Designed for Use, 2nd Edition

You Can Always Do Better

If you’ve never seen a car, the aforementioned horse carriage with a steam engine might look pretty impressive. It moves on its own without any horses pulling it! It makes a lot of noise! It’s scary and big! Surely, this must be the pinnacle of human transportation!

In hindsight, it’s obvious that this was but a tiny first step in the direction of the modern car, but at the time, these machines must have been incredible. The design work Google or Apple produce often looks incredibly polished and final. But in a few decades, we’ll look back on current UI design the way we look back on early steam engines—as archaic and primitive.

Interaction design is such a young field that anyone can contribute, and nobody should be ...