The whole world is a user interface

Flickr Creative Commons - Omad

Lately I’ve been working with two very talented user interface designers.

The problem with hanging around UI/UX folks on a regular basis, is that everything starts to look like a user interface.

I really do mean everything.

Driving around my neighbourhood, I find myself thinking that a turning lane in a particular spot would really do wonders to streamline the browsing, um I mean driving experience.

Waiting in line at the grocery store, I see the need for additional whitespace to accomodate the users shopping carts at the front of the store. Oh and the cashiers could benefit from a longer grocery input field so that they’re not left waiting from the customers to unload their shopping carts.

The ergonomics crowd have understood this sort of thing for decades. Complex machinery – think car dashboards – go through this process all the time. Its really only starting to trickle down to other kinds of products and experiences now though. Many have noted that we’re entering a golden age of design. I just hope that whoever is responsible for our road system gets on board.