I was checking out Joi Ito’s presentation on The World of Warcraft at the 23rd Chaos Communications Congress today.  In addition to some interesting comments about the diversity of the players as it relates to guild rules and how players learn the fundamentals of project management in-game (e.g. leadership, delegating tasks, stress and communication management) , I enjoyed one comment that he made about future GUI design being in the hands of current WoW players. I totally agree and it’s a frightening thought:

*Photo: Ross Mayfield

I remember joking with a colleague once about the possibility of taking a passively multiplayer game like msn or email and tallying up our progress in the workplace each day. It would go something like this: 300 emails read, 175 emails replied, 25 chats etc.  

I think my future computer interface might look something like this :

Ok, so I’m not a designer…but you get the idea.

Also, it stressed me out doing this.