Skype Invites Users to Redesign its User Interface

You may have heard of Skype, the videoconferencing platform that’s free, ubiquitous and much-loved by the team here at Nine Lives Media Inc. There are also quite a few Mac users behind the scenes here, so when Skype announced its contest for end users to redesign the GUI of the Skype for Mac Experience, that’s news for us. But is it news for you, and more importantly, what are the implications for videoconferencing designs in general? It may not be directly channel-related, but there are always channel implications …

The rules are pretty straightforward:

We want you to create the chat style for an upcoming version of Skype for Mac that will be enjoyed by millions of people around the world. We’ve put a template together containing everything that you’ll need to get started and build something wonderful.

All you need is some knowledge of CSS and some graphic design prowess and you’re off to the races. There are a few caveats on what you can change, but we’re not a design blog, we’re here to talk about the potential channel implications of a redesign. You might ask, “Does design matter?” Yes, it does.

User interface design directly impacts the approachability, usability and likeability of an application. When something is easy to use, and has a friendly design, users are drawn to it. What’s more, user tend to gravitate to other devices or applications that share a design aesthetic they’re comfortable with. What’s interesting is that Skype is leaving it up to its base of fans and users to decide how the next version will look. Who better than the people who use the software every day to fix and update the interface that they know and love?

It’s a concept I think big-name unified communication companies such as Cisco, Polycom and Avaya should consider. Unified communications solves inherent problems with communication, but it could cause more headaches if the user interface isn’t intuitive. I’m not saying Cisco et al haven’t done their due diligence when it comes to design, but far too often vendors are focused more on producing feature-rich software than on the usability of the software. The application may integrate with Outlook’s address book, but does it do so easily? Can users get an at-a-glance view of what they can do? Do button icons correspond to what they do? Does the interface cause more or less desktop clutter?

So as Skype looks for the winning redesign of its software, it might be a good time for VARs to take a look at the accessibility and intuitiveness of the software they’re selling — its ease of use may be its strongest selling point.

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