Monday, December 24, 2012
Merry Linkfest!
Enjoy!
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The Post-WIMP Conversation: Some Thoughts about Conceptualizing NUI, Part I
This post was updated and moved to the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog:
The Post-WIMP Conversation: Some Thoughts About Conceptualizing NUI, Part I
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Why "new" ways of interaction?
Why "new" ways of interaction?
Jonathan Brill, of Point & Do, has several video clips that explain the basics of multi-touch and gesture interaction. He is currently leading a book study of Dan Saffer's "Designing Gestural Interfaces" and is one of a small (and growing) group of people who are looking at ways technology can support human interaction and activities in a more natural, enjoyable, and intuitive manner.
"Mouse-based thinking simply doesn't work here....WIMP best practices slow users down, confuse them, and make multi-touch applications difficult to learn...a new class of applications....make it easier for groups of users to interact with complex information.
In the video clip below, Brill discusses the need to escape from the WIMP mindset. (Windows, Icons, Mouse & Point, the current way most people interact with computers and related devices.)
Here is a transcript of key points from the video:
"It has been 25 years since the first rich multi-touch system was publicly shown. That's a lot of research for a shocking lack of progress. By contrast, 25 years after the demo of the mouse, GUI (graphical user interface)had evolved into Windows, MS Office, Mosaic, Lan, and the Apple Newton, the basis for today's business productivity tools."
"The mouse was successful because early engineers developed a simple, clear interaction framework that everyone could follow. It was called WIMP: Windows, Icons, Menus, & Pointers. WIMP worked. It was cool, and it increased usability and solved key technology issues of the day:"
- Windows were a way to manage content on small displays
- Icons were a space-efficient way to point and click on commands
- Menus hid irrelevant content
- Pointers visually tracked mouse interaction
"Multi-touch needs an analogue to WIMP that makes it easy to use, across platforms. At Point & Do, we think we've found it. It is what we call PATA:
Places
Lighting, focus, and depth, simplified searching and effecting hyperlinked content
Animation
Using animation to subtly demonstrate what applications do and how to use them is a better solution than using icons. Animations makes apps easier to learn.
Things
Back in the days of floppy disks, objects helped us organize our content. This limitation was forced by arcane technology, but it did have one huge advantage. We used our spatial memory to help us navigate content. Things will help us organize content and manipulate controllers across a growing variety of devices.
Auras
Auras will help us track what we are tracking and when an interaction has been successful."
Here are a few more videos from Jonathan Brill:
Multi-touch Design Techniques Part 1 of 3
Multi-touch Design Techniques Part 2 of 3
RELATED:
"Surface and Tangible Computing, and the "Small" Matter of People and Design" (pdf) -Bill Buxton, ISSCC 2008
Designing for Interaction -Dan Saffer
The Computer for the 21st Century Mark Weiser, Scientific American, 09, 1991
(Note: I read this article when I was on a plane from Charlotte to Detroit, years ago, and never forgot about it. If you are just beginning to learn about HCI or ubiquitous/pervasive computing, or off-the desktop interaction design or application development, it is well worth the read!)
Friday, December 19, 2008
More for the Interactive Usability Hall of Shame: BMW Features (Via Roland Smart, Adaptive Path); Solution: MX 2009
Roland Smart, of Adaptive Path, recently posted an article about his experience attending at the BMW performance driving school, where he had a chance to see how BMW uses the Microsoft Surface in the showroom. (See my previous post, BMW and Surface Computing: Video of Tabletop Interaction, on the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog).
Later in his post, Smart discusses the problems he encountered with the BMW iDrive, a computer system that combines an LCD panel on the dashboard and a controller knob on the center console.
Smart cited information from James G. Cobb's article “Menus Behaving Badly“ (NY Times, '02), regarding his user-experience with a couple of features of the BMW 744i:
Unanticipated Headrest Action
"...A block away, I adjust the seat forward. The electric head restraint rises, inexplicably, to its highest position. I readjust the headrest and move the seat again. Again, the headrest zips up, as if programmed with the wisdom that tall people have short legs.
My beagle, whose job description is ''scan roadsides for squirrels,'' is in the back, moving from one side window to the other. Each time he shifts, sensors in the seat take note, and the right rear headrest whirrs up as the left one whirrs down. For the next two hours, the headrests dance in tandem, as if trying to provide comfort for restless spirits."
