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Steve Ivy's Weblog - Since 1999 - XII Ed.

Simplicity and the 10-foot UI

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.

My name is Steve Ivy and I write about technology, the open web, social software, and general nerdity on monkinetic.com. You should follow me on Twitter or subscribe to this blog if you like what you're reading. I spend my days hacking Movable Type, python, Django, and various other efforts at Wallrazer. This is my personal site.