When I worked in Microsoft, my boss Dave Vronay said this sentence to me many times, he used that as an example that why so many people hate Microsoft products. He said if the UI component is dominant on the screen, it’s gonna distract people’s attention all the time and reduce their working efficiency.
Usability is not the only concern about the concept of “Zero UI“. We are not familiar with buttons and drop-down lists menus when we are still a baby. We tend to grap things, drop things, pick up things in a more natural way (Terry Winograd suggests that we interact with the world around us in three main ways: manipulation, locomotion, and conversation). When we focus on finishing a task, we never notice the way(interface) we approach the task. We are living on a ZERO-UI world, so Mark Weiser brings about the idea of ubiquitous computing.
Zero UI is not “sleek graphics + silver borders + minimum interactive transitions”. We need to work very hard to make the UI system “invisible”, or invisible enough. That requires a solid understanding of a “Digital Life“.That requires sensitivity and reflection, and most importantly, we need great imagination.
In the last past 50 years, computer invades our world truly like a monster. Sadly we built a bad habit - we got used to a monster-UI style. We are like a guy in jail hanging out only with guys, over 50 years, gradually lose the taste of real beauty.