If the last decade was about transitioning our lives from analog to digital, the next few years will about refining the experiences in that digital landscape.
In a Pre-CES press conference, on trends to watch in 2012, Shawn Dubravac Chief Economist and Director of Research for the Consumer Electronics Association pointed out that we are beginning to see a natural progression of the digital experience as devices move along a continuem from their birth, to complexity, to simplicity. Dubravac explained that the next movement will be from the simple to the natural.
To illustrate his point, Dubravac showed a picture of an early Television Remote control. The clunky device had 4 buttons
that could undertake a small set of features. Another photo illustrated the shift from simple to complex with a television remote with a paralyzing number of buttons. The following images showed sleek forms that emphasized the shift towards a simple user interface.
That next step, it was explained, is going to be seeing these devices and the interactions with them, becoming more natural. Dubravac declared 2012 “The Year of the Interface”
As technology becomes more omnipresent and ubiquitous, the evolutionary pressures push yesterday’s innovation to the background – providing room for an increasingly natural interaction
While technological innovation will continue, the technology itself could now be considered fairly ubiquitous. This ubiquity is going to need to lead to more natural interaction with our devices.
This shift is likely to pull the focus away from pure computing power, towards interaction design.