UXPA Boston Conference 2018

The other day, I received a text from my friend to share my home address with him. As I started typing my response, I got a suggestion from Messaging App with my home address pre-filled, I didn’t have to type it all. I was pleasantly surprised. “Smart”, I thought, and a little voice in my head said - “I love my phone”

Anticipatory design or Predictive Design has the power to transform experiences. The concept was first proposed by Aaron Shapiro, CEO of Huge Inc. The focus is to make smart suggestions or, in some cases, make decisions for users as opposed to asking them for needless things. It is moving away from the approach of providing users with quality choices to making smart choices for them.

With the recent advancements in artificial intelligence and access to contextual data, Anticipatory Design has become increasingly viable and is being leveraged in many forms. With access to all this user data, companies wield astonishing power which can be translated into either amazingly productive or downright creepy experiences.