Dangerous Radio Station Control While Driving: The iDrive Controller Menu
"Pull the iDrive knob back to select the ''entertainment'' menu.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click ''memory.''
Scroll to the top of the next menu and highlight ''M FM.''
Scroll to the right and click ''manual.''
Twist the knob to tune in a station.
Click ''memory'' -- twice -- to store it.
In a lesser car, you might simply twist a knob. In the 745i, tuning the radio is an interactive experience at 75 m.p.h. After a bit of this, you may wonder what's the fuss over handheld cellphones."
Smart also pointed to Jasper van Kuijk 's (12/24/07) post on the Uselog.com product usability weblog, “More iDrive Reviews; the Evolution of a Bad Idea“. Here are some excerpts:
The Truth About Cars: BMW iDrive Editorial (Robert Fargo)
"...If BMW believed that iDrive was the intuitive future of driver control, why did they equip the new Seven with two CD players? Maybe it's because the dash-mounted single CD can be operated manually, while the six-stack system requires iDrive."
Technoride: Mid-Course Correction for BMW's iDrive (Bill Howard)
"...This third variant adds the function buttons, much like programmable PC function keys (they can be programmed, you know, just that no one does anymore) or radio buttons on your car audio system, to the four-way iDrive controller."
Mobile Experience: BMW iDrive Really Sucks
"The iDrive is so freaking useless..." (My quote from the van Kuijik's source, Andy, author of the The Mobile Experience blog)
Related
Driving It: Car Interfaces and Usability (Wayne Cunningham, CNET)
Discusses Jacob Neilson's basic principles of usability and how they can be applied to car interfaces. Touches on BMW's iDrive, Audi's Multimedia Interface (MMI), the Mercedes-Benz Cockpit Management and Navigation Device (COMAND), and touchscreen LCD's.
Although Cunningham reports that he most usable interfaces he's seen in cars are touch screen LCD's, I beg to differ, given my experience with my Honda's navigation system! (I'm saving that one for another post.)
(Picture of the iDrive, from Cunningham's post)
MX 2009
For those of you interested in the managment of user experience, Adaptive Path is putting together a conference that addresses the business side of the UX equation:
MX San Francisco: Managing Experience through Creative Leadership March 1-3, 2009
Speakers:
Sara Beckman, Co-Director of the Management of Technology Program, Haas School of Business
Margaret Gould Stewart, Manager, User Experience, Google
Margret Schmidt, VP, User Experience Design & Research, TiVo
Bruce Temkin, Forrester Research
Marty Neumeier, President of Neutron
Khoi Vinh, Design Director for NYTimes.com
Dan Roam, founder of Digital Roam
David Butler, VP, Design, The Coca-Cola Company
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Jonathan Brill's Point & Do: "Your Guide to Natural User Interfaces"
Jonathan Brill consults on multi-touch product strategy and is the author of the Point & Do blog/website that is full of interesting applications, demos, links, and comments related to natural user interface applications.
Here are a few of the videos he's posted:
(You can visit his website for additional information, including how to participate in the Multi-touch Book Club discussion of Dan Saffer's book, Designing Gestural Interfaces.)
Infusion's Multi-touch Applications
David Smith's Raptor: Building Games with a Tabletop Computer
Raptor: Building Games with a Tabletop Computer from David Smith on Vimeo.
Prototype 3D Media Viewer for Surface
Prototype 3D Media Viewer for Surface from Clarity Consulting on Vimeo.
Prototype T-Shirt Designer for Surface
Prototype T-Shirt Designer for Surface from Clarity Consulting on Vimeo.
Snowboard Designer
Surface Promo from IdentityMine on Vimeo.
Prototype Whiteboard for Surface
Prototype Whiteboard for Surface from Clarity Consulting on Vimeo.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Multi-touch at DreamHack Winter 2008: Wish I could go!
DreamHack is known in the Guiness Book of Records as the world's largest LAN party and computer festival. The record set ii 20 10,544 computers and 11,060 attendees. The Winter 2008 DreamHack event will be held at the Elmia exhibit center in Jonkoping, Sweden, November 27-30.
