A brief rant on the future of interaction design
Another link via Daring Fireball (I do enjoy Gruber’s work).
This article from Bret Victor really struck a note with me. Although it’s from a few weeks ago, I hadn’t read it until today, but I’d been thinking along the same lines myself.
The future isn’t just thinner lighter versions of iPads with built-in Kinects. The iPad and Kinect are just the first steps down the path that allows us to directly interact with our tools rather than indirectly manipulate them with keyboards and mice. To assume we will have no sort of tactile feedback in this future is very short-sighted.
Apple knows this. That’s why they have patents for what is obviously the next step along the path. Once our tools are truly interactive we’ll look back on iPads and marvel at how amusingly abstracted they were, in much the same way we’re beginning to look at PCs.
