Read an article today on computer interfaces and the dearth of innovation of late in that field. I’d link to it but I forgot where I saw the story.

Anyway, it made me realize I hadn’t thought much about, nor blogged, regarding CHI (Computer-Human Interaction, sometimes abbreviated HCI), or software interface design. I don’t think I’ll ever end up doing anything in the field beyond suggesting some ideas at work on what we could do to change the current application I’m on (I don’t think anyone at AA has heard of AJAX, JSON, or Web 2.0). Still, it’s a field that is very intriguing to me.

Computers and peripherals (MP3 players, cell phones, digital cameras, etc.) are essential to our lives. Yet they are so limited so controlled by proprietary software, protocols, etc. If I get a cell phone that can take pictures, I can only do certain things with the picture, and I have to pay to do them. For every single portable electronic product every single electronic manufacturer has made, there is a different connector for the charger. Why???? There’s no excuse except greed and that there’s been no coordinated effort to combat this.

Why is user experience on every single product not as seamless as with the iPod? Much like the iPod, every interface should have more advanced options for troubleshooting, customization, power users, etc. But everything should simply turn on, and turn on quickly, and recover from being turned off at any time.

Why in the year 2005 do I have to program every phone number into every home phone, every cell phone I get? Sure, *some* phone systems, growing in popularity in the home market, share address books, and some cell phones allow you to sync to the computer if you buy a cable and software package. But I mean, really, come on! This should be automatic.

Bluetooth is catching on, but still so slowly. Every home phone and cell phone should have bluetooth embedded. Every single car stereo on the market should mute when a call comes in and is answered in the car, and every cell phone should update the address book when it is brought near your computer. (Yes, you have authentication issues and the like such as which computer should do the updates…if I set my phone next to my friend’s computer it shouldn’t pick up his address book, but these are addressable issues).

Why are wireless networks not ubiquitous? Any current PC or laptop should have wireless internet built in, and the operating system should be fundamentally built around the concept of seeking out and gaining internet access as easily as possible with the least user input, while simultaneously being focused on the utmost security. Seemingly incongrous goals, yes, but not impossible.

Passport and Liberty were immature attempts at single-sign on, but their intent was good (well, Liberty’s at least is/was). My identity should securely accompany me anywhere I go digitally. When I want to listen to my digital music collection at a friend’s house, their PC or living room MP3 player should identify me and stream my collection, regardless of whether I bought music in format A or format B from store C or store D (or should that be store I for the obvious one?) When I visit a new website that asks for my address, why does my browser not pre-populate my information? The best we have are the drop downs of previously entered values. It’s still my choice to submit the information or not. Again, security and privacy should be utmost concerns. But they are not roadblocks to interoperability, ubiquity, or automation.

While a computer is a system which must scale to the needs and abilities of its user and thus must have gradients of usability from beginner to advanced, why is it so complicated to do things that large manuals are needed for each application and young adults must spend hours troubleshooting parents’ and grandparents’ computers? Why do operating systems not have intelligent systems pattern matching activity? The human brain is at its most basic a phenomenally powerful pattern recognition system. We’ve developed algorithms that are reasonably good at duplicating such behavior. What our computers need is a large base of behavior to derive patterns from. The internet is sitting there untapped!! Anonymously our behavior should be fed to massive pools of data. Users who do A, then B, then C, then back to B again, then C,B,C,B, typically are satisfied when they find out how to do D. Why not learn from this and have the system suggest to the user to do D when these criteria are met?

Finally, the very process of software development is being revolutionized by open source projects, collaborative internet development, and other methodologies and phenomenon occurring in the digital age. One of the most critical components of these is open APIs. We’re increasingly learning that the best development team doesn’t think of all the ways their product can and will be used. Open APIs allow others to create new integrations, new uses. GreaseMonkey and Google Maps API are the perfect examples.

The computing experience for the average American consumer, even the average western world consumer, is one far beyond a PC or laptop. It is a compound, complex, moving, evolving situation involving multiple hardware systems and endless software systems increasingly internet related or dependent. In response to this, our view of the computing experience must be broadened. Seamless integration, open APIs for extension and innovative reuse, simplistic ease of use with the option of power use and troubleshooting, automation and support based on collaborative filtering of shared experience for pattern recognition, identity mobility, data integrity, reliability, and mobility, all focused around an unwavering commitment to privacy and security untethered by unrealistic corporate-induced limitations (DRM) need to be the keystones of the digital future.