The Future Is Many Interfaces
A short while ago, voice as a UI was going to take over. It didn't. It won't. The future is about multiple UIs and that's good. Why?
Every now and then, advances are made in voice, touch or gesture oriented user interfaces (UI) and suddenly, that’s going to be the one. The Holy Grail of UI, the dominant one. The one we will do everything with, from writing books and papers to driving in our cars. Except they aren’t. It is in fact, highly unlikely that there will ever be one dominant User Interface. There may be one used more than another. But there will be multiples. And this is very good. Why?
It comes down to both culture and social behaviours within the context in which the UI is being used. These are very powerful human aspects of interactions with technologies of any sort, including non-digital. And we’re continuously exploring new forms of UI. In very interesting ways.
It is also about how humans experience the world through our five senses. Maybe you have a sixth? Touch, taste, hearing, feeling and smell. How could there possibly be one dominant UI?
Let’s start with voice. For several years, voice was going to take over the world. The keyboard would fade into the background. Goodbye carpal tunnel! But even Apple, who decried the need for a keyboard with its iPad, well, now adds a keyboard and a very sophisticated one at that.
Voice is very much a contextual UI. If you are in a very noisy, crowded environment, without some special kind of headphones, you are unlikely to yell out commands at the top of your voice. Or at a party. Or even the middle of a quiet office space. It would be socially awkward. Embarrassing. Social shaming is a powerful thing. We have tacit social rules on how to behave in group settings. They differ across cultures, but they are there. Voice as a UI will evolve and continue to improve. We may well be able to write a whole novel using voice some day. Dictation technology is rapidly improving. Voice will continue to play a part in how we interact with the digital components of our world.
Then there’s the poor cousin to all UIs, gestures. Some interesting gesture-based UI technologies have come along, but they remain highly niche. They’re a favourite of Sci-Fi productions, often combined with VR helmets. Yet both remain nascent. As sensors improve and aspects of AI like Machine Learning advance, gesture will find its place. It won’t dominate.
The mouse and keyboard partnership, buddies for many decades, are still very, very much with us. And may well be around for decades yet. So then, what does this mean? It’s very exciting. Here’s why.
What is the future of User Interfaces?
A more immediate development is haptic interfaces. We experience haptics today most often with our phones. Apple has excellent haptic feedback with the new iOS16, Android is reasonable. But soon, we may look at some objects in new ways when we touch them. A common form of haptic feedback in a good old analogue knob is how it clicks as we rotate it. Soon we may be able to get a sense of hot or cold as we move a knob; an option very helpful to someone with visual impairment.
Another is brain wave interfaces, such as with BCI (Brain Computer Interfaces), which create a direct path to the brain, rather than the current mediator of touch. These can have enormous benefits for people with challenges such as visual and audio impairments. They could well be assisted by Artificial Intelligence.
So, rather than seeking to claim there will be one UI to rule them all, we should see that we’re beginning to explore interacting with both our inner and outer worlds in novel and complex ways. We should instead, see the incredible wonder and opportunities that will be presented to us as we evolve UIs that can help us understand and navigate our worlds. We can also see that evolving interfaces will help people with various impairments to overcome them with assistive technology. Giving more people the chance to be fully engaged in society.