The Apple iPad is bringing in a new kind of user experience to our lives in front of computers. Just like computers reinvented themselves from a command-line-based console interface to a window-based graphical user interface (GUI) three decades ago, they will now have to reinvent themselves from graphical user interface to what I call, the Interactive User Experience (IUX) or First-person User Experience.
My earlier post introduced the concept as a user experience that puts the user firmly in control of the context of interaction in addition to the object of interaction. It is rooted in three principles that are coming of age in 2010:
- Touch, which throws keyboard and mouse out of the window (pun intended!)
- Orientation, which makes the “being” of the device itself a medium of input and
- Location, which introduces a new dimension to interaction.
The IUX will come in the form of wearable devices (or close-to-wearable devices like the iPad/iPhone) that will provide the user with a very immersive experience. The video below from TED might be a bit old now, but it is worth revisiting as a good demonstration of what it will all eventually look like.
You could visualize this as progressively reducing distance between computers and humans, and the coming decade will bring the computer even closer to us. For now, let’s see what the app developers have in store for this new device.
Update: Our new white paper Interactive User Experience: Going Beyond Interfaces, describes how IUX is different from UI, and illustrates it with some examples.
