This talk explores the responsibility of a designer and demonstrates why sometimes "over-designed" is good. User interface is often seen as a crystal goblet, a transparent container which should emphasise but never obstruct the content. A lot has been said and written about the "disappearing computer' or natural user interfaces and "the best UI is no UI" mantra is so ubiquitous today.
In my talk I hope to shed a new light on these concepts demonstrating how the "no UI" approach may sometimes be considered harmful, and results in products which confuse, scare, or deceive people.
10. “You have two goblets before you. One is of solid gold (…) the other is of
crystal-clear glass, thin as a bubble, and as transparent. Pour and drink;
and according to your choice of goblet, I shall know whether or not you
are a connoisseur of wine. For if you have no feelings about wine one
way or the other, you will want the sensation of drinking the stuff out of
a vessel that may have cost thousands of pounds; but if you are a
member of that vanishing tribe, the amateurs of fine vintages, you will
choose the crystal, because everything about it is calculated to reveal
rather than hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain.”
–The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible by Beatrice Warde
11. –The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible by Beatrice Warde
“The book typographer has the job of erecting a window
between the reader inside the room and that landscape
which is the author's words.
He may put up a stained-glass window of marvellous beauty,
but a failure as a window. Or he may work in what I call
transparent or invisible typography. ”
14. – Edward Tufte, 1983
“Data-ink is the non-erasable core of a graphic, the
non-redundant ink arranged in response to
variation in the numbers represented.”
22. –Golden Krishna
“Avoiding a digital interface means you don’t waste time
learning, troubleshooting, and using a screen you
don’t need to be using anyway.
That’s good design thinking.”
41. –Steve B. Johnson, Interface Culture
“The interface came into the world under the cloak of efficiency,
and it is now emerging—chrysalis-style—as a genuine art form.”