Fake Meat and Digital Mimicry
Why are vegetarians always trying to emulate the “meat” experience? Why not create an entirely new experience? I recall a visit to a vegan restaurant in Santa Monica that had the best fake bacon I've ever tasted. I was told it was made of tempeh. I didn't know what tempeh was, but I knew that it was pure magic. But why couldn't they have positioned the meal as something other than a bacon substitute?
Fast forward to today. I was listening to the Mac Power Users (with possibly the best podcast show title ever) and there was a discussion about using Google Docs in the classroom instead of Microsoft Word. I immediately visualized a piece of paper on the screen.
It occurred to me that what we've done is simply try to reproduce the experience of writing on a piece of paper onto the screen. Which led me to the question of what does it truly take to make an innovative jump in the way we think of how things are implemented? Must we always take these incremental steps first?
How long will it be before keyboards are obsolete? When will mice and trackpads disappear? I don't think it will be long before our computer interfaces will be driven by our minds, resulting in a new era of good times for UI/UX folks.
As software developers in particular, how can we break free of our current paradigms and create an entirely new class of apps that would be considered magical in the way that those who persecuted the Salem Witches would have thought Facetime or Google Hangouts? Are wearables the baby step before this shift? Must we first reach an entirely new method of computing? Computers embedded in our minds?
