的工作和生产活动上。就是在这个阶段中，科技的接口在一定程度上已经被稳定并一致出现了。虽然科技还需要专业的培训，但是对生产收益来说这种负担是值得的。
3、消费阶段：
现在，随着科技大量地应用到商业活动中，它现在开始达到了人们负担得起的物价水平（或者达到了市场商人有意提高的物价水平）。就是在这个阶段上，形成了重要的管理体系,而且学术上的转变也很快。这种影响生活方式的方式与科技是这个阶段的关键激励因素。
我喜欢这种故障，因为我认为它提供了一个有趣的方法，让我们看到了当今现实工业世界的状况。是发展上，我知道现在可以应用的科技，看起来在这三个阶段中都有解决的办法。
你如何认为呢？你是如何归纳我们的工业发展阶段，使它与Liddle的这个三个阶段形成对比呢？
这里，你可以看到的这个摘录，是来自David为这本书提供的访问记录。