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Key Takeaways To solve global, fundamental human problems, the best user interface is actually no interface at all. This is the concept of “Zero-UI.”
The future of technology is not about building more screens to stare at. It is about integrating seamlessly into the natural flow of human communication.
If you want to build technology for the next billion users, you need to forget everything Silicon Valley taught you about user interfaces.
For the last decade, the startup playbook has been identical: identify a problem, build a mobile app, design a beautiful graphical user interface (GUI) with buttons and menus, and spend millions on marketing to convince people to download it.
But there is a massive flaw in this model when you step outside of major metropolitan hubs. For billions of people globally, from rural farmers in developing nations to elderly populations navigating the healthcare system, the friction of downloading an app, creating an account and learning a new menu system is simply too high.
To solve global, fundamental human problems, the best user interface is actually no interface at all. This is the concept of “Zero-UI.” And it is about to change how we build software.
The pilot: Solving the dual-burden in rural India
To test this theory, I recently developed and deployed a unified agriculture and health chatbot in rural India.
When you look at rural populations, physical health and financial health (agriculture) are completely intertwined. If a farmer gets sick, the crop fails. If the crop fails, they cannot afford healthcare. Yet, the tech industry treats these as separate markets. They ask a farmer to download one heavy app for crop advisory and a completely different app for telemedicine.
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