Philip O'Neill came in to speak and the session opened with Plato's Cave as a framing device — the idea that what we perceive as real is always mediated, always a projection of something else. In a design context this is a useful provocation. Every interface is a representation of a system, not the system itself. Every interaction is a translation. The gap between the two is where UX lives.
The talk moved into hardware and major UX problems in current spatial and immersive technology. The hype cycle around AR and VR was a recurring theme — the technology consistently outpaces the use cases, which leads to products that are technically impressive but experientially underwhelming. The question of what these technologies are actually for, beyond novelty, remains largely unanswered.
For the Future Living brief this is a useful reality check. A smart home OS concept can draw on speculative technology but it needs to be grounded in a genuine human need. The interface decisions should follow from that rather than being driven by what the technology makes possible.
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Plato's Cave as a framing device for interface design is something that's going to stay with me. Every screen is a representation of something, never the thing itself, and the gap between the two is where most UX problems live. Philip's talk on hardware and the hype cycle around immersive technology was a useful reality check for the Future Living brief specifically — the technology has to serve a genuine human need or it's just novelty with a short shelf life. The magazine cover critique was a smaller exercise but it surfaced something important about how framing shapes reception. For a speculative project the way you present the concept is almost as much the work as the concept itself.
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