George Kokkinidis, from Design Language News, recently did an interesting study called “Remnants of a Disappearing UI”. He studied the fingerprint patterns on the surface of his iPad using different applications, and the results are visually interesting.

Because the primary input method of the iPad is a single piece of multitouch glass, developers have incredible flexibility to design unique user interfaces. It’s hard to appreciate the variety of UIs though, since turning the screen off removes virtually all evidence of them. To spotlight these differences, I looked at the only fragments that remain from using an app: fingerprints.

George’s method involved cleaning the iPad’s screen before use, using a specific app for a short amount of time, then turning the iPad off. Then he photographed the iPad, imported the images into Adobe Illustrator, and placed them inside a vector-based iPad mortise. His technique helped the fingerprints emphasize his “touchy” data. Read more