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Netflix has a unique option for their subscribers that gives them a personalized television experience. This feature is the infamous "recommended film genre" list. As portrayed in the clip above, the recommended option is known to often backfire on the subscriber by allowing others to see which kind of films and shows they are interested in. Even though this feature may seem to have a sole purpose of embarrassing you in front of company, there is more to be analyzed.
According to Lori Emerson's essay “Indistinguishable from Magic: Invisible Interfaces and Digital Literature as Demystifier”, technology companies intend to personalize their costumers' experience in order to give their product more of an organic feeling. Making a product seem natural to humans is the first step for the technology to be indistinguishable from reality, which has been a goal in the technological world since the mid-1990's.
From those working on the NUI, we find that it is an “interface
that is effectively invisible, or becomes invisible to its user with
successive learned interactions,” and that natural is defined as “organic,
unthinking, prompted by instinct.” Claims that ubicomp related
interfaces are more “natural” for “human beings” are echoed
even by independent writers unaffihiated with any particular
company or research group: “Human beings are physical
creatures; we like to interact directly with objects. We’re
simply wired this way. Interactive gestures allow users to interact
naturally with digital objects in a physical way, like we
do with physical objects.”
-Lori Emerson, "“Indistinguishable from Magic: Invisible Interfaces and Digital Literature as Demystifier”
Through Emerson's research, she found that humans find interactive interfaces more enjoyable. This is why many companies are expanding their interactivity, like Netflix is with the genre recommendations feature. This recommended feature makes it seem as if humans are interacting with a physical object instead of technology because they are able to manipulate and influence it. Emerson mentions that this connection to the natural world makes technology seem less foreign to us, almost as if it is becoming invisible.
From the MIT research group working on the Fluid UI, we
are told their aim is to make “the user experience more seam
less, natural and integrated in our physical lives” by creating
interfaces that “perceive the user, her current context and
actions and offer relevant services and information based on that
awareness.” From the designers of the OUI, we read about a
wondrous world populated by computers “with displays that
are curved, flexible and that may even change their own shape
in order to better fit the data, or user for that matter.”
-Lori Emerson, "“Indistinguishable from Magic: Invisible Interfaces and Digital Literature as Demystifier”
The more invisible technology becomes with these personalized properties, the more computers can gradually creep into our physical world. In this possible future, researchers are hoping that computers will adjust automatically to our personal preferences and eventually we will live in a world where computers are complementary to humans in almost every aspect of our lives.
