Hello there, internet. Time for a bit of an update.
After Austria, and back in Finland, things have been hectic as hell (writing thesis, thesis project, seminar, two to four simultaneous projects at the same time – all this in 6-8 months) and finally, yesterday we got one of our big projects done. Freedom!? Well…
That (big) project was a concept design for real-estate business, revolving around future solutions. And yes, it is now done (for now, at least). The whole job was for big Finnish media corporation, and as such it was really interesting project to work on, specially the future aspect of it, which enabled us to fully go outside the box. Also, a demo platform was created, which was somewhat of a mad rush.
However… Lately I’ve also gotten myself involved as user interface designer, in a startup working on a social mobile platform. This is going to be interesting as it is the first time I’m properly involved with mobile platform UI design.
Today Apple unveiled the much rumored iTablet called iPad. The abilities of the device (or lack of) have already caused lots of conversation out there. I naturally decided to concentrate just on user interface of the device. So, how does the Apple’s new toy go around the bends? I’ve made a quick analysis via Engadget’s hands-on video, and the pictures I’ve seen since the launch. The pictures in the article are also from that same video.
Now, granted, I do not have an iPhone here and do not possess the greatest of memories, so some of this stuff might have been already on current version of iPhone OS but, nevertheless, I’m addressing the issues still.
The Groundwork
The iPad is running new version of iPhone OS, version 3.2, so for iPhone owner the basic UI should be rather simplistic experience: few desktops, side by side, full of icons and few “permanent” icons down at the tray. Tap any icon and the application launches, simple as apple pie. Since it has no multitasking, the application handling is also as easy as it gets – There simply is no such thing. You’re either in or out from the application.
The Basics
The basic navigation within applications is simple enough – if you drill down within an application (think of artist -> songs) by tapping the top left corner of the screen, the OS always takes you back one level, to the state where you were earlier. Simple enough. This is the basics of tried and true iPhone OS. However, it’s after this foundation where the things start to get hairier.
Continue reading “Quick analysis of Apple iPad’s User Interface”
A fellow in University of Art and Design, in Helsinki has created new user interface prototype as his master thesis. It’s made with Flash and what’s more, you even get to play with it.
It has quite distinctive OS X taste and smell on it as it’s clearly Apple inspired. It’s hard to make any conclusions about the prototype since it’s basically an oversimplified version of something that could be an OS user interface, but I think the “row of windows” idea might work, at least in netbooks. Desktop systems would