February 2009
18 posts
5 tags
Practical Lessons from Games: Load Tips
Computer games can be extremely rich experiences, but this richness typically comes with some level of complexity in the gameplay and user interface. As was discussed in a previous post, gamers don’t typically read through a manual before getting their feet wet, and if the game excels at on-the-job-training, they may never read the manual. How, then, can you insure that the player is aware of all...
2 tags
Room with a View
Interaction ’09 was mostly held in the Four Seasons Hotel, and that’s where I was staying. When I checked in, the desk attendant asked if I would like a Deluxe-View Room—I had reserved a Superior Room. The former touts city and mountain views from the top floors of the hotel, while the latter claims only “city views”. I told her I wasn’t interested in paying any more for the room, and she told me...
7 tags
In Comparison: Music Search Results
There are a number of differences between Amazon’s MP3 store and Apple’s iTunes Store, but the one that makes iTunes far and away the best experience is the way search results are presented.
I was looking for a particular song that has been performed by multiple artists. When I performed the search on Amazon, I was presented with the first 24 results ranked by…well, I’m not sure what they were...
3 tags
UI Review: Griffin iTrip Auto
Over a year ago, the cassette player in my car started acting up, and I had to stop using the cassette adapter with my iPhone. I purchased Griffin’s iTrip (the 2007 model), and was relatively happy with it. It’s signal was powerful enough that I only had to change frequencies when taking long trips, so I didn’t even utilize its ability to save pre-sets. After less than a year, however, the cable...
4 tags
In Comparison: Scroll Wheel
I just received instructions in email explaining how to go about reporting mid-term grades. This bit caught my attention:
==> NOTE: You should be aware that using the wheel on the mouse (if it has one) to scroll down the page could change your assigned grade for a student. We recommend using the scroll bar on the side. <==
The reason for this warning is simple. In Windows, the scroll...
4 tags
Fish Kills & Factory Farms
I’ve shared several examples of my students’ work from the class in information visualization I taught last semester. Here’s another example that, while perhaps not the most visually engaging or best executed, may be the most successful.
Blake Stewart did some research into factory farms. There are quite a lot of them in West Virginia’s eastern panhandle, and they can pose environmental hazards....
3 tags
Taxi Hybrid
I arrived in Vancouver Thursday morning in time for the workshop I wrote about yesterday. I took a cab from the airport to my hotel, The Four Seasons, where the conference was held. As the car pulled away from the terminal, I noticed that something was different. Looking at the dash, I saw a display that was monitoring the vehicle’s fuel efficiency. I confirmed with the driver that the vehicle was...
6 tags
Designing for Touch Screens and Interactive...
I attended Dan Saffer and Bill DeRouchey’s workshop at Interaction ’09 titled Designing for Touch Screens and Interactive Gestures. While a lot of good information was communicated (Did you know that the largest portion of the brain is devoted to your mouth, while the second largest controls your hands?), much of it was old hat for me. I’ve been designing UIs for tablet PCs with touch and/or...
4 tags
Seminal Interaction Design
There is a very interesting thread that just started up over on the IxDA discussion list. Thinking about the famous architects and industrial designers known to the general public, Mike Myles posed the question, “Who do we feel are the greats of IxD?” While I believe it is too early in the field’s history to name who these will be, Dan Saffer provides a good list.
My concern lies more in the...
5 tags
First Touch
I mentioned in a previous post that a feature of Interaction ’09 was the Tangible Interaction Café. Manifest Digital provided a Microsoft Surface for us to fiddle around with. This was my first hands-on experience with the table, and while it was interesting, I was a little underwhelmed. It wasn’t as big as I imagined it would be; it’s the size of a smallish coffee table. The resolution is also...
7 tags
Patently Untouchable?
In yesterday’s post, I suggested that multitouch is going to become an expected feature of touch-based user interfaces. If your product doesn’t have it, you will reap the ire of the customers you manage to attract. What then of the patents Apple is said to have on multitouch? Will this keep other companies from being able to include such interactions? Is Apple stifling product innovation by...
6 tags
Missing Multitouch
The exhibitor space at Interaction ’09 featured a Tangible Interaction Café. There were a number of interesting things on display, one of which was a sticky note wall. The software application provided a simple UI for creating and arranging sticky notes. Visitors were encouraged to post questions or post answers to the existing questions. The display was projected at a large scale. While it wasn’t...
3 tags
Comments
While the sessions were very good, much of the value gleaned from attending a conference like Interaction ‘09 comes from hallway discussions. I had the pleasure of meeting Calvin Chan, a Vancouver local. I did the favor of hooking him up with the leader of the Vancouver local IxDA group. While chatting, he saw my name tag and asked what DesignAday is. I happened to mention the lack of...
2 tags
Interaction ’09 Schwag
So what goodies were parceled out in Vancouver?
A black bag (with a tag insinuating it was made from recycled materials) bearing the conference identity.
A black t-shirt, also bearing the conference identity.
The conference program.
Visitor’s Choice guides for Vancouver and Whistler. I didn’t extend my trip for skiing, but I know others did.
A card with the IxDA statement of value and...
5 tags
Interaction ’09 is over – interaction in ’09 has...
I’m back from Vancouver, and what a weekend it was! I’ll have plenty to write about in the coming weeks, but for now, I want to tell you what I’m feeling in the afterglow.
There were a lot of big ideas bandied about and gauntlets were thrown. As is typically the case, we leave the conference feeling optimistic that we will be able to apply what we’ve learned and do something to improve the world....
2 tags
8,284
I know my blog is small potatoes. I started it as an exercise without any expectations of it becoming popular, and that’s still my approach. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that it has gained a small, but respectable following.
Today, I was browsing through my RSS subscriptions and noticed that John Gruber had posted a link to my recent post titled “Truism” on Daring Fireball. I thought that was...
4 tags
Who do I want to see speak?
I was recently participating in a discussion about whom I would want to see speak at an Interaction Design conference. One might think that I could immediately start spouting off the names of luminaries that I look up to. I had to stop and think—hard.
It’s not that I don’t have role models and design heroes. I have a lot of respect for a good many designers and business leaders. But it is such a...
3 tags
Typocrisy
Over the past few years, I’ve taught courses about design innovation, information design and visualization, service design, interaction design, and design theory—all grand, capital D topics with fuzzy borders, big ideas, and eye-opening experiences. After getting over the initial reservations the first semester, I approached every subject with confidence bordering on pomposity and great...
January 2009
19 posts
2 tags
Truism
“Broken gets fixed. Shoddy lasts forever.”
One of the developers I work with said this after I complained about a lingering issue in one of our products. It rings true. When deadlines are tight, and there is more work to get done than there are developers or hours in the schedule, it’s not the squeaky wheel, but the jammed one that gets the grease. The lesson, then, is to make sure it gets done...
4 tags
Air Repair
Late last year I busted Yammer’s chops about the design of their Adobe Air client. They’ve since released a new version, and they’ve either read my post or received complaints from other Mac users. Most of the issues I raised have been addressed. While the preferences still refer to the “tray”, I no longer see a mention of the “task bar”. I don’t mind the location of the close and minimize icons...
