Moving Past Digital Schizophrenia

The biggest dilemma we face today building products is not whether we have an identity without our devices, but rather can we have an identity with our devices?

Our identities are fragmented across dozens of websites, mobile applications and databases. Every day, these programs simultaneously squawk at us with push notifications and email updates, disorganizing and splitting our mental focus. It’s not simply that we’ve lost control of our identities. It’s that we have multiple identities based on whatever platform we happen to be on. And that is hindering our ability to accomplish even the most mundane tasks without friction.

This digital schizophrenia is harming users who want a well-designed and cogent experience built for their own work patterns. Schizophrenia, as understood today, is a “disintegration of personality” that leads to the inability to properly process thoughts. That is precisely why founders should be focused on building products that allow each of our identities to coalesce across applications.

Digital schizophrenia is harming users who want a well-designed and cogent experience built for their own work patterns.

There are three principles that should guide how we build companies around identity today:

1. Create products that are properly targeting the right kinds of devices.
2. Companies need to democratize their platforms, because products benefit each other when data is shared.
3. Products should be built around frictionless workflows, both between users and devices, and between users themselves.

The Right Kind Of Device

Targeting the right kind of device is trickier than it seems. It is hardly a shock to anyone that users are interacting with more devices than ever. The popularity of smartphones and tablets has been among the most exciting developments in technology investing in the last five years. Yet, that doesn’t mean that every app should be mobile-only, or even mobile-first. Rather, founders need to focus on what they want their users to accomplish and what platforms make sense for that function.

Take Uber. The company takes advantage of smartphones by using your location to hail a taxi. As a workflow, it is among the best experiences of any product on the market today because it focuses on the sole platform relevant to its goals. It’s a great example of a mobile-only company. For Square, though, its product is best used on tablets, because that form factor is ideal for point-of-sale systems. Both of these examples are different from computer-aided design programs, which should probably still be on the desktop given a designer’s need for precision.