Chris Welch, reporting in The Verge about a new Android tablet feature:
The simply named “Entertainment Space” will be a new section to the left of the home screen on tablets… It’s an all-encompassing hub that brings together video (TV shows, movies, and YouTube), games, and books.
In other words, the feature aggregates the user’s media, making it easier to access. Instead of having to open individual apps to find movies, TV shows, YouTube clips, etc., users can now access a single screen that puts content upfront.
Computers are universal devices — tools for making tools. Depending on what app you’re using, your computer can be a spreadsheet, a music player, a book, a video editor, etc. This flexibility is a big part of what makes computers powerful.
The tradeoff is complexity. Learning to use a single-purpose tool entails forming an accurate mental model of how it works. This can be hard enough. (I’ve been using Excel for decades and still learning new things it can do.)
But when you’re using a platform, you must not only form a model of each tool but also of the means through which you manage tools — where to find them, how to install, launch, and configure them, where to save work-in-progress, etc.
There’s an inherent tension between flexibility and ease of use. System designers oscillate between both extremes. A new device may launch as a single-purpose appliance and evolve towards platformhood.
An example of this is Apple TV. Originally designed as a simple living room media player, today’s models offer a broad range of functions, including the ability to install apps like games and third-party media “stores.”
This flexibility makes the system more powerful but also more complex. In the earlier, simpler version, users could easily choose what content to experience. Now, they must keep track not just of what to experience, but where to do it.
Users of a single-purpose system must only understand a small set of taxonomies. For example, if they’re going to watch movies, they’ll expect to deal with genres, movie studios, directors, etc.
In contrast, a more complex system asks that users understand taxonomies of taxonomies: “this is the type of app where I can expect to see movie genres, whereas this other app over here has levels and health points.”
Features like Entertainment Space aim to square this circle by layering a simplified, content-first experience atop the platform. I expect their effectiveness depends on their discovery algorithms. It’s a tricky design challenge.
Google’s Entertainment Space makes Android tablets look like Google TV - The Verge