Slug: simplicity-and-the-10foot-ui Date: 2009-11-25 Title: Simplicity and the 10-foot UI layout: post

Every so often, I start thinking again about how I’d design a Home Dashboard - a simplified UI that could run on a spare computer, and provide 10-foot access to information like the day’s schedule, weather, a bit of news, today’s TV schedule, etc.

I liked Leah Culver’s comment on Chris Messina’s essay on the death of the url. relating to simplified user interfaces that are re-intermediating the web experience:

Like you, I dislike limiting the user for the sake of simplicity. Maybe instead of creating dumbed-down UIs, we should be making better devices for controlling computers from a distance?

This idea of better ways to interact with the computer without pulling out a keyboard and mouse is a very good one.