User Interfaces
Viewpoints
2023
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November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
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July:
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June:
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May:
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April:
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March:
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February:
2022
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December/January:
2022: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2023 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
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July:
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June:
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May:
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April:
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March:
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February:
2021
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December/January:
2021: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2022 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
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July:
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June:
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May:
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April:
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March:
Decentralization for Everyone
Key Areas to Monitor: Decentralized Applications and Mobile Payments -
February:
An Uncertain Future for Remote Work
Demand Factors for User Interfaces
Archived Viewpoints
2020
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December/January:
2020: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2021 -
November:
Social Barriers to Digital Immersiveness
Opportunities in User Interfaces: Near-Eye Displays and Virtual Worlds -
October:
Touchless Interfaces for Public Computing
Human–Machine Dialogue -
September:
Opportunities for Smart-Home Tech
Key Areas to Monitor: Internet of Things and AI -
August:
Magic Leap Shrinks Its Field of View
Opportunities in User Interfaces: Displays and Gesture Interaction -
July:
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June:
The Pandemic Crisis: Scenarios for the Future of Digital Connectivity and Lifestyles
Scenarios Presentation: The Pandemic Crisis: Scenarios for the Future of Technology Development
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May:
The Pandemic Crisis: Key Forces That Will Shape the Future of Digital Connectivity and Lifestyles
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April:
Transformations in Mobile Payment and Digital Banking
Pandemics Drive Telehealth -
March:
Progress in Gesture and Touch Interfaces
AI-Enabled Interfaces for Wearable Robotics -
February:
2019
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December/January:
2019: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2020 -
November:
A Second Wind for Virtual Worlds
Textiles Paving the Way for Smart Clothing -
October:
Innovating Interfaces to Enable Telerobotics
Changing Tides in the Automotive-OS Market -
September:
Recommendation Engines as Interfaces
Neuralink and the March toward Widespread BMIs -
August:
Multidisplay Mobile Computing
Evolutions in Social-Media Interfaces -
July:
Advances in On-Device Virtual Assistance
Merging Virtual and Augmented Reality -
June:
Advances in Affective Computing
Developments toward Natural User Interfaces -
May:
Eye Tracking for the Enterprise
Frontier Technologies for Noninvasive Brain–Computer Interfaces -
April:
Smartwatch-Market Evolutions
Progress in Light-Based Brain–Computer Interfaces -
March:
Enhancing Intelligent Interfaces
3D Data Visualization in the Cloud -
February:
2018
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December/January:
2018: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2019 -
November:
Expanding Freedom in Virtual Environments
The Rise of the Digital Avatar -
October:
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September:
In-Vehicle-Infotainment Update
Proprioception in Bionic Limbs -
August:
The Rise of Mobile Gaming
Computer Vision for Future Interfaces -
July:
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June:
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May:
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April:
The Evolution of Smart-Home Interfaces
The Rise of Location-Based VR -
March:
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February:
2017
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December/January:
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November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
In-Vehicle Infotainment Systems
Interfaces for Streaming Video and Audio Content -
July:
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June:
Eye-Tracking Interfaces Update
Ultrasound Touchless Interfaces -
May:
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April:
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March:
Brain–Machine Interfaces: An Update
The Handover Problem for Autonomous Vehicles -
February:
2016
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December/January:
2016: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2017 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
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July:
Teleportation Could Be a Key to the Success of VR
An Arm as an Interface Device -
June:
Can Smartphones Deliver Virtual Reality?
