Related:
A brief rant on the future of interaction design (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31511361 - May 2022 (132 comments)
A brief rant on the future of interaction design (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21116948 - Sept 2019 (153 comments)
A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6325996 - Sept 2013 (35 comments)
A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3212949 - Nov 2011 (150 comments)
The worst of it is even the Pictures Under Glass have got worse. They used to be designed to look like things, so you’d see something that looked pushable and push (tap) it.
So even if there was no tactile engagement there was visual engagement communicating tactile interaction.
Now even that’s gone. Our Pictures Under Glass are bland and flat and look like translucent acrylic and, well, glass.
Back when Apple announced "3D Touch" (by name before showing it), I dearly hoped it was _finally_ introducing above-the-screen finger detection. Instead it was pressure sensitivity, and even that got dropped a few years back.
I'm still hoping for a hover-like mechanism that allows touchscreens to have non-commital interactions. As you say, touch is surprisingly devoid of depth for its maturity and time on the market.
I'm hoping some level of above-the-screen finger detection comes eventually, because if it gets to a mainstream distribution stage, it opens the door for bleeding-edge to aim for larger detection distances, and eventually seeing hand gestures above the screen.
Whether it's in this form or something completely different, our screen interactions need to be broadened, especially in a direction that allows users to signal intent but not commitment (like hovering with a mouse, or looking with eye tracking).
I like this perspective and I share it. It frustrates me to watch the initial Demo of Apple's concept of a touch oriented computer, seeing multi touch demonstrated, moving objects around, and to sit here typing this on something like it, except it's one finger at a time and multitouch was dumbed down into pinch to zoom and little else. I can't stand the fact that almost all computer interfaces outside smartphones are interacted with using only the right wrist and index finger. The future is what we have now but transparent, what we have now with no bezels, what we have now but made of disposable paper, what we have now but the size of a table. It's just not compelling to me.
And it's because it's hard imagining a completely new way of interacting with computing technology. People that are able to do that don't get paid script writers salaries, they get paid Steve Jobs salaries. And they are worth billions to organizations capable of making them a reality.
Funny side note: he was paid $1 of salary
I had the privilege to work with one of the best Interaction Design teams around (DDO). It really opened my eyes to the process.
I enjoyed this rant. I know it's old, but this is the first time I've seen it.
When I am forced to use a phone or tablet of a brand and size I'm not used to, everything seems wonky and out of place. Yet I can adapt to a different brand and size of car in a few minutes. Replacing tactile memory with skeuomorphism, is like a prosthetic arm that can extend 10m to replace your sickly feely biological one. I'm always up for advocating for more arts & crafts as part of interaction design.
This is incredible work, thanks for sharing. That said, does anyone know what kind of technology they’re gesturing to? Maybe I’m really stuck in the present, but short of tangible holograms I’m not sure how we’d make tactile computing devices.
The keyboard is tactile, and I’ve long dreamed of augmenting Alexa by covering my house in purpose-specific buttons, but that seems like a short road. Even the most advanced HCI device I’ve ever seen proposed by a consumer company—Meta’s Orion wristbands that read hand movements by measuring the electrical signals in your wrist—aren’t tangible in the slightest.
What am I missing? Can any fellow futurists point me in the right direction? I don’t need “doable today” or even “the technology is worked out”, but ideally I’m looking for something more doable than tangible holograms. See https://xkcd.com/678/
EDIT; the VR suits from the Three Body Problem books come to mind, using tiny actuators and temperature controls (thermal actuators?) to simulate touch. I could see that in a glove for sure, and that’s probably the most futuristic tactility gets at this point, but I doubt it’ll ever see fully-body usage, both for technical feasibility and user convenience reasons. There’s a reason the TV show replaced them with brain-modulating headsets… I guess that’s really the end dream.
What is a tangible hologram (or any interface, really) other than an illusion, at the end of the day?
> a dynamic medium we can see, feel and manipulate
I wonder if this is a "pick 2" situation.
Touchscreen: see and sorta manipulate
Orion: manipulate (in only the weak sense that it uses more than one finger)
Braille display, haptic glove/suit: feel and see (redundantly?)
In my touchscreen-biased mind, I can't imagine a technology that could do all three of these, which I would want to use regularly or carry around, or wear for hours at a time.
The touchscreen, combining the "see" with at least a tiny bit of the "manipulate", is actually an amazing step, but it may be a dead end. I've seen research into things like tactile screens, with adjustable surface height. But the benefit it gives is evidence not worth the cost in development, manufacturing, or complexity.
Bret Victors current project is Dynamicland, a real space he’s been building to explore computing within the physical world, with humans at its center. The system he invented is known as Realtalk, and is integrated into the building, where cameras and projectors engage with the humans within it.