Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

The user interface and the user experience seem to be based on two, quite simple things.

I love to look at the photos on the Analog Dreams posts in tumblr. Those big, beautiful round knobs. I owned a lot of the things shown in the photos, and there was something magical about slowly turning those round knobs.

Today, the world evolves around (another circle) that one simple little blank field that we see on Google and everywhere else. Type something in the blank and the world opens.

That summarizes the world of the user interface: the round knob and the blank field. I guess for a few more years we will all have the steering wheel, that big round knob that gives us the power of choice as to where we take our lives. I hate to see it go away. Perhaps I won’t live that long.