Beyond conversations: natural language as interaction influencer

"Interaction followed a structured pattern: navigate screens by clicking buttons, type into fields, scroll through content, use gestures, menus, or keyboard shortcuts to move between states. Every action required first understanding the system's organizational logic, then locating the right control, and finally performing the correct interaction on it. Users translated what they wanted into a series of UI interactions the system understood."

"When systems begin to understand intent As natural language based interaction to machine evolves, they didn't just change how we express intent, they fundamentally compress entire workflows into single expressions. For instance, Google search transformed how we find information precisely because it eliminated the directory-browsing model of early web portals. The system becomes responsible for translating that intent into the underlying sequence of actions, queries, and transformations."

"This transformation fundamentally changes the contract between user and tool. Traditional interfaces required users to learn the system's language, its navigation patterns, its terminology, its organizational logic. Natural language interfaces require the system to learn the user's language instead. The Agent Shift: From understanding intent to executing work Modern AI interfaces extend this principle even further. Where Google compressed navigation, AI systems compress action, as Ben Shneiderman explores in his wor"

Users historically had to build a mental model of software, learning where menus, screens, and controls lived before using features effectively. Interaction followed a structured pattern: navigate screens, click buttons, type into fields, scroll, and use gestures or shortcuts to change states. Every action required understanding organizational logic, locating the right control, and performing the correct interaction. Natural language interaction compresses entire workflows into single expressions, making systems responsible for translating intent into sequences of actions, queries, and transformations. Search removed directory browsing, and modern AI extends compression from navigation to action, requiring systems to execute work for users.

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