The only bit of UI that Google showed that changes the way we interact with the screen. Everything else requires your voice.

Notification dots: a copy but a step towards natural behaviour.

Although most of Google I/O 2017 was dedicated to tech and voice recognition technologies, deep machine learning and other tech Google was trying to find an end use for, notification dots provide an instant update to the interface that benefits all apps and thankfully users as well.

What is great about peaking into apps is it fulfils our natural desire to check in on things, yes the notification tray is much more useful, but ticking of a list is not a natural behaviour, rather a chore we take great pleasure in completing.

By pecking the interface allow us not to engage with the content until we are ready. This changes everything we strive for in UX design.

Lack of engagement is thought to as lack of interest, but allowing user to seek what they find interesting, diving deeper into content that is relevant increases quality engagement.

Why don’t all applications do this?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could peak at content at all levels of apps, not just on the home screen.

Taking a peak is all any of us really want. It’s how we interact with our natural environment, taking a second to pause, peak and decide if something is worth our time or not.

This is the opposite of how advertising and most UX design works.

Peaking is the opposite of conversion, its about curiosity.

Getting someone to peak these days is hard enough, so we go all out and hope to capture you and get the rest done later. That is make you fill our your details or pay for your items at a later time, the goal is to convert.

Convert first, ask questions later.

Think about websites that have homepages, landing pages and content pages. Each page allows us to peak into the next section to drive us deeper in order to reach our goal.

What if we just had all our goals upfront. Convert users at the highest level and let me peak at the implications.

Reverse the obvious and let users just get the task done that they need right from the notifications.

Force touching a impulse purchase might just feel amazing.

I know this is a detail, but less is more and peaking is less in my books.

If you want to talk more about design — feel free to reach out at zakarykinnaird.com or find me on LinkedIn.