Designing for the Internet of Things

(^138) | dEsiGninG for EMErGinG tECHnoLoGiEs
which they can experience the simulation of an earthquake. The com-
mon denominator between these and dozens more examples is that
through a combination of technology and tangible interactions, visitors
are encouraged to interact with and construct their own knowledge.
Closing
Novelist William Gibson once commented that future predictions
are often guilty of selectively amplifying the observed present. Steam
power. Robots. Many of us are being handed a future preoccupied
with touchscreens and projections. In “A Brief Rant on the Future of
Interaction Design” designer and inventor Bret Victor offers a brilliant
critique of this “future behind glass,” and reminds us that there are
many more forms of interaction of which we have yet to take advantage.
As he says, “Why aim for anything less than a dynamic medium that
we can see, feel, and manipulate?”
To limit our best imaginings of the future, and the future of learning,
to touching a flat surface ignores 1 ) a body of research into tangible
computing, 2 ) signs of things to come, and 3 ) centuries of accumulated
knowledge about how we—as human creatures—learn best. Whether
it’s the formal learning of schools or the informal learning required of
an information age, we need to actively think about how to best make
sense of our world. And all that we know (and are learning) about our
bodies and how we come to “know” as human beings cries out for more
immersive, tangible forms of interaction. I look forward to a union of
sorts, when bits versus atoms will cease to be a meaningful distinction.
I look to a future when objects become endowed with digital proper-
ties, and digital objects get out from behind the screen. The future is
in our grasp.