What “smarter” technology means for users today

When I think about how technology is getting smarter, a question that comes to mind is one that I think many can recall being asked as a child – do you want to do things the hard way? Or the easy (smart) way??

In that same vein, do users today prefer a smart device or the alternative?

While it seems obvious to opt for the easy route, the question alone encapsulates a clue to what smart technology is from the perspective of user experience.?

Ultimately, it comes down to usability. Smart technology must match the expectations that users have regarding product performance. The technology needs to be easy to operate and empower the user by helping them complete a task more seamlessly.?

At Lenovo, our brand vision is to lead and enable “smarter technology for all.” As CTO of Lenovo’s PCs and Smart Devices, I can attest that smart technology starts with an understanding of what users need, which then goes to the core of helping make the person’s life better.

When you think about the idea of “smarter” technology, I believe it goes a step further. Beyond being more efficient or productive, smarter technology should also make a person smile or breathe a sigh of relief when they go to use it (at least in the first few instances).?

But above all, smarter technology needs to afford such a positive outcome and experience that the person never wants to return to what they used before.?

An intuitive, worry-free experience

A key differentiator of smarter technology is that it works the way one expects. Almost as soon as the user interacts with the technology, they can intuitively understand how to operate it and achieve desired outcomes from using it.?

I’ve spoken before about what I like to call the “worry-free” element in smarter technology. As one example – with more users understandably wanting to act on concerns they have around cybersecurity, technology is being deployed in ways that it can anticipate, recognize and help to defend against attacks. When predictive failure analysis is automatically taken care of by the technology, users can focus on using that technology in other ways to meet their end-goals and not worry about disruptions.

Let’s consider a typical occurrence where the user repeatedly avoids implementing updates on their devices. In a smarter device, that person doesn’t need to worry about moving through the prompts to implement those updates because they will occur automatically in the background.?

Similarly, the device can run performance scans to detect any internal changes or patterns and alert the user when a service call or replacement part is needed. This functionality is similar to the way a car dashboard can signal that the tires need air before the driver notices degraded handling.?While it doesn’t fix the issue, it proactively gives the user the notice they need to take appropriate action before it becomes an emergency.?

This idea of technology acting proactively to facilitate certain processes – whether it resolves the issue on its own or alerts us to it so we can do something about it – is a key aspect of the worry-free element. It not only can improve the overall user experience with the technology itself, but it can free up time that would have been spent resolving the issue it ended up preventing.

The “smarter” experience ?

“Smarter technology” raises the question in many people’s minds of how much autonomy should technology have. There are users that like having control over when and what actions their technology takes on their behalf, and then there are other users who want the technology to proactively solve the problem for them end-to-end.?

This dichotomy across user preferences forces tech providers and engineers to strike a delicate balance in every instance of technological development.?

While the level of control that people are willing to relinquish over their technology is debatable, one thing I’ve found to be true for most people is the desire for convenience. When it comes to trivial tasks that must be done but don’t necessarily add value to our lives in a significant way, or that we don’t typically enjoy, people tend to lean on technology more from a convenience standpoint. While I’m certainly not championing the crass idea of “machines taking over,” I like to parallel the convenience factor of smarter devices to different functions within a car.?

In many modern cars, the driver or passenger no longer needs to manually roll the windows down – the task is taken care of at the press of a button. The same is the case for adjusting the seats, dimming the lights, and even unlocking or opening the doors in some cars as the drive approaches – no buttons or key fobs required.?

The experience isn’t changed by the car becoming “smarter,” it’s just made more convenient for the driver because there’s less manual labor that’s required to achieve an outcome, which therefore improves the experience.?

Smart technology isn’t necessarily new

Smart technology isn’t synonymous with new technology. As an example, let’s consider the case of artificial intelligence (AI). An explosion of discourse around AI over the past five years (even the past three months) can understandably create the illusion that it’s a hot, new phenomenon.??

In actual fact, AI has been in the equation for at least 60 years . Combining mathematical foundations, statistics, and computational neurobiology to emulate a caliber of intelligence similar to a human, AI is deployed to make technology more effective for users. The expectations and abilities of AI continue to evolve in response to the paradigms that shape business operations and the corresponding user needs.?

In that sense, smart technology isn’t a huge divergence from that which precedes it. Rather, it’s about up-leveling the technology that already exists so a greater user scenario can be enjoyed, making it smarter.

In the wake of hybrid work, where people desire more flexible work schedules than ever before, I see smarter technology as a key player in re-energizing the business landscape.?

For example, smarter technology enables knowledgeable workers to offload repetitive tasks like heavy data entry so they’re free to focus on more interesting and strategic aspects of their jobs. However, there are many tasks that can’t and shouldn’t be overtaken by such technologies, as they require a human touch. This is a point my colleague Igor Bergman explores in relation to software development through an article he recently penned for ReadWrite.?

With that being said, I see the trajectory of smarter technologies as being focused on refining the current experience users have with technology in relation to the context in which it’s used. It’s about continuously making the user experience more seamless so the user has less obstacles to overcome to achieve an outcome.?

I’m excited to see what people can accomplish when menial tasks are increasingly taken care of by smarter technology, and they have more time to focus on what can’t be done without humans.?