As a designer and developer who works at the intersection of tech, identity, and culture, I’ve always been fascinated by how we interact with machines—and more importantly, how those interactions are starting to shape us.
Human-Computer Interfaces (HCI) used to be about utility: clean dashboards, minimal friction, responsive layouts. But today? We’re entering a post-interface era—where the “click” becomes a gesture, the “scroll” becomes a glance, and intent itself becomes the input.
In traditional interface design, we talk about usability, responsiveness, hierarchy. But what if your user isn't tapping a screen—they’re thinking a thought? Emotion becomes not just a feature, but a medium.
In my speculative fiction work, I explore these ideas through augmented characters whose bodies and thoughts are wired directly into systems. Take Jay, a soldier whose mind is augmented to suppress emotion for operational clarity. His decision-making is instant, clinical—until it starts to break. His augmentation, QR (Question Rationale), cuts out the mental weight of hesitation. It’s brutal efficiency. But when he begins to feel again, that “lag”—the human part—becomes the very thing that saves him.
This narrative reflects a real-world concern. As we move toward more immersive experiences—think Apple Vision Pro, Neuralink, haptic web UIs—are we designing systems that understand humanity, or just override it?
Designing for these contexts isn’t about bells and whistles. It’s about understanding the nervous system as part of the experience. The blinking cursor is being replaced by biometric signals, predictive intention, and real-time responsiveness.
With great interfaces come serious responsibilities. When you can bypass rationale, as with QR Augs in my book, who decides when and why that's used? How do we design for restraint? For slowness? For second-guessing, which is often where creativity and humanity lie?
I always aim to ground tech in human stories. Whether it’s branding a startup that uses AI for mental health or developing future-facing web experiences, the challenge is the same: how do we keep humanity at the core of innovation?
The Interface is Becoming Invisible—That’s Not Always Good
Great design often feels invisible. But as interfaces dissolve into neural pathways, we need to re-evaluate what kind of invisibility we want. If an interface can predict your next action before you’re conscious of it—is that convenience or control?
This is where the ethical layer of design comes in. And it’s one we can’t afford to ignore.
In my story, Cassie, the protagonist, wears a pendant that unknowingly disrupts augmented systems—essentially acting as an EMP for tech-dependent bodies. It’s an accidental rebellion, but a powerful one. The pendant is low-tech, emotional, tactile. It represents an old-world interface in a hyper-digitised age.
That contrast is central to my thinking around HCI. The tactile, the analog, the deliberately slow—these can be radical design choices. As creatives, we can bake resistance into our interfaces.
On my homepage, you’ll notice I combine high-contrast motion graphics with raw hand-drawn elements. It’s a signal to the user: not everything in the future is sleek. Some of it will be messy, human, and beautifully unpredictable.
Designing Futures, Not Just Interfaces
The next generation of interfaces won’t be designed on screens—they’ll be embedded in our decisions, our gestures, even our memories. And with that comes a responsibility not just to code, but to question.
Are we designing for clarity or compliance? For agency or automation?
The fictional world I’ve built is a mirror to our real one—pushing design, tech, and ethics to their edge. And what it keeps showing me is this: good interface design doesn’t just serve the user—it changes them. Sometimes subtly. Sometimes radically.
So if you're working in digital, visual, or interactive design today, ask yourself: What kind of futures are you enabling? Because the line between user experience and human experience is vanishing.
Let’s design like it matters.
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Curious?
Explore more experimental UI projects and future-facing concepts at byabi.co.uk
Or reach out—I'm always up for conversations at the edge of design and fiction.