Go to the profile of Prateek Gupta
Prateek Gupta
Senior User Experience Designer at SecuEra Technologies

Zero UI future of Interaction

Today we see users are dependent on screen for everything from booking a flight, to listing to music. It is difficult to imagine a world not dominated by screens both mobile or web. But as the IoT(internet of things) coming up where we can talk to any devices through voice, gestures, or devices can even anticipate our needs, what does that mean for the future of design, especially as those screens go away?

What is Zero UI?

Zero UI (term by Fjord Designer Andy Goodman) refers to a paradigm where our movements, voice, glances, and even thoughts can all cause systems to respond to us through our environment. It removes the barrier between user and device.

Google has announced an advancement to gesture control through Project Soli, a chip that will allow users to gesture above a device without needing to touch the screen directly.

“Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of the ‘device’ to go away.” — Sundar Pichai, Google C.E.O

What changes Zero UI will get?

  1. Touch and Screen will not be the only medium of interation with your devices.
  2. User will spend less time on mobile and computers to perform their task.
  3. Apps will become APIs and bots will takeover.
  4. New ways of interaction — Gestural Interfaces, Voice-Based Interfaces, Messaging Interfaces etc.
  5. More focus on data and AI

Will this remove screens?

“We’re never going to lose the screen. we’re going to end up with more screens, everything will be a screen.” — Andy Goodman

Users will always adapt things that are easier or familiar to them and also get their task done faster. But also learning is a slow process and adapting to this might take time for the user. So screens will be there.

So take away from this article is we should design screens keeping in mind other modes of interactions, such as voice and gesture commands, then we can vastly speed up interactions and user spend more time being present in the real world, enjoying what he want to do.

Try these — Apple’s Siri, Google’s Now, Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon Echo, Google Nest, or Facebook’s M