What is the Next Interaction Model Breakthrough after Touchscreens?
The only undisputed champion of interaction models/devices since the mouse is the touchscreen. No contest. The trend and industry is trying, often too hard, to push the next frontier of interacting with devices toward voice. While I think voice interaction is crucial, I don’t think it is being thought of in the right way yet.
There are inherent problems with voice. Natural language recognition isn’t perfect, and likely won’t be for a while. If the system has “keywords” you’ve failed before you shipped and the biggest concern of all is probably privacy. I’m not talking about Google or government knowing your every move type of privacy, I’m talking about old fashioned privacy. “Don’t let the guy next to me know what I’m saying to my wife” privacy. There is a reason messaging is still king (cough, WhatsApp for $19 billion). Messaging is, and will be for the foreseeable future, a major player in how we communicate. Yes people will dictate messages, but often we’re in public or a quiet place and just don’t want to share what we’re saying with everyone. Expect a piece on this soon, but let’s leave it there for now.