Involution Principal, Jon Follett, editor of the upcoming book "Designing for Emerging Technologies" recently spoke with Jenn Webb, O'Reilly Radar's online managing editor and Mary Treseler, editorial strategist, on the O'Reilly Radar Podcast. In the podcast, the group discussed the challenges of understanding the disruptive power of emerging technologies — such as genomics, robotics, synthetic biology, and connected environments.
Over the next thirty years, there is little that humans can dream that we won’t be able to do — from hacking our DNA, to embedding computers in our bodies, to printing replacement organs. Because of this, we face a future where what it means to be human will be inexorably changed: Today, technology has already raced ahead of mankind’s ability to deal with it emotionally, morally, and socially.
To truly enable people to take advantage of these new technologies it is critical that multiple disciplines evolve and work together in cross-pollinated teams of scientists, engineers, and designers. It will be important to have people interested in not just the "how" of the engineering of technology, but also the "why" of implementation.
It’s abundantly clear that the future of experience design is to envision humanity’s relationship to technology and each other. Now more than ever, we need experience designers to help define the parameters of and sculpt the interactions between man and technology — not only in creating interfaces that make these technologies understandable to users, but also in making policy at higher levels.
To hear this discussion on the O'Reilly Radar podcast, listen to the audio below.