Fabio Sergio doesn’t post often, but when he does, it’s a feast of ideas and insight into design. I just love it.
Recently he wrote a really interesting piece that starts with the disconnect exemplified by the Moto RAZR – sleek and nice on the outside, ugly on the inside. Basically, he called it the shell (the hardware) and ghost (the UI and OS) problem.
Link: f r e e g o r i f e r o | weblog.
For the end-user this means an object that whispers certain qualities when turned off, and shouts contradicting values when on and in use.
Shells. Ghosts.
He goes on to explore some solutions, stressing the need to make the mobile device more interactive and alive. He launches into a long discussion of active interfaces and widgets. Interesting stuff, but I have an allergy to that stuff for various reasons. And, it seems, so does Fabio Sergio.
He does make some interesting points about decoupling the UI from the hardware. Imagine using FOTA (Firmware over the air) to update your phone (an empty shell) with whatever UI you need for the task or feeling you have (your choice of ghosts).
Intriguing.
Fabio Sergio ends with one last thing: he laments that our desktop metaphor from the last 20-odd years has pervaded the way we design interfaces. He gives us a hopeful example of what could be. In the end, he cries out:
I dream of the day
when users will tend to their interfaces like to a collection of
beautiful, nimble, integrated, task-focused widgets.I dream of the day when our mobile networked tools will take full advantage of our playfully messy world-making capabilities.
I
dream of the day when our little screens will cease to be aquariums for
our data and truly become seamless conduits to our world of
relationships with people, with information, with things.
Yeah. I like that dream.
So, what’ll it take to make it true?
