I love the idea of a graphical window into a hidden world. In this case, it’s a view into a computer, and elegantly done.

When we say, “the eyes are the window to the soul,” aren’t we poetically expressing something similar? The eyes, the nuances of facial expression, body language, speech content and tone of voice all serve as our interface between the minds and hearts of people. We take for granted that we can communicate thoughts from one person to another, from one locked cranium to another. Not everyone can.

When it comes to electronic device development, we speak loftily of pervasive computing and “interaction” but our communication with our devices is about as limited as that of an unborn fetus with the outside world. We hear some noises, we see some flashing lights.

On the cutting edge, I’ve seen experiments (and patent applications) incorporating smell into mobile phones. We’re seeing the first market-viable applications of haptic feedback and more subtle, almost peripheral, GUI alerts. It’s encouraging. It gets us to the point of, say, someone with Asperger’s-type autism. We study the messages (warnings, alerts, error, menus), we think about what they might indicate, and we attempt a response hoping to achieve the desired outcome. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Ultimately, we have a long, long way to go before we can say that we are really “communicating” with our computers.

[via information aesthetics]