I’ll come right out and say it, I miss my first generation iPhone. You remember the one I mean right? The very first one, the one that lagged behind, the one that didn’t support exchange email, and the one that had a 2 megapixel camera. But most of all, the one that had that great metallic finish on the back. It was the only phone that I can think of that actually wore to become an even better one – perhaps not in technical function, but definitely in an experiential one. All those little bumps and scratches made it feel like your very own digital pebble.

These days it seems as if our commercial world is littered with products and interfaces that constantly push the uber clean, “just minted” look; and as an experience designer, this is something that’s begun to trouble me more and more.

As human beings, but more specifically, as Americans, we love things that are new. This year’s new car… hell, next year’s new car; the next MacBook Air that you just read about; we can’t get enough. And the same applies to the interfaces that we use. Design is constantly tweaked and sharpened to look not just better, but more polished than it did a few months ago. You can see this in any site redesign, or better yet, in the latest release of an operating system.

All of this got me thinking– what if we tried designing for the long term?  What if the interfaces we design could “wear in” the way our favorite pair of boots does, so that they feel intrinsically ours?

The first thing we need to consider is the kind of interface that can benefit from this type of visual effect. The place where this feels intuitive is in touch-based interactions. There’s something about the tactility of these types of devices that connects very deeply to our basic senses, and by extension, our humanity. We leave our imprint on everything we touch– from fingerprints on glass, to creases in that old pair of jeans. When things wear away it makes us love them, respect them even, because in a way it reflects some sort of effort and input on our part; so why not extend that to the interface they bear?

The second component to consider is the amount of wear that can be applied to an interface element before we hinder its intent and visual clarity. This inevitably brings in the aspect of time and the length over which the process should affect the element: Too long, and the overall effect will be lost. Too fast, and it will feel gimmicky.

So what would a realistic scenario of this type of interface look like? Let’s take everyone’s favorite mobile note-taking app, Evernote, as an example. Currently, note’s are broken up by notebook, and each notebook simply lists its contents in order of the time that they were entered. You can also tag your notes and create favorites. In applying the “worn interface” model to this app, we could register each “open” action of each note with a slight visual effect, a change in color of a note’s corner, a tear or crease in the margin, or slight gradation in background. Instantly, we’ve created a visual terminology that organically replaces the need for favorites, while at the same time, creating a mechanism that can be easily understood by anyone using the application, regardless of language. What this approach offers the user is an intuitive manner of passively customizing their context of use.

The same model can be applied to a reading application such as iBooks. Borrowing from its physical counterpart, each book icon would start out life as a beautifully designed image, complete with the symmetrical rounded edges and reflective sheens that are all the craze these days. However, as the user taps the icon daily to open the book, the edges can darken, the perfect sheen can smeer, and the text can fade ever so slightly. The effect can also be applied to the pages of the application, as their edges begin to curl in and turn yellow as the user approaches the end of the book. Extending the metaphor further, the effect could modulate in impact between a book that’s finished quickly, versus one that’s read for months.

I loved my first iPhone because every scratch and ding was made by me – whether intentional or not – and every time I felt it in my pocket, those imperfections registered some sort of emotional response. It’s the same thing that makes a 5 year old cry when his mother puts his dirty blanky in the washing machine after having been dragged through every corner of the house. Self imposed imperfections ultimately create a bond that brands objects as “ours,” and often, imposed an air of quality that exists only in our minds.

In the end, the worn interface model obviously requires iterations of testing to achieve a usable application. But what it attempts to accomplish is to create an interface that can be customized organically, based on its amount of use, while exploring a new methodology in visual communication.

– Max Zabramny, Senior User Experience Designer

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