Interfaces That Augment or Replace? | Zeh Fernandes
For interface designers, this distinction opens up new possibilities: instead of just helping users complete a task, we can design interfaces that also help them grow. In the symbiosis between humans and machines, there's potential for real, meaningful gains
if we think about how to turn this competitive interface into a complementary one, some ideas pop up:
Explain: Show not just the corrected text, but also why and where it was corrected
Feedback: Send a weekly email with the top three recurring mistakes, along with exercises
Challenge: Highlight a mistake and ask the person to fix it themselves before showing the corrected version.
All this can be incorporated without slowing the whole process. And there are plenty more possibilities. Even just doing this thought experiment shows how powerful this framework can be for interface design.
Just like living a healthy life means paying attention to what we eat and how we move, we'll need to be more mindful of where we invest our mental energy. The same goes for our creative and learning processes. Instead of just asking for a corrected version of a text, we could request feedback like an editor would give, or ask for a list of five authors who would argue against your core idea.
We are entering a new era of tools and it is up to us to shape them so that in the future they shape us in ways we can be proud of.