“There's a great video on this I wish I could show you.”

“Sorry, I left my draft on my desk.”

“Is this thing on?”

Statements like these have stalled meetings and frustrated professionals for decades. Thankfully, they're becoming less common as AV technologies raise the bar on a commitment to universal design and to user-friendly interfaces.

Here are ten ways in which AV tech has become more end-user friendly, and how we're expecting it to get even more intuitive in the future.

 

The ability to send AV signals over computer networks has changed the game, the team at Video Corporation of America writes. As AV devices are increasingly built to be network-ready, getting them to communicate means connecting them through ever more standardized network cables and switches. Troubleshooting when things go wrong can often be done with a basic understanding of the same computer networks that run the rest of the building.

A recent Thrillist article compared today's high-tech computer monitors and television screens to the hottest models in 2011 to demonstrate just how far technology has come in a few years. The article also revealed another reason AV has gotten easier for end users to navigate: What we thought of as “high-end” only a year or two ago has become increasingly affordable and commonly used.

For instance, while AV integrators work on installing 4K video walls in high-end office buildings, families throughout the country are buying 4K televisions — and learning how to navigate their various controls. Companies like Control 4 are offering affordable residential-use switches that allow these ultra-high-definition screens to share content throughout a single home.

The result? Users are coming to the boardroom with the knowledge they need to navigate AV equipment, because they've learned it from their home tech. What were two separate skill sets twenty years ago have merged into a single skill set today.

 

Anyone who has marveled at how quickly young kids adapt to a smartphone or tablet interface has seen one of the most user-friendly AV developments in action: the interactive touchscreen.

Children learn by touching and interacting, says Sabina Idler, and so do adults. Interfaces that respond to touch, therefore, tend to be more intuitive — increasing user-friendliness by decreasing the learning curve.

But, as Idler notes, the placement of controls in the touchscreen interface affects how quickly kids (and adults) can learn the system. As research on user interfaces continues, the friendliness of the interfaces that make AV systems operate increases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As AV merges with other IT-based technologies in the field of unified communications, both AV and IT companies are experiencing increased demand for good universal design. Consultant David Danto thinks tech companies and integrators should move toward an end-user perspective.

“Technologists (a group I firmly include myself in) are just lousy judges of what typical end-users truly experience, feel, and need,” Danto says, noting that what drives the use of AV and other collaboration tools isn't their presence, but their friendliness to end-users. To continue growing, tech industries increasingly find they need to put users' experience first.

Sometimes, the focus on user experience develops in unexpected ways. As touchscreens become an ever more common method of interacting with tech, researchers like Dan Mauney have sought information on which gestures are “universal.” Mauney's research surveyed 40 people in 9 countries, discovering that the use of touchscreen gestures across the group was more alike than it was different, according to Justinmind. Building a universal gesture library has also become part of our culture, thanks to apps like Tinder and the now ubiquitous “swipe left.” 

Audio video products manufacturers like Atlona understand that good design doesn't just help the workers, researchers or students who use a finished AV installation. It also helps the AV integrators and IT staff who plan, install and maintain the systems. That's why many AV manufacturers are starting to integrate elements of UD and UC into the parts they create, making them easier for users at every stage to understand and troubleshoot.