Star Trek: talking to “Com-pew-ter”.
Amazon: talking to Alexa.
Star Trek: Holodeck.
Facebook: Metaverse. (Linden: Second Life)
One of my old bosses said you can’t improve on certain design patterns, like “the bowl” or “stairs”.
Example 1. “the bowl”. It is curved enough to hold water. You can put handles on it, or curve the lip to make it nicer when it touches your mouth, you can color it, change the size/depth. But in the end the fundamental properties of a bowl cannot change, or it will no longer hold water, and then it ceases to be a bowl, and have utility.
Example2. “Stairs”. The stair design pattern has a rise of 7 inches and run of 8-14 inches. The dimensions are based on average body height/stride size. So then the “standard” stair is found in every building, public or private, because it has the greatest utility to the the greatest number of people.(https://engineeringdiscoveries.com/standard-dimensions-for-stairs/)
My conjecture is that “Technology” has plucked all the low hanging fruit. The idea that technology can provide innovative and USABLE solutions at a constant pace has run into fundamentals.
I’m not claiming to know what the fundamentals are, but you know one when you run into it. Could be form factor or psychological. So for instance the slab phone with an array of icons, and swiping gestures to control it, with diagonal size of ~6 inches, is the pinnacle of design. It is small enough for your pocket, large enough and high res enough to read on, and can be used with one hand. You can’t REALLY beat it. There will be attempts. Samsung phones fold. Tablets come in lots of sizes. They have their niches… but you can’t REALLY beat the form factor of the slab phone for it’s USABILITY by a very wide cohort.
I’m doubting very much we will see many new/innovative mass market products that are TRULY USABLE, and therefore popular.
Metaverse? Motion sickness and intolerable eye strain and headaches. Low Res. No legs. Get effing serious. No thanks. Interesting idea but not usable by the general public.