First of all: this is utterly beautiful, thank you!<p>There is an important thing about computer interfaces which does not hold for playing an instrument, or woodworking, or dancing, etc: it very often needs to be done privately and discreetly enough, both to avoid publicizing your private affairs, and to allow several people work near each other, or work near people who are not working, without bothering them.<p>This significantly limits the use of the body language (finger gestures are OK; gestures, so-so; poses, no), sound (listening is OK provided headphones, speaking or singing, much less so), haptics (some force feedback is OK, noisy vibration and clicking, less so).<p>This does not mean that all these things are useless! Not at all; audio feedback may be welcome, haptic feedback may be welcome, but both should be optional (e.g. in a game), unless sound is what you work with anyway (e.g. in a DAW).<p>What I miss is the <i>richness</i> of erstwhile interfaces, with their colors, shapes, textures, pseudo-3D effects, the occasional skeumorphism. They gave so many clues, helpful hints that encouraged exploration, and provided large amounts of subtle feedback. Sadly, they were considered "noisy" and removed by æsthetics purists, likely the same people who designed the sharp, wrist-biting "clean" edges of certain Macbook models. This regress needs to be revested.<p>Something has to be said about non-keyboard controls. They are few, and non-standard, with the exception of touchpad / touchscreen and mice. They allowed direct manipulation and gestures to flourish! But, unlike knobs, these cannot give reasonable haptic feedback. Musicians have all the best devices like that, and those who need such controls repurpose MIDI devices with their knobs and faders; GIMP, a raster graphics editor, even has a special MIDI device configuration section in settings. Another good source of haptic controls are mice with their wheels, and, more rare, game pads with joysticks. Neither is assumed to be connected to an average laptop though, which limits their use in interfaces, however optional.