UC Berkeley School of Information

Experience designers and researchers are working on their most ambitious challenge yet that represents a new frontier in user interfaces: creating a constellation of systems, machines, and people — including wearable gadgets, tablets, smart phones, and appliances — that can communicate with one another in an autonomous fashion. We are constantly adding new functions to gadgets and new devices to the ecosystem without much thought as to their totality or cumulative complexity. In the coming era of ubiquitous sensors and miniaturized mobile computing, designers need to think about how to weave the digital world into our lives at work so seamlessly that we don’t even notice. Already we’re seeing a groundswell of new technologies that insinuate themselves seamlessly into users’ personal lives like the voice and gesture-controlled Xbox, but this is just the beginning. At GE, we want to apply the same embedded intelligence to the world of big iron and people at work to create disruptive experiences, not just produc