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Redesigning Common User Interfaces

April 7, 2003

So many of the user interfaces we deal with on a day-to-day basis are leftovers from the past, embedded in our cultural consciousness not because they're good, but because they're omnipresent. I'm not talking just about software interfaces - I'm talking about everything: radios, cars, kitchen appliances.

If we had the chance to do it all over again, to re-design from scratch some of the world's notorious interfaces, how would we do it?

GM is developing this concept car, called the Hy-Wire. It provides a drive-by-wire capability, which makes the mechanical linkage between a steering wheel and axle obsolete. The car is also based on a "skateboard chassis", which is an 11-inch high platform that contains all of the mechanics necessary for the car - wheels, motors, fuel cells. A variety of different shells can be placed on the chassis to create a variety of automobile styles.

Removing the mechanical requirements of a thing means that we can design interfaces with ergonomic considerations. And check out the view from this car! I just really hope they plan on making the windshield out of something unbreakable. Transparent aluminum, perhaps?

Our computer keyboards are leftovers from mechanical typewriters - even the QWERTY layout was designed to slow down typing. The design of a piano keyboard was dictated by the need for hammers to hit strings. Radio station and TV stations use dial positions are a non-user friendly way of referring to stations - knowing that your favorite station is 101.3, or that your favorite channel is Channel 38, is like knowing that your favorite website is at IP address 123.45.93.232. The same goes for phone numbers, and cell phones are starting to go this way - users just be concerned with who they want to call, not the system-level details of what phone number that happens to be.

If we had the chance to re-design these outdated user interfaces today, what would be different?

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