Spaces is a conceptual project exploring a new way to organize software UI rooted in how humans approach the world and our common psychological needs. It attempts to answer a simple question:
Can we imagine ways to re-structure our digital experience to help us become better people?
Spaces presents an idea about how to re-structure these experiences, starting with a common schema of a dozen or so high level needs that all human share. These needs are then represented in separate user interface containers of widgets, apps, and data. By operating at the level of abstraction of user needs, Spaces can solve many problems users face today in their digital environments, including
- How to create separation between different parts of our lives
- How to stay organized across the countless apps and websites we use
- How to more easily establish and stick with desired life routines
- How to be more intentional in our approach to life
- How to make it easier to filter out unwanted distractions
- How to resolve the UX dichotomy between accessing apps vs websites
- How to help software understand and anticipate our needs
The intended audience for this presentation is primarily designers and developers who are deep in the thought process of how core operating system UI should work. It's meant to provoke new thinking about ways we can alter the structure of the medium to align with human needs, and it is intentionally boundary-pushing. The mockups in here are primarily to illustrate ideas and opportunities, so I've kept them most at the wireframe level.
I started work on Spaces because I wanted something different from software, something that would make it easier to engage with the things that mattered to me in a more focused and intentional way. I've been noodling on these ideas on the side for about four years now and it's gone through several evolutions, most recently after I spent a year working with psychologists at Mindstrong on new methods of teletherapy. There's still a lot of room for improvement and clarity but since iOS 14 is about to be announced, which is rumored to change some of the structure of Springboard and focus more on widgets, I figured I'd get my ideas into a presentation.
My hope is that Spaces gives specific ideas to people designing the software that shapes our human experience, and perhaps gives me the opportunity to collaborate on such an important mission with them. Without further ado: