We are all familiar with the most common computer user interface, the desktop. After an inspiring visit to Xerox PARC, Steve Jobs and his team were the first to introduce this new kind of environment to a wider audience with the Apple Macintosh.
For the past 25 years basic human-computer interaction has stayed the same. We still use a mouse to move a cursor and a keyboard to input text. Interfaces have been polished, processes have been simplified but little has actually changed. How could a possible future look like?
3d desktop
2010 marked the year of commercially successful 3d in theatres. 3d glasses for PCs have been around for a while but they have since stayed a niche product. If you try to enhance the desktop metaphor with 3d you are left with more problems than solutions. For one thing the mouse was designed to navigate in 2d rather than 3d.
In his master thesis Anand Agarawala pursued an interesting approach to bring 3d to a desktop environment which resulted in his own company BumpTop. After some early success they were bought by Google and disappeared from the light of public.
touch based desktop
Touch based input has gained wide popularity on phones and more recently tablets. HP have launched desktop computers, but rather than changing the OS, they built an additional interface on top of Windows which handles the touch input. Users are able to access their media and entertainment software with their fingers. Based on patents, Apple is working on a similar product, trying to implement their touch-based iOS in iMacs.
It will depend on the software if these products will ever make the switch from entertainment only devices to computers where you’ll be able to actually get some work done.
spacial operating environment
John Underkoffler presented an interface based on the technology used in the movie Minority Report at a TED conference in 2010.
He made the bold statement that interfaces like this one will be available to a wide public in 5 years.
AI flavored OS
Every person uses his or her computer differently. We all start with the same fabric settings and adjust the device to our preferences. Wouldn’t it be great if the OS would gradually learn about our interaction and evolve into a more personalized machine. I’ll depict three short scenarios:
- You are regularly watching a TV series and the auto-complete in your browser suggests appropriate wiki pages for additional information, although you’ve never visited them before.
- If you have been using your computer for a long time, chances are high there is a big pile of software in your autostart, which you don’t use any more. AI knows how often and which programs you use most and least and adjusts your experience.
- Despite all the shortcuts we gain from modern software, we often find ourselves doing repetitive tasks. For example you open a file and you always export it to the same destination. If you’ve done it 3 times, the program offers you the right destination on step one in the export dialog.
What do you think? Which direction will the personal computer take?