WHAT MAKES AN INTERFACE
FEEL ORGANIC?

BY CARSTEN SCHWESIG

Movies can make us forget that we are sitting in a cinema among strangers, looking at images projected onto a wall. Instead, we feel as though we are observing real people in real situations and we become emotionally involved in the narrative. User interfaces can trigger a similar suspension of disbelief: we forget we are operating a machine to manipulate virtual, digital data. Instead, we experience media and applications as part of our physical environment. Such interfaces feel “natural,” or rather “organic.”