Vivek Haldar wants a user interface that reflects “the contours of… attention,” a phrase that I quite like:

What was I doing? What do I need to do next? These are the most important questions when I’m working. And modern interfaces make it easy to lose track of them when I’m in the thick of it, and downright hard to answer them when I try to come back after a break, or an interruption.

The contours of my attention are varied and varying. They have peaks and valleys and plateaus. They are changing, rising and falling. Some things are central, some peripheral. Some things are important, some urgent, and some whimsical. Some peripheral things might be important. Some whimsical things might become central.

The modern UI does not know about the contours of my attention. It is a vast plain, with no distinguishing marks.

I don’t even know what a UI that better understands my attention– or in a less Google Now anticipatory computing phrasing, a UI that I can use to remind me of what I’m supposed to be attending to– would look like, but I definitely want it.