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This article was first published in the November 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
This article was taken from the preview of The WIRED World in 2016. In November, WIRED publishes its fourth annual trends report, a standalone magazine in which our network of expert writers and influencers predicts what's coming next. Here's a small selection of what to expect.
Invisible interface technology will allow us to interact with others, rather than be distracted.
The smartphone is the greatest technological phenomenon of our time. That you can now access the world from a screen in the palm of your hand has been made possible -- including the paradoxical crossing of globalisation and placelessness. From a technological perspective, this has been inevitable since the rise of the television: the screen provides a sense of immersion that is irresistible to us.
There is an immediate side effect, however: this eternal access means we no longer have to go searching. We can now see almost anything from our smartphones. We can text or check someone's social-media feed rather than make a personal visit.
We can work from anywhere, learn from anywhere and experience our lives through the little screen in the palm of our hand.
Until now, that's the direction technology has taken us -- living and gorging on screens with our heads down in our phones. But 2016 will be the year this changes. Why? Because we know something is wrong. The loss of humanness is very real. We also know that technology has the profound potential to enhance our experience of the world around us, rather than distract us from it.
I call this the Invisible Interface -- a movement wherein technology still provides us with information and gives us command of our surroundings, but through discreet signals rather than screens. It is not that different from the way we orient ourselves in nature: we look at the Sun to understand how much daylight is left in the day; we feel a breeze and turn towards it to scan the horizon for the sign of a storm.
This new approach to the transmission of information is much harder to build than pixels on a screen. And yet it is so much more rewarding for the designer, because the resulting user experience is natural, fluid and non-interruptive. Information and action is then woven into our lives so discreetly that, if it weren't for the magical experiences it creates, we would forget it is there.
The big challenge is that an invisible interface needs to communicate the right signal at the right moment. This means predicting the user's intent to receive the information, and enabling action or command thereafter. It takes a great deal of sensors and software to achieve this, and a good dose of human emotional intelligence too.
An invisible interface can work in any number of ways. Proximity is a good start: products reacting to our physical presence or our movements, signalling and recognising activity. This is what we had in mind in designing the August Smart Lock. What if my door knew that I was approaching, how quickly I was travelling, and unlocked itself for me, just in time?
The technology behind the August Smart Lock is relatively accessible. But design isn't about the technology itself. Design is about ideas. And what design does best is accelerate the adoption of new ideas. The biggest design feat with August was to craft a magical interaction whereby the user receives discreet signals, such as a chime from the lock or a vibration in the phone. These tell the user that the product is taking an action, without requiring an action, in reality a distraction, from the present moment.
As sensor technology becomes more and more accessible, it will be the designer's job to curate how this information is fed into our lives. By accumulating information and making it relevant to me and the way I live, I am able to make positive decisions and know more about the world around me. That is how technology empowers us.
Motion sensors, voice sensors and gesture are getting smarter and more accessible. But experiences that we can't live without are rare. I believe this is where design is crucial as it has the potential to make technology:
By removing the display, I hope we will be able to deliver intuitive, empowering and experiential daily moments. As people long for meaningful experiences, for interactions, for presence, there will be a shift toward fewer screens. This is not a shift toward less information. In fact, more information will be communicated in the subtle ways that make us so very human.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
