The Future of Interaction Design is very exciting. As Interaction Designers, we are not only designing for today, but we are designing for the future. Our designs, products, skills and techniques will be used in the future of technology industry.
There are so many personal digital devices in todays world. Smart watches, phones, tablets, laptops, PCs. Everywhere and everything has a screen. When you go to McDonald’s, Tesco, the treadmill, or ATMs. Screens are used all the time. But screens aren’t always used. Conversational Design is used in things like Amazon Alexa, Siri etc. This is all under the role of an Interaction Designer.
One example of using interaction design in the public was when I used a self-checkout in IKEA. It had a really responsive UI. It also involved using a gun scanner which I thought was quite satisfying.
Autonomous Vehicles are something that will probably be used in the near future. They are self-driving cars that replace the human driver with complex technology that is able to navigate it’s way around roads. I’m not sure how I feel about this as I don’t think I could trust it with how unpredictable the roads are. It is definitely something that is interesting and I’m intrigued to see where it goes in the future.
Future Interfaces Group is a research lab group in at Carnegie Mellon University. They create new interface technologies that cultivate powerful and enjoyable interactions between humans and computers. They primarily specialise in sensory technology, and their aim is to facilitate interactions between humans and computers through its research and products. One of their products that I think is quite interesting is ‘Skin Buttons’, which is a smart watch which turns the users arm into an extension of the interface. It does this to increase the real estate on smart watches, as they are generally quite small, as the largest Apple watch is 1.6 inches. To do this they used laser diodes that display fixed icons, that when touched, are communicated to the watch. Although I think this is very cool, I think it is also a bit unnecessary and overkill.
Overall I am excited to see what the future has in store for the Interaction Design industry. It seems that the possibilities are endless especially when you look at how far it has came even in the last 20 years, so who knows what the next 20 years could produce. Since I am an Interaction Designer, I need to ensure that I am constantly up to date with what is going on in the technological world, so this is something that is very important. I am looking forward to working in an industry that is constantly evolving.