These readings were very eye-opening in some regards, but I also felt that they were a bit closed-off in others. With our many discussions on what it means for something to be well-designed, we have had to start thinking about our works beyond just their function. Now we are bringing physiology into the equation on top of the prior psychological aspects. I have some idea of how miraculous the human body is and how much work it takes to try and replicate the simplest of actions via technology, but the examples posed about how we use our hands painted a much more intimate picture than I had considered. For example, I might think about how I struggle to play FPS games on a controller whereas several of my friends can’t stand using a mouse and keyboard. The broader significance of tactile feedback would be largely lost in that simple case, let alone the discussion on how input devices might look in 20 years.
Speaking of, I was much more uncertain about how we might work towards this brighter future. This post from 2011 has plenty of thoughts on the matter, but the landscape has changed greatly since then. For example, a good portion of the reading focuses on how touchscreens fall flat of delivering the true experience, but I would argue that many people feel more comfortable with an e-book than a real one, especially so for the younger demographic that grew up with a tablet in hand. The discussion of voice also seems rather shortsighted in hindsight, given that Siri first released in 2010 and was shortly followed by Alexa in 2014. Nowadays you can even push voice-based systems to the point of live-translating speech or leaning on LLMs to achieve goals in the realm of creating and understanding. Lastly, on the subject of brain interfaces, I felt that the author was a bit too pessimistic about things. Companies like Neuralink still fall short today, but they can be hugely impactful for people that can’t rely on their bodies. I can definitely agree that nature is the ultimate inventor, but I don’t think that brain-computer interfaces should be disregarded out of fear that we will all end up forsaking the real world. Either way, with the rate that certain technologies have progressed over the past few years, it’s hard to even imagine what direction interfaces might evolve in.