Week 10: Reading

A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

“A tool addresses human needs by amplifying human capabilities.” – this quote made me think of how I’ve always thought of tools as things that help us get stuff done, but I never really considered how they’re supposed to work with what we’re already capable of.

The author talks about how a good tool fits both sides: what we can do and what we want to do. But he mentions that most tech today is designed without really thinking about what people can physically do with their bodies, especially their hands. We’ve kind of reduced all interaction down to tapping on a screen, and we’ve just accepted that as a regular thing. But when we try building something physical, there’s a sense of control that I never feel when I’m just doing something digitally.

I also thought about how this idea connects to creativity. So many creative tools like musical instruments, or painting tools are great because they respond to human movement., but a lot of digital tools don’t really do that.

Responses: A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

Reading through the responses made me notice how many people immediately started to defend current technology, saying things like “We just need better gestures!”. I really liked how the author responded: not defensively, but by clarifying that he’s not against touchscreens or gestures. His point isn’t that modern tools are useless, but that they’re incomplete.

There was a line in the article about the two-year-old who can use an iPad but can’t tie his shoes, which made me think of how humanity made digital interfaces so simple that even toddlers can swipe around. However, this also proves that people don’t see a lot of value in developing actual physical skills.

Another moment that  stood out was when the author said “We’ve almost given up on the body already.” He points to how much of our lives are spent sitting: at work, during leisure, and even while commuting. As a result, we’ve had to create artificial forms of physical activity just to stay healthy. This all just emphasized how our environment  and the tools we design are not supporting our physical well-being

Overall, these responses helped reinforce the author’s main argument: that really effective tools should be designed to serve not just our cognitive abilities, but our physical ones too.

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