i make interfaces

A child from the age of entitlement, I grew up surrounded by devices with things like remote controls, digital screens, and little glowing ‘on’ lights.  User interfaces abounded in video games, televisions, microwaves.  For any consumer need, there was a team of engineers designing something that a non-engineer could use. Sure they weren’t always successful. How many people could actually set the time on their VCR?   And that meant if it took a complex mind to make a consumer device work it would end up in the technology graveyard.

So, we were used to having these simple interfaces around us that made an existing object or idea just a bit more ‘better’.  Eventually, we went interface crazy. The more buttons and LCD screens, the better a device must be!  Stereos now had screens but sounded worse.  Cars were riddled with sensors and digital dashboards that never worked right.  Phones got cordless, light up buttons, and voice recorders. But they also got NiCd batteries, so they had to be thrown out every 3 years.

Stop it, just stop it, you say!  This old junk is getting boring.  1980’s technology is all about the F-14 tomcat and blowing stuff up using that kick-ass Liquid Crystal Display technology. If that stuff kicked so much ass, why are all of the 80’s kids working as middle managers instead of avionics designers?  I think the answer is simply that we’ve already flown an F-14 on a Sony Playstation.  Its a lot more fun for most people to use technology than to design it.  And so the system cannibalizes itself.

So, if a playstation did in fact cause us to lose a few avionics engineers, its time to go dumpster diving in the technology graveyard to see what did inspire.

Enter my 1974 Saab Model 99.  Forget what you know about design.  This Saab is a user interface, and it doesn’t even have a radio!

In 1947 post-war Sweden a group of designers and engineers came together.  A group that loved to engineer even more than they loved to drive.  In fact, most of them didn’t even have a license.  They also didn’t have access to tooling to build their prototypes, and the steel body panels had to be hand beaten into shape on a wooden jig. They were the antithesis of the children of entitlement, and they designed a car that was as wonderful to build as it was to drive.

The 99 was the car that propelled Saab into the auto industry.  The car was bought almost exclusively by architects, engineers, and creatives.  Don’t believe me?  Look what Jim Davis was driving 5 years before he created Garfield.

The saab’s interface is in the design language of the car’s mechanicals.  This language is evident on every inch of engineering.  From the mechanism that slides the hood forward, then up at a 90º angle, to the mechanical height adjusters that hold the front seat in place with just 2 bolts.  In the unibody on which every panel is formed into an aerodynamic shape.  In the engine and transmission with longitudinal orientation that make the Saab the first and only performance oriented front wheel drive car.  Even the doors tuck under the body at a 90º angle for structural rigidity and remove the frame rail hump that makes it difficult to exit a conventional car.  These are just a few examples of the Saab interface.

This car taught me that good interfaces do real things.  People understand good functional design when they see it, in part because the human body is a machine of its own.  Design without function inhuman.  The curiosity of interacting with other machines is something that defines us as a species.  Working with the Saab, there is a persistent feeling that the car is alive and has a soul with its own intuition, its own personality, and perhaps most importantly, its own story.

Good interfaces should make us feel the satisfaction of turning a wrench on a bolt, engaging us in the story of a virtual object.  Just as the process of a sliding open the Saab’s hood creates a visceral reveal the engine, a drawer on a computer screen can slide and transform to reveal colorful imagery and data.  An engine can be rotated 90º for better performance, just as a web page can be rotated on an iPhone for better usability.  The values of good design don’t change, they just play musical chairs inside the design complex.

Its our job as designers to remember that the joys of being human can manifest themselves in rust or RegEx.