The document discusses the history and future of human communication and interface design. It explores how communication has evolved from oral to literate forms over 150,000 years, and how modern interfaces are shifting from visual to conversational models. The document advocates for designing interactions through having interactions, ensuring interfaces reflect their role in users' lives, and developing an invisible interface through principles like relevance and clarity.

1. Design with Words
Erika Hall
@mulegirl

2. Hi!

3. A (sad) story…

4. words
words
words

5. words
words
words

6. words
words

7. words
words
words

8. What’s up with design?

9. Design of Graphical User Interfaces

10. Graphic Design of User Interfaces

13. “ Just draw a rectangle shape, maybe 5 or 6
shapes on a sheet of paper, then draw the
features you want on each view of your app.”
— Beginner’s Guide to iOS Development: The Interface

15. Hello!

16. CodeDesign Content

17. CodeDesign Content

18. Design Content

19. Visual Verbal

20. Content

21. -Roy Bahat of Bloomberg Beta
“If we believe machine intelligence will
make our applications smarter, they
might as well just start talking to us,
“That’s why conversation
is the new interface.”

22. The History of
Human Communication

23. 150,000 years ago

24. 30,000 years ago

25. 6,000 years ago

26. 2800 years ago

27. 500 years ago

28. Oral Literate

29. Public Private

30. “Tell me, O muse, of that
ingenious hero who travelled far
and wide after he had sacked the
famous town of Troy.”

31. As a dog returns to its vomit,
so fools repeat their folly.
—Proverbs 26:11

32. “MY DEAR AND HONORED FRIEND: I have often been
desirous of writing to thee, but could not be
reconciled to the thought that the letter might fall into
the hands of the British, lest some printer or busy-
body should publish some part of the contents, and
give our friend pain, and myself censure.

33. Immediate
Active
Interactive
Present
Social
Event-based
Context-aware
Concrete
Passive
Finished
Complex
Authoritarian
Solitary
Closed
Abstract
Oral Literate

34. Be less busy! Market-specific
solutions
Oral Literate

35. Alive
Dead

37. Conversation?

41. Words still win.

45. Alone and Unhappy

47. Writing is easy.
All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper
until drops of blood form on your forehead.
—Gene Fowler , American Screenwriter and Journalist

48. Words First!

49. “Computer literacy…is really a euphemism for
forcing human beings to stretch their thinking to
understand the inner workings of application logic,
rather than having software-enabled products
stretch to meet people’s usual ways of thinking.”
—Alan Cooper

50. The ideal interface is
no interface

51. System Interface

52. Value Meaning

53. An invisible interface
must still be designed

54. Principles

55. “Make your contribution such as
it is required, at the stage at
which it occurs, by the accepted
purpose or direction of the talk
exchange in which you are
engaged.”
Paul Grice’s cooperative principle

56. “[Read the room and pitch in.]”
Paul Grice’s cooperative
principle

57. Quantity
Quality
Relation
Manner

58. Just enough information
Truthful
Relevant
Brief, orderly,
unambiguous

59. Please continue to
not make me think

60. Process

61. Design interactions
by having interactions

62. Form follows meaning

63. Stop

64. “Who has the intestinal fortitude to
write ‘I’m sorry I don’t understand’
in 12 on-brand variations?”
-Ben Brown

65. NO ONE

66. Design interactions
by having interactions

67. Personality

69. Personality should reflect
the role of the system in the
life of the user.

70. Personality should reflect
the role of the system in the
life of the user.

71. “You have to like people.”
–Josh A. Cagan

72. Study your subject
Listen without judgment
Expose yourself to good language
Do your research

73. “We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
—Aristotle

74. Excelsior!

75. bye!
Erika Hall
@mulegirl
erika@muledesign.com