[Originally published on MIX Online, February, 2010]

Years ago, around the time of MIX06, I had a great conversation with a friend who was working on a design for the Microsoft Surface. He said he had to basically re-learn user interface design during the process, since Surface’s screen presented a totally new user experience: a horizontal interface that multiple users (and objects, for that matter) could approach from any direction — a far bigger challenge than a regular computer screen presents. In his office, he showed me a giant sheet of paper with arrows pointing inward from all directions. He said this reminded him just how different the Surface’s user experience was.

Now it’s about four years later, and Apple is poised to release the iPad, a quintessential “casual computing” device that has the potential to change the UI game for touch interfaces. If I’m not overstating the point, the iPad is likely to win where tablet computers (which have been commercially available for years) have failed: the design of its applications.

Just like the iPhone, the iPad will introduce significant, new design paradigms to an enthusiastic group of mobile software users. We can assume that software running on the iPad will be specifically designed for the iPad — not a Macbook or iMac. The software will also take fingers on the screen and the limited needs of a user looking for a very specific experience into account. Buttons will be big. Menus will flick and spin. We’ll pinch and spread. Eventually, the applications will evolve from just giant,modified iPhone apps.

While the iPad’s apps will advance from a mobile platform,current tablet PC apps often advance from the desktop experience. Tablet PCs are also full, robust computers when they might not necessarily have to be, and their user interfaces are designed for mouses (or touchpads at best). Fingers as input devices, simple mobile and social applications, geolocation, or the like are often overlooked. Of course there are exceptions, but still.

Digital designers have been designing for immobile screens that users can only interact with through artificial means, such as a mouse or pen, for too long. Now, however, we Windows developers should assume the users we’re designing for are internet-connected, mobile, and often a member of one or more social-networks. We can collect data and use open APIs to create connections. With the growing popularity of multi-touch enabled applications, our users can individually and collaboratively create like never before.

Additionally, as mobile devices, tablet PCs, gaming systems, and even television interfaces become more connected and available, the community will adopt new standards and metaphors. There is tremendous opportunity at this stage to absolutely re-imagine user interface and standard design patterns. Of course, we don’t have to throw everything out the window, but we *could* — and that’s very exciting.

As iPads, slates, and touch-screen-enabled mobile devices become more ubiquitous, I wonder if we’ll end up with many individual device-dependent interfaces, or if UI will begin adopting universal standards across multiple devices, just as the web coalesced around standards independent of browser, platform, or screen-size. Will platform/browser/screen user interface and user-experience standards fracture even more than they currently have? (See the HTML5 video debate, CSS3 browser-compatibility problem, or even standard forms, for example.) Or will user-interface and experience professionals develop a new vocabulary and metaphors that will span the current and next-generation methodologies of user-interaction?

There are some products — like the HP Touchsmart line of computers — that are building strong experiences, but this is just the beginning. And with the merging of the web, applications, and data in the cloud, it’s a very interesting time to be a designer or developer.