increasingly looked like it would play out in front of a keyboard, in
the world on the other side of the screen.
Standing on the shoulders of previous pioneers, the flood of
designers native to the web used the very medium they were
building to define new interaction patterns and best practices.
The web had brought about the consumer phase of computing,
expanding the scope and influence of Interaction Design to a
level approaching its older, Industrial cousin.
Smartphones
Early mobile phones had limited functionality, primarily centered
on making voice calls and sending SMS messages. The
int roduction of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) brought
a primitive browser to phones so they could access limited
information services like stocks, sports scores, and news
headlines. But WAP was not a full web experience, and its
limited capabilities, combined with additional usage charges, led
to low adoption.
Even as mobile phones began accumulating additional features
such as color screens and high-quality ringtones, their software
interactions remained primitive. One contributing factor was the
restrictive environment imposed by the carriers. The dominant
wireless networks (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon) didn’t
make the operating systems that powered their phones, but they
controlled how they were configured and dictated what software
was pre- installed.
Decisions about which applications to include were often tied to
business deals and marketing packages, not consumer need or
desire. The limited capabilities and difficult installation process
for third-party apps meant that they were not widely used. This
restrictive environment was the opposite of the openness on the