Imagine if personal computing ditched the desktop metaphor?

Mercury OS is a futuristic concept operating system designed by Jason Juan.

Jason explains how he came up with Mercury in a blog post for UX Collective on Medium:

My breakthrough came when I realized that I had been asking all the wrong questions. I had spent months trying to invent new ways to navigate existing systems — but what if those systems were fundamentally flawed? What if the experience of Mercury required a radical re-invention of everything I had been taking for granted?

When personal computers were first being designed like 40 years ago, they were created for people who have never before used a computer. To make them easy to understand, designers came up with the desktop metaphor with files, a trash can, and apps that exist as their own little worlds called windows that you drag around and stuff.

Jason’s idea essentially proposes an OS that liberates its users by breaking tasks out of apps and into something new called “Flows”.

Everything you do in Mercury takes place using these cards. App developers would be able to integrate their services directly into the OS so that rather than jumping from app to app, you’re just acting on things and using text and voice commands to do things instead.

I think it’s inspiring seeing designers think about computing in this way. Even though this specific idea may not ever come to fruition, I love imagining what the future of computing could be like. Because after all, we’ve only had this stuff for less than one human lifetime. If we stay on the upwards trajectory we’re on right now, what will things look like generations from now when there are no humans alive who remember what it was like before computers?