A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design
I feel like this piece hit hard, not because it presented this radical concept I’d never considered, but because it made me realize how “numb” we’ve become to bad interaction design. The author’s rant about Pictures Under Glass being a transitional technology really stuck with me, as I really hadn’t consciously thought about how much feedback we’re missing when we interact with screens, but now I can’t unsee it. It’s like we’ve accepted a more flattened version of reality just because it looks sleek and futuristic. The author’s praise for the hands also reminded me of how intuitive and rich real world interactions are, so like the simple example of turning the pages of a book or making a sandwich made it feel so obvious. Our fingers do a million things, completely automatically, and we’ve built an entire tech world that barely acknowledges that. The ending made me feel slightly hopeful, though, I love the idea that the future is a choice, and that inspired people, like us students can try to help push interaction design in new directions.
As for the second reading which was a response to this first reading, what I took away is that if we don’t push for more sensory-rich interaction design, we might risk narrowing our creative and cognitive possibilities. I feel there was a subtle warning which tells designers and everyone else to not let convenience trap us in shallow interaction as we deserve better tools that can really challenge and extend the full capabilities of our bodies and minds.