Did you know that you have a dead rat in your pocket? Why don't you check it?
Well...you probably don't have a dead rat in your pocket, so how do you feel? Do you feel like you need it? Do you miss it? The answer is probably "No" (if yes, I would highly recommend seeing a shrink).
People do not miss things that they don't need, especially if they never had it.
This is the answer I give people when they ask me, "If you remove all the buttons from your 'gesture-based' interfaces, wouldn't people complain?"
The people in this generation who grew up with traditional "button-based" interfaces will miss all those tiny little buttons and icons dearly. Some will scream and complain, "It doesn't make sense!!!" And they will claim it's wrong and demand to bring back all the buttons. Just like they are demanding to bring the "Start" button back into Windows 8.
But unfortunately, all of their confused screaming and yelling don't make them right. And It doesn't make button-based interfaces better than gesture-based interfaces.
The reality is that gestures are much easier to learn than buttons because they are more natural and closer to the conventions of our reality. Gesture-based interfaces are much more efficient and effortless because they allow us to directly interact with our digital world instead of telling a bunch of buttons to do it for us. Using a button is like telling a butler who's in your backyard to come over and change the TV channel when you are sitting next to the TV.
The people in the next generation will be born into a world of gesture-based interfaces, and they will learn how to use them like we learned how to use our mouse, keyboard, and all those buttons in Microsoft Word without complaining much. And they will never miss the button-based interfaces because they never had it and they will never feel the need for it.
