Interfaces of the future: how will they look

Remember the first software interfaces 20 or 30 years ago? I do and the tag line is that I can hardly call them interfaces, compared to what we have today. Things evolved, not because of the knowledge people started to accumulate in fields like usability or design, but because things needed to change to appeal to more users, which get frustrated when faced with complicated schemes.

Microsoft Surface Software User Interface

Look at WEB 2.0, which is an overly simplified way of interacting with web services, from usability point of view, not function. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but what happens when you really can’t afford to compromise function over usability. Well, you get Photoshop, AutoCAD and other great software with miserable user interfaces. No one managed to make e complex and simple software interface.

Do thing have to get too simple to make them accessible? Looking at the iPhone (a nice phone that thinks it’s a smart phone. Sorry Apple fan boys but that’s what I believe) I’m inclined to say yes.

My take on the future?

Well, there will be a point in future when usability will be recognized as a science, as it has to do with social behavior, brain stimulation and so on.

In the way too distant future, when everyone on Earth will be used to everyday technology I’m hoping people will get smarter and able to use more advanced input and control methods, thus more complicated.

But for now we have to embrace the reality that things will dumb down even more to satisfy the needs of the majority. And that’s a fact, not a supposition.