Why the future of product design is all about how it feels

After nearly two decades of sleek minimalism in digital interactions, tactile design is emerging to use texture and materiality to bring back the lost art of touch.

In 2007, Apple won the smartphone wars by betting on our collective desire to fall into the iPhone’s looking-glass screen and explore the digital wonderland that waited for us on the other side. We’ve spent the intervening years building the cyberfrontier with a rampant fervor—designing innumerable digital products and experiences. But recently, we’ve started recognizing something was lost in the wake of sleek, digital minimalism.