How user interfaces are evolving

When personal mobile phones first came out, they used to have an attached physical keyboard on them. The expectation was that the software will adapt to the already present input options. And thus, there was little creative flexibility in terms of how personalized an application could be.

With the invention of the touch-based smartphone, this changed. Now, the application could have its own set of input controls. And this was hugely successful since each application could now have a set of inputs that are optimized for it.

The ideal next step to this is to understand that not only does each application need a unique set of inputs, but each user interacting with that application also uses it in different ways. And thus, the input controls even for the same application, should be different based on who is using it. This would in theory offer a much more personalized and objectively better experience.

But this was extremely costly. Most popular applications today are used by billions of people and to create a new user experience for every single user seemed impossible.

But today, it doesn't seem too far-fetched.

How artificial intelligence will shape user experiences in the Future

AI models can run as standalone programs and tweak themselves based on feedback. This will make it possible for them to tailor-make user interfaces for the user using it.

Each running instance of an application can contain an AI model which can change aspects of that user interface based on how the user is interacting with the application.

Since companies have already added hardware modules in phones which deal with AI-specific computations, this will be feasible as well.

The current state of this technology

You can already see it in action today in some capacity. Google has come up with the next version of its material design library, called Material You.

The vision outlines by this product hints towards a more personalized experience. It is built around the idea of incorporating emotions in the user experience on all the touchpoints of a user interface.

Now, with Artificial intelligence rapidly evolving, you can imagine this library getting supercharged with AI to deliver a more personalized experience to every single user.