NUI (Natural User Interface) will be at DreamHack Winter 2008. For more information about NUI's upcoming events, see Harry van der Veen's multi-touch blog. (Harry is the co-founder of the NUI-Group and the CEO of Natural User Interface)
Here is a picture of an interactive multi-touch table they demonstrated at Cityscape Dubai 2008:
Natural User Interface is collaborating with Lulea Tekniska University on the upcoming projects.
Comment:
I gather from the pictures that DreamHack started out as a "guy" thing. The pictures below are from the GRIN website. (GRIN is a game developer company located in Barcelona, Spain, and in Stockhom & Gothenburg, Sweden.)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Multi-Touch Plug-in for NASA World Wind?!
NUI group member Paul D'Intino is developing a Multi-Touch display called Orion mt. He's working on a multi-touch plug-in for NASA World Wind.
This would be a cool way of exploring the world for students who have access to multi-touch screens at school!
The plug-in is a work in progress. You can download the latest version from Paul's blog.
Paul is "Fairlane" on the NUI Group's forums.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Top 15 Blog Posts: Technology Supported Human World Interaction
As of 5/31/08:
Multitouch LaserTouch from Microsoft, Andy Wilson, Innovation...
More of Microsoft's Andy Wilson: Video of Surface Multi-Touch Computing
Urban Screens, Urban Interfaces, Digital Media, and the Arts in Public Spaces
Everyware Health Care: Microsoft Health's Common User Interface website, usable health care applications, pervasive health games...
Interdisciplinary Research in Computer Science and Information Technology: Revisiting the Equator Project
Human-Information Interaction, Usability, User Interface Design Patterns, Mobile Web Design: Random Links.
Positive examples of large-touch screen display interaction: Interactive touch wall at CeBIT: UBC's Shadow Reaching
NextWindow Demos a Multi-touch Display: A more affordable "Surface"
Design Considerations: Touch screen interaction, mobile computing, and Synaptics
Nokia's Morph Prototype and Concept
Ubiquitous interactive computing comes to the corner bank?!
Technology-Supported Shopping and Entertainment-User Experience at Ballantyne Village: "A" for concept, "D" for touch-screen usability
thirteen23's Touch Screen Information Kiosk: A GOOD Example of Touch-screen Interaction and Content
Link to article: Demonstrating the Feasibility of Using Forearm Electomyography for Muscle-Computer Interfaces
I wish I could be Johnny Chung Lee for a Day! Tracking fingers with the Wii Remote
multi touch
world
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Resources and links about touch screens, tables, and multi-touch
After reading a comment to one of my recent posts, I realized that I have several posts and links to resources about interact displays, tables, touch screens, and multi-touch on my Interactive Multimedia Technology blog that I should share with TSHWI readers here.
When I have a moment, I will update this blog with pictures, and annotations, and more resources. (I've posted some of these links on my sidebar, which I'm in the process of updating.)
SethSandler: Audio Touch
Stephano Baraldi's On the Tabletop
Desney Tan: Large displays and multiple device systems
Gerd Waloszek: Interaction Design Guide for Touch Screens
Touch Usability
Microsoft Surface
Inside Microsoft's Multi-touch: Team, Demo, Lab Tour (includes a video)
Savant's Rosie Touch Table
TouchTable
My YouTube Playlist: Cool Technology, Interactive Multimedia, and More!
Monday, March 3, 2008
NextWindow Demos a Multi-touch Display: A more affordable "Surface".
NextWindow has a multi-touch display! This display was demonstrated at a recent digital signage expo in Las Vegas.
If you are waiting to get your hands on something multi-touch, you don't need to wait to get a Surface:
I need to get my hands on one to see/feel how my projects-in-process play out on the screen. For those of you who don't follow my blogs, I tested out several of my project prototypes for my HCI and Ubiquitous Computing classes on a variety of displays, and found that I liked the NextWindow display the best in terms of resolution and touch-response. (See poetry picture share and photo-globe explorer)
Not long after that, Microsoft unveiled the Surface, which still is out of reach for most humans. I recently came across a demonstration of the Surface with a multitouch game, "Firefly", developed by Carbonated Games. The video was produced by Sarcastic Gamer.
I imagine that FireFly would work just fine on the NextWindow, even if the display is upright, not a table.
