Digia unwittingly demonstrates the stupidity of designing 3D user interfaces without first researching the ‘why.’
Seriously, five minutes with this UI and I’d be using that netbook as a frisbee.
(Source: youtube.com)
Posts tagged user experience
Posted 1 year ago
Gamasutra - Features - Game UI Discoveries: What Players Want
A look into the design of in-game user interfaces.
Posted 2 years ago
Where can the iPhone replace a desktop?
For better or worse, the vast majority of my day is usually spent in front of a Mac. Whether it’s my work laptop or my home iMac, the familiar OSX desktop is pretty much a steady feature of my weekday.
Yet, I have recently noticed that there are a few common tasks for which I instinctively reach for my iPhone, even when I’m right in front of a computer screen. For example:
Google analytics: The excellent Analytics App on the iPhone provides me with a quicker overview of site visits for the current day than Google’s own pages, and does not require me to go through a login. When I need to check out how many hits a particular story has gathered, the iPhone is my first port of call.
Twitter: For some reason I seem to prefer using Tweetie on the iPhone than any of the many desktop Twitter clients available on the mac. The iPhone experience just feels more personal, like sneaking a quick peek at what’s going on in the twittersphere within the privacy of a small screen. Tweetie’s uncluttered interface has a lot to do with it.
The Calculator: Yes, it’s ridiculous, but I find myself reaching for the iPhone’s calculator application rather than firing up the desktop version.
Movie Times: The Flixster application is a perfect example of an application upon which I rely on almost exclusively when it comes to checking movie times in my local area. honestly can’t remember the last time I used the web to find out where a movie was playing.
Last.fm: I find it easier to dedicate my iPhone to the role of Last.fm player than to dedicate a browser window to the desktop equivalent.
Xbox Live: When it comes to checking is any of my friends are online for a game of Gears of War 2, the iNXEs app on the iPhone provides a faster, better alternative to many of the dedicated apps and dashboard widgets I have found to perform the same function.
If there is one characteristic all these applications share is that they are streamlined to the achievement of one sole purpose, and designed to provide quick access to one specific set of information at the expense of all else.
In effect, their presence on the iPhone turns the device into an extension to the Dashboard concept, whereby each application (or widget) provides an optimised interface to one specific type of function or information.
As a result, the overall user experience for a given task on a device like the iPhone can, sometimes counter-intuitively, be superior to its desktop counterpart. Add this to the more private, personal experience provided by a handheld device, and you have a powerful combination for repeated use.
Reader Question: Where has your handheld device replaced your desktop?
Posted 2 years ago
![David Merrill demos Siftables, the smart blocks.
This isn’t the first time the concept of physical user interfaces has been demonstrated using interactive blocks, but it’s certainly one of the most realistic and complete demonstrations of how the rather abstract concept can be applied to real-world tasks.
Worth watching.
[Thanks Stu for the heads up]](http://27.media.tumblr.com/Obagqm8fnk23jqr4dNIBItZYo1_r1_500.png)
David Merrill demos Siftables, the smart blocks.
This isn’t the first time the concept of physical user interfaces has been demonstrated using interactive blocks, but it’s certainly one of the most realistic and complete demonstrations of how the rather abstract concept can be applied to real-world tasks.
Worth watching.
[Thanks Stu for the heads up]
Posted 3 years ago
The Internet as a Sixth Sense
There have been a number of interesting agumented reality concepts hitting the headlines in the last few years, but this once from MIT has some real potential.
What I like about this concept is its novel use of projection to display data about anything, on anything - something now possible with the advent of relatively cheap, pocket-size LED projectors.
Very interesting set of videos after the jump.
Posted 3 years ago
Assume nothing of your users
- <upper-> it fears change
- <upper-> just like grandmas that refuse to use microwave ovens
- <vlMbh> my grandmother used to warm up her microwave oven!
- <vlMbh> i went over for dinner one day and she turned it on for 4 mins on
- high
- <vlMbh> with nothing in it
- <vlMbh> i was like.. uhh what ARE you doing
- <vlMbh> " warming it up "
Posted 3 years ago
It's a feature, not a bug
When confronted with user reports that the User Account Control (UAC) dialog in Windows 7 could be turned off by a simple piece of malware, Microsoft responded that this was “by design.”
That’s right. UAC was too ‘noisy’ in Vista, so Microsoft has allowed more user control of the feature. So much so, in fact, that now a simple VBScript can turn it off without the user’s knowledge.
The mind boggles.
Posted 3 years ago
Please say, “911, Emergency”
I came across an idea proposal for a way to prevent accidental dialing of 911 “by children who are allowed to play with their parent’s cellphones.”
The idea? Add voice verification to confirm the 911 call, by requiring the user to calmly state “911, emergency” into the handset.
Genius. Let’s see you try that when your house is on fire.
Reviewing technology with an occasional sprinkling of art and humour.
