Creating applications is essentially building solutions to problems that limit people from obtaining what they desire. It can be said that innovation comes from overcoming constraints. Ironic as it may sound, innovation also creates problems or constraints sometimes.
The accidental creation of problems can usually be attributed to either bad planning or lack of foresight, and are of course circumvented by fixes and applying better design thinking. To do that, one must first study the natural limits of technology to figure out how to address constraints to satisfy user and business needs.
Natural Limits of Technology
Any application designer can attest that any new technology stimulates innovation or new design, as designers usually work with uniqueness as a selling factor to solve human problems. When a new application is launched in the market, a newer application may be easily designed to optimise and/or improve the features of the said new technology.
However, design sophistication soon goes beyond the technology’s capacity. Interaction Design Association (IxDA) Founding Director Pabini Gabriel-Petit noted that all technologies naturally impose certain constraints in performance, database, requirements, and maintainability. This is an important aspect to observe for a UI designer, as building interfaces require designers to be knowledgeable about device limits.
Take mobile devices like the Apple iPhone for example. As hundreds of mobile applications are developed for iOS, the more frequent the device must be updated in order to run all applications properly. However, a point in time comes where the device specifications can no longer match the requirements of the updates coming in, prompting the need to upgrade the device hardware.
The same is true for Android operating systems. As these updates continue, they later render old programs incompatible, and therefore, obsolete. When this happens to a device driver, the device also becomes obsolete.
Business and Creative Constraints
Looking at the pace at which new technologies are produced nowadays, it is reasonable to say that technological development propels itself further and faster. Both businesses and consumers are driven to continually upgrade hardware or software to overcome the limits their previous software or devices cannot handle anymore.
Imagine a company that invests considerably in new software. After some time when the company has probably earned back more from what it invested in the software, they will realise it can no longer support their requirements as they have grown considerably from what it can do. The situation can prompt financial constraints that may stifle the creativity it wanted to support, and so the company will need to make sure they have enough to invest in better software for future growth.
Silver Summit Capital CEO Kevin Faber says that “technology is a double-edged sword.” It is an aspect of human adaptability which continues to improve and evolve at a very fast pace, but it is also this pace that keeps developers and users left out and outdated, pushing itself to develop further.
Rising Beyond Constraints
Where there is a challenge, there is a solution. In the UI UX design industry, tackling design and technical constraints are two important priorities.
When something can be used to better a product, it can be meaningful – and so in a sense also means that constraints are useful too. A study by Acar, Tarakci and van Knippenberg in 2019 found that managers can innovate better by embracing constraints as factors for evolution and improvement.
The authors explain that working around constraints stimulates the imagination and compels a person to think ‘outside the box’. They argue that when there are no constraints, people tend to be complacent and go for easy and convenient ideas.
The authors also suggest that managers must deliberately emphasise constraints when assigning tasks. For instance, they may require various specifics with very little time to finish or limit resources for a certain project to find out how their staff respond and work innovate around this limitation.
Conclusion
Various technological innovations have prompted unparalleled growth for the design industry. These same developments, however, have ironically created technical, financial, and creative constraints that companies and service providers must now overcome.
The ability to overcome constraints and use it effectively to fuel innovation is a strategy that many IT companies must learn to grasp. In fact, a number of stable and successful IT firms in web and mobile app development may have already embraced this management strategy. One such company that can help you in developing cost-effective strategies is User Experience Researchers Singapore (USER), a web and mobile app development company based in Singapore that also specialises in other digital solutions. For more information about our products and services, visit https://www.user.com.sg/services/.
