1. Introduction: Why Did You Buy This Book?
I don’t know why you bought this book.
It’s the 21st century, this is a book, and books are dead. You would think someone buying a book about technology would know that. And it’s not like this is the next great American novel. This is a technology theory book. About interfaces. Cue your boredom and regret.
Well, maybe you purchased this book because it is expanded from one of the most shared design essays in the past decade. Maybe you saw my keynote at South by Southwest that some called the best of the year. Or maybe you just ignored comments like this on the Internet:
“This guy is a clown.”
That’s a real Internet comment about me, and you know what? It’s probably a solid point. Not only do I like polka dots, but here I am, preaching THE BEST INTERFACE IS YADA YADA, and technically, I’m not even using the word interface correctly.
The common use of interface has morphed from its dictionary definition (a way in which you interact with another thing, like a doorknob for a door) to short for a graphical user interface (the thing with the buttons and icons you see on a computer screen).
Literalists, lexicographers, be warned: this book will routinely substitute interface for graphical user interface. Embrace a cultural tendency to shorten.
Note that when the reputable MIT Technology Review published an article titled “A Tale of Two Newspaper Interfaces,”1 it was not about the interface of folding broadsheet newspapers, but about the graphical user interface of the newspapers’ websites.
Or that when the Christian Science Monitor, which has been in print for over one hundred years, published an article titled “Netflix Rolls Out Updated, Smarter TV Interface,”2 it was not about the interface of a hand-held remote control, but a new graphical user interface delivered in a software update.
Or that when the Washington Post published “Apple TV: A Simpler Interface, Easier Access to Media Through the iCloud”3 it was not about a new kind of hardware interface, but a new kind of graphical user interface.
There’s good reason you don’t see Lowe’s home improvement billboards advertising their latest doorknobs as “a breakthrough in interfaces!”
Enough with the semantics. This book is about an idea. It’s an urgent call to action. One of the most revered inventions of the past fifty years is leading us down a terrible path.
Another real Internet comment:
“The title says it all.”
I’m hardly the first to identify it. As you will soon learn, visionaries like Mark Weiser, Alan Cooper, and Don Norman saw the signs long before me.
My take on the story sparks with a tale of tragic, crazy love, a l’amour fou. The world lavishes adoration on the graphical user interface as it blazes its way to a potentially disturbing conflagration:
Our love for the digital interface is out of control. And our obsession with it is ruining the future of innovation.