Next-Generation 3D Smartphones -
May:
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April:
Personal Assistants Become Consumer Gatekeepers
Usability Triumphs in Enterprise Software -
March:
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February:
Progress toward Brain Implants
The User Interface for Home Automation
2015
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December/January:
2015: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2016 -
November:
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October:
Legal Distracted Driving
Apple's Integration of Stylus and Touch Screen -
September:
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August:
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July:
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June:
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May:
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April:
Alternatives to Passwords
Advanced Applications of Eye Tracking -
March:
Driverless and Semiautonomous Cars
Progress in Neural Interfaces -
February:
Windshield Displays
Changing Expectations for Gesture Recognition
2014
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December/January:
2014: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2015 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
Progress in Augmented-Reality Eyewear
Progress in Exoskeletons -
July:
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June:
Use of Wi-Fi to Track Gestures and Movements
Quantified Self-Deception -
May:
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April:
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March:
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February:
2013
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December/January:
2013: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2014 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
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July:
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June:
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April:
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February:
2012
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December/January:
2012: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2013 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
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July:
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June:
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May:
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April:
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February:
2011
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December/January:
2011: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2012 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
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July:
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June:
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May:
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April:
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March:
Eye Control for Everyday Computing
An Eye-Tracking 3D Display -
February:
2010
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December/January:
2010: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2011 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
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July:
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June:
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May:
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April:
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February:
2009
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December/January:
2009: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2010 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
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July:
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June:
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May:
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April:
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March:
Flexible Touch Screens
UI Patent Rivals: Palm and Apple
Gesture-Controlled TVs -
February:
2008
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December/January:
2008: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2009 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
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July:
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June:
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May:
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April:
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February:
2007
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December/January:
2007: The Year in Review
Look for These Developments in 2008 -
November:
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October:
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September:
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August:
Multitouch Surfaces That Respond to Multiple Fingers and Multiple Users
About User Interfaces
User interfaces are the links between users and technologies. They mediate people's relationships with computers, cars, entertainment electronics, office automation, technology in public space, and handheld devices. The advent of natural-language speech interfaces such as Apple's Siri, Google's Google Assistant, Amazon.com's Alexa, and Microsoft's Cortana indicates that people will engage in increasingly natural modes of interaction with machines. Generally, elegant user interfaces inspire loyalty—as in the case of Apple's iPhone. Poor UIs, however, impede technology adoption—as was the case when Google overpromised and underdelivered the benefits of its Glass head-mounted display. Lessons from user-interface successes such as multitouch tablets are driving businesses to focus increasingly on improving the quality of user experiences. Many businesses are interested in road maps for revolutionary UI technologies such as computer-dialogue systems that can sustain human-like conversations, augmented reality, and even motion holograms. Other businesses aim to improve products and services via evolutionary use of technologies such as gesture recognition, wearable devices, and head-up displays in vehicles. UIs—which people sometimes call "human–machine interfaces," "human–computer interfaces," and other names—first came into many people's awareness when graphical user interfaces emerged for Macintosh and Windows PCs in the 1980s. GUIs made it possible for people without a computer-science background to take advantage of information technology. Good usability, attractive industrial design, and innovative user-experience engineering promise to enable further breakthroughs in market development for handheld devices, connected homes, connected cars, connected workplaces, and smart spaces in public venues such as cinemas, arcades, and transportation hubs.
The discipline of user-interface engineering covers a wide array of activities, from basic research to practical web-page design. Developments entail core technologies—such as sensors, actuators, control surfaces, and display devices—as well as highly integrated systems such as cars, aircraft, consumer goods, public-information kiosks, and everything sold by electronics stores. Services, too, have user interfaces, often consisting of websites, call centers with interactive-voice-response and speech-recognition systems, interactive TV menus, and other innovations. Even a company's brand is sometimes associated with a distinctive and recognizable look and feel, as in the cases of Apple, Google, and Nintendo. A number of advanced user-interface technologies are on the horizon. Virtual-reality head-mounted displays will undergo frequent improvements in a vigorously competitive business environment; meanwhile, stakeholders are developing augmented-reality eyewear that in theory will be suitable for all-day use. But stakeholders also need to examine developments critically. For example, 3DTV sets, gesture-recognition technologies (beyond touchscreens), and brain-interface gadgets have thus far disappointed users and business developers.
Successful developments such as the iPhone and Fitbit's activity trackers illustrate the importance of innovation, detailed attention to use cases, and simple improvements to design practices to catching up with what technology already enables. As suppliers align their goals with strategic thinking about UIs, innovations in technology and design practice promise to continue transforming everyday experiences with communications, transportation, productivity, and more. Natural-language speech recognition promises to evolve from voice-based searching and control functions to conversational interfaces that resemble conversing with a human—for example, clarifying misunderstandings during back-and-forth verbal exchanges. And context-sensitive information delivered via smartphones and car-navigation systems is evolving toward augmented- and mixed-reality applications that proactively supply helpful text and graphic information in real time accompanied by synthetic and natural images of the real world. Above all, expect inventors to use diverse technologies to produce unexpected innovations, possibly by drawing on current R&D in sensor fusion, haptic interfaces, computer vision, biometrics, emotion recognition, exoskeletons, neural and bioelectric interfaces, and ways of transforming everyday activities into games.