Foreword
Ellis Hamburger
Back when the telephone was first invented, ringers were used to call our attention to important incoming messages. They sounded like alarms, shrill electrical burps and gurgles that duly represented the urgency. And people loved it. Much as early travelers took pride in flying and dressed up for the occasion, phone callers were happy to be in demand, picking up at a moment’s notice, even if it meant leaping off the toilet and tripping mid-stride on one’s underwear.
Today, ringers are just annoying. Why couldn’t someone just text to see if I’m available instead of calling and interrupting what I’m doing? Some might even say, “Why call at all?” As our lives have become increasingly oversaturated with screens, social networks, and smart watches, there’s less time than ever for unplanned interaction. So, the ring isn’t as _useful_ as it once was. In fact, it’s downright disruptive in most scenarios, so some of the most popular communication apps ditch the ring entirely.
As a reporter at *The Verge,* I interviewed Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel before the launch of the company’s video chat and texting features. Spiegel said something that really stuck out to me: “The biggest constraint of the next 100 years of computing is the idea of metaphors,” he said. “For Snapchat, the closer we can get to ‘I want to talk to you’—that emotion of wanting to see you and then seeing you — the better and better our product and our view of the world will be.” Instead of allowing you to ring friends for a video chat, as with FaceTime or Skype, Snapchat forces both users to be present inside a chat window before video can begin.
So, instead of texting someone to set up a FaceTime call, you can simply chat them on Snapchat, and if they log on, you can start a video chat when you’re both in the same conversation. The “Hey, want to chat?” text replaces the ring entirely.
You might have thought that Snapchat’s mission was to bring “ephemeral,” disappearing messages to the masses, when it was only one facet of a bigger idea that Spiegel had been stewing over. He had been thinking about digitally replicating the ways we talk in real life — ephemerality just happened to be one means of doing so.
The point isn’t to _remove_ the ring, or to make photos disappear after they’ve been seen. The point is to understand how we use communication products today, how we live today, and to embrace those pieces of information. Thus, this example isn’t as much about altering product interfaces as it is about removing them whenever possible.
For the tools we use every day, people are always going to take the path of least resistance and choose utility and pragmatism above all else. In other words, why swipe through TV channels by waving your hands when pushing a remote control button is so much easier? Further, why press a button at all when you can simply call out the name of the channel you want to watch? Or, instead of having to speak the channel you want, maybe your TV automatically flips to the Bears game because you watch them play every Sunday.
Getting to the root of our daily errands, conversations, and projects will yield the next age of contextual tools. The key is forgetting what we’ve learned about interfaces, and using our instincts (instead of hot trends like “ephemerality”) as guides.
I find most Jonathan Ive quotes to be overly trite, vague, or abstract; but this one from a recent *Vanity Fair* interview resonated with me: “It’s part of the human condition that if we struggle to use something, we assume that the problem resides with us,” said Ive, referring to his initial frustrations with computers in the mid-’80s.
Ever since, Ive has made his mark on the world by constantly adapting to our changing needs, and admitting that tried-and-true solutions to old problems won’t always become the solutions to new problems. For example, Apple has shown no reluctance to cannibalizing the success of old products and ideas (like the iPod’s click wheel) when better product ideas come along.
Being able to snub our sentimentality about interfaces, old and new, will be critical. I first heard Golden Krishna speak about this very idea in his first-ever lecture—in front of an audience of over 1,500 people. When I wrote a small snippet about it on *The Verge,* it got more attention than other talks from massive companies like Google. Why? People are inherently drawn to new ideas and not old, derivative ones. People are drawn to hope for better solutions, even if they manifest themselves in tiny, seemingly insignificant ways.
*Ring, ring.*
Ellis Hamburger was a reporter for the technology news and culture website
The Verge from 2012–2015. Now he’s working in marketing at Snapchat.