Sam Woodman is a lead UX consultant at Adobe, and thanks to UXParis Linkedin Group and Nealite, he has made a remarkable speech before a packed audience at La Cantine (Paris) about the changes in UX paradigm in Tablet devices.
Updated: Julien Hillon has published his resumé in french: http://julien-hillion.fr/nui-paradigm-shift-sam-woodman/
These are what I have understood as the main points of his intervention:
- A Tablet is a family thing, no more a personal device, but a family device
- A tablet is very about gesture patterns
- The sudden success and popularity of tablets like iPad resides not just technology but user experience
- A tablet interface should always to get rid of buttons and use gestures
- The traditional Traditional pc interface paradigm: Start task -> abstraction (in the form of a keyboard or mouse -> finish task
- The tablet represents less abstraction, more -> "natural user interface", by means of using gestures and simulation of movement through inertia, rebound and graphic effects
- Reducing abstraction means a better interaction through a faster, easier, delightful and fulfilling experience

The tablets are cannibalizing other devices and appliances due their ease of use, portability and better user experience. (Graphic: BFMTV.com)
What is going to change the paradigm in user interface?
- Everything is going mobile
- Mobile doesn't necessarily mean mobile. That meaning, a Tablet is not necessarily a mobile device. It is portable, but almost everybody uses it in a non moving environment (a living room, on the bed, even in WC!)
- Tablets will cannibalize other products like TV sets, desktop and laptop computers.
- A tablet is not necessarily for "pro" users right now (no photoshop, Logic or After effects) right now, but for the mass consumer group
- Lots of people realizes they can do lots of things faster and more easily on a tablet
- We will have to design for multiple devices
- It is ideal to have a consistent experience amongst desktop, telephone and tablet
- New modern desktop OSes have a direct upgrading influence from tactile/mobile devices (WIndows 8, Mac OSX Lion)
- Design for multiple platforms, with all the problems of different android OS, different browser versions..
Another insightful jewels from Sam:
- There is a lot of room for gesture innovation. I.e., Bing is releasing a system for starting a search just with rounding a word with a finger gesture
- Taking advantage of sensors and all the hardware enhancements found in tablets lend to a great degree of innovation
- Dan Saffer has wrote a very interesting o'reilly book on designing gestural interfaces
- The medium is so young that now is the time of experimentation and not being afraid of making mistakes
- You can not, as of today 2011, have a proper tablet experience with a wepapp
- Digital magazines are a different lifeform into tablet ecosystem. With examples for Madam Figaro or Wired, the interface standards are being set now and there is room for a lot of improving
- Inmersive or tacky design? it is a interesting debate now, defenders of graphic realism vs defenders of abstraction. Same debate since the rise of Mac OSX though..
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