Webmontag Mannheim Talk: On the Disappearance of the Graphical User Interface

Anything, anytime, anywhere?

‘In the twenty-first century, the technology revolution will move into the everyday, the small and the invisible.’ (Mark D. Weiser, XEROX)

This week we were invited to the Web Monday in Mannheim, where we gave a brief introduction to the very interesting topic of ‘invisible design’, ‘ambient technology’, ‘smart devices’ or, in our case, simply the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT). We had given a slightly scaled-down version of this talk at the Usability Congress 2013 in Frankfurt.

We briefly talked about the definition – what IoT is actually all about – and made a short detour to computer history and the common problems with graphical user interfaces, which mainly lie in the increased attention that such a graphical/visual interface requires of us. The ‘Graphical User Interface’ (GUI) still dominates our digital everyday life.
(Touch) screens, mouse, keyboard, etc. define the interaction and are the haptic connection, but also the boundary to technology. However, this boundary can become invisible through the phenomenon of ubiquitous computing (ubiquity of computers) and can better integrate into our everyday lives by using everyday objects as interaction elements (Internet of Things, ambient services).

We also showed some useful examples of the use of services and IoT products and discussed what should be considered when designing user experience for IoT products and ambient services, which of course also relates to the fears and concerns with such products.

Here are our slides including links and literature recommendations. We hope we were able to give a small insight into the field and provided some suggestions on this very extensive and complex topic.

Ready or not: No UI vom Verschwinden des Graphical User Interfaces