2017 Internet Trends Reports Reveals Internal Software Expectations

Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins released her 2017 Internet Trends report last week. As always, this is the most thorough and most insightful snapshots of what's happening digitally among real users right now.

Out of the 355 slides iin the presentation, the one that stopped us in our tracks had to do with how employees expect their internal software to work.

Source

This observation rings incredibly true to our team. We have encountered many companies who are losing efficiency or productivity because of the gaps in this.

Recently, we launched a custom test request workflow management software for JTEKT Koyo, a Tier 1 Automotive supplier and a Fortune 2000 company. As Meeker's report observes, the purchase decision came from the bottom up, from a product engineer who observed problems that software could fix. This story is a perfect example of what this slide observes. We invite you to read more about it.

Here are a few more of our key takeaways from Meeker's report. (Recode had another good list, as did Who's Blogging What.)

* In the United States, 25 percent of people now have wearable devices. That's up from 12 percent in 2016. This is a fast growing market that unlocks a wide array of new possibilities for user experience and data gathering, personally and professionally.

* On mobile devices, 20 percent of searches are now entered by voice, instead of by text. This is part of a seismic shift in search technology from entering text to voice prompts or even picture matching. This is going to completely change expectations in terms of how people find information they are looking for. If you're a company, you should start thinking about what this means for your customers and your employees–because what they want and expect is rapidly changing.

* Many of the trends in user experience and user interfaces are coming from the video game industry. This isn't just the gamification of badges and such (although that's part of it)–it's the way people relate to each other, how data is shared and compared, and more. Innovative company leaders and software developers need to stay on top of gaming trends, because before long these will be more pervasive digital trends.

All of these things–and many more that Meeker identifies–go to show that the digital world continues to change rapidly. We hope this post gives you some key areas where you can stay ahead, and inspires you to continue searching for the new ideas that make our world and our work better using software.

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