Review: ZDnet editor-in-chief on the future of user interfaces

ZDnet editor-in-chief Dan Farber covers the history and future of user interfaces in two minutes. Obviously, such coverage will be disappointing to anybody in the field, but what is most disappointing is that he seems to think that speech, gestures, and 3D displays will, by their very existence, improve human-computer interaction.

Like many people who are in love with technology, he thinks that interfaces in the "Green screen" era were bad because the technology was limited. Though this was an obstacle for some kinds of applications, the applications of the day that were hard to use were hard to use for the same reason that today's applications are hard to use: it's still doesn't pay for companies to make things that are easy to use.

In the early days of computers, computers allowed people to do things that couldn't be done any other way. If the user interface was not optimal, that was OK because it was better than nothing. This is still true for many applications today.

While new technologies might give user interface designers more options in the future, they are as likely to create as many problems as they solve. Mr. Farber is not helping things to suggest that usability issues will go away as soon as speech recognition improves. This is primarily an issue of how companies want to treat their customers and the attention and dollars they want to pay to people.

Brian Krause
Adducive

Associated Link: ZDnet editor-in-chief Dan Farber's whiteboard video

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