Future of User Interface Design

kirushanthy jeyarajah
7 min readMar 31, 2022

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The way we interact with our technologies has evolved a lot over the years. From the original punch cards and printouts to monitors, mice, and keyboards, to the touchpad, speech recognition, and interfaces designed to make it easier for people with disabilities to use computers, interfaces have progressed rapidly in recent decades. But there is still a long way to go and there are many possible directions future interface designs could take.

Different user interface designs in future

01. Brain-Computer Interface

In a brain-computer interface, a computer is controlled solely by thought (or, more accurately, by brain waves). A few different approaches are being pursued, including direct brain implants, full-face helmets, and headbands that capture and interpret brain waves.

Our brain contains neurons that transmit signals to other nerve cells. These neurons generate brain waves and these waves control the system at the brain-computer interface. The BCI records the brain waves and then sends them to the computer system to perform the intended task.

These electrical signals generated by the brain with our thoughts have a specific brain wave pattern for each thought. The wave signal controls an object and is used to express an idea.

02. Gesture Recognition

Gesture recognition, movements with the hands, feet, or other body parts are interpreted by a computer (often through the use of a handheld controller, a camera that captures motion, or some other input device such as gloves) as commands. The popularity of gesture recognition stems from the video game industry, although there are other potential uses.

Gesture Interfaces refer to operating the interface using gestures of hand movements or touch like scrolling, tapping, pinching, tilting, shaking, etc.

Gesture-based UI has come a long way in today’s tech environment and is gaining popularity in the future of user interface design.

The gesture recognition interface technology uses sensors or a camera to read the movement of the body and communicate the data to a computer that recognizes gestures as input to control devices or applications.

The movements in gesture recognition are input either in the form of a hand-held controller, a camera that captures movement, or some other input device like gloves.

Mostly this type of interface is used in communicating or controlling video games, entertainment, and mobile devices.

03. Wearable Computers

laptops, also known as portable interfaces (or wearables), are small electronic devices that can be worn on parts of the body (mainly on the wrist). Forex. smartwatch, bracelet, ring, pins, glasses, etc.

Wearables are like a helping hand to manage physical tasks and remind you of your routine. Most of the devices are used for health-related tasks like monitoring heart rate, cholesterol level, calorie intake, etc.

Taking an example of a smartwatch, pairing it with a smartphone allows it to take over many of the smartphone’s capabilities. Once paired, it provides calls, email notifications, messages, tweets, etc.

Highly developed examples of wearable technology include Google Glass and AI hearing aids, among others.

04. Voice User Interface

A Voice user interface or VUI is an audio, visual, and tactile interface that facilitates voice interaction or communication between an individual and a device. A VUI does not need to have a visual interface.

The voice user interface has seen revolutionary success with smart assistants like Siri, Alexa, Google, and Cortana, with speech being the fundamental form of human communication. The future of UI design is here, and it’s getting better and better as machine learning capabilities expand with more interaction.

People are more interested in the voice interface because it can work faster and save a lot of time. Since voice interfaces use less cognition and more intuitive response, it is easy for people to perform tasks or facilitate their work without much hassle.

For example: with Google assistant, one can write messages through a voice command.

Voice technology is just the beginning, there is more to this user interface future that techies have yet to discover.

05. Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is no longer an emerging technology. Although adoption levels are still at an early stage, companies have been using the AR experience in various apps, games, glasses, and systems. However, he has yet to show his full potential.

AR enhances the real-world environment and adds simulated or virtual perceptual content through computer-generated information to transform the objects around us into an interactive digital experience. It has entered different sectors including healthcare, retail, gaming, entertainment, hospitality, tourism, education, design, and many others.

The use of AR in these industries has enhanced the user experience.

06. Virtual Reality

Virtual reality provides a new experience by generating a three-dimensional artificial environment that an individual explores and interacts with. The virtual environment is presented in such a way that the user feels as if it were a real environment.

Virtual reality’s ability to create immersive and enjoyable experiences is bringing it into new sectors such as medicine, architecture, gaming, entertainment, hospitality, and the arts. It’s just that more exploration and technological advancement is required for a high-potential interface to have a big impact on our daily lives.

Next, we will see the Next-generation UI Tools

Integrating Design and Code

Future user interface tools will bring design and code together to provide a more seamless experience for designers and developers. Our current tools aren’t helping us design web UIs; they’re helping us design abstract representations of web UIs. Mock-ups made in Figma and Sketch are disconnected from the source code.

Parallel Creation Will Replace Designer/Developer Handoffs

There is a lot of back and forth between designers and developers, especially during the release phase. In some cases, the handover is so time-consuming and stressful that the quality of the work is compromised. With next-generation source code compliant design tools, engineers will no longer be solely responsible for creating the user interface.

Design UI Tools and Developer Software Will Align

Current tools rely on custom programming models to generate design components. These models are generally not as robust as CSS and do not allow designers to see the auto-generated code that lies behind their design files, code that ultimately must be exported to HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. It would be much easier if our tools used HTML and CSS natively.

Mock-ups Will Become Obsolete

Creating an artboard for every scenario is impractical, especially when considering all breakpoints and views — not to mention dark themes. Designing for all of these variables compounds the number of artboards beyond reason.

Real Data Will Replace Placeholder Content

Just as designers create parts from multiple regions, they also design a variety of data. UI designers need to be able to test their components against the actual input (copy, photos, dates, words, titles, etc.) that will eventually populate the components of their designs.

Impacts on Everyday life

Science fiction often influences the world of technology by showing us the impossible. Today’s iPad is essentially the tablet computer from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Back to the Future II in 1989 got a lot right about the technology of 2015, now people use tablets and computers in their daily lives to work and play with the help from the csgo boost guide you can find online. In fact, the man who invented the world’s the first flip phone, the Motorola Star-Tac, was inspired by the communicator from Star Trek.

The future is definitely exciting when it comes to innovations in technology, and in many ways, the future is already here! In this article, we’ll review examples of how future UI design will affect our everyday lives.

Gesture Interfaces

The most memorable futuristic user interfaces were shown in Minority Report and Iron Man. These interfaces are the work of inventor John Underkoffler. He says the feedback loop between science fiction and reality is accelerating with every new summer blockbuster. He goes on to say, “there’s an openly symbiotic relationship between science fiction and the technology we use in real life. The interface is the OS — they are one.”

Light ring

Microsoft Research lighting uses infrared to detect finger movement and a gyroscope to determine the orientation and can turn any surface into an interface. You can touch, draw, move and drag a book, your knee, or the wall. For now, the interaction is with a single finger, but it still provides a really attractive and natural way for the user’s gesture.

This technology takes mobile computing to a whole new level! Imagine controlling your device anywhere and any way you choose. As shown in the video, the nature of using this technology is similar to using a mouse, so we are already familiar with how the product works.

Room Alive

RoomAlive is Microsoft Research’s follow-up to IllumiRoom, which was unveiled at CES 2012. Both are steps toward a “this is our house now” Kinect future. The new system goes beyond projection mapping around a TV by adding input and output pixels on top of everything in the room. RoomAlive uses multiple spatially mapped depth cameras and projectors to overlay an interactive display from which there is no escape.

Skin buttons

Flexsenses

The FlexSense is a transparent plastic sheet, but its integrated piezoelectric sensors detect exactly what shape it is in. This allows for all sorts of intuitive paper-like interactions. For example, flipping a corner to reveal something underneath, toggling layers on maps or drawings.

Imagine mobile phone cases that react when you remove the case. Or interactive books or children’s books that react to turning a page.

Zero UI

Zero UI is not a new idea. If you’ve ever used an Amazon Echo, changed a channel by shaking a Microsoft Kinect, or set up a Nest thermostat, you’ve already used a device that could be considered part of Goodman’s Zero UI thinking. It’s about moving away from the touch screen and interacting with the devices around us in more natural ways. With methods like haptics, computer vision, voice control, and artificial intelligence, Zero UI represents a whole new dimension for designers.

Thank you for reading this Article 😊 .I hope all are safe and healthy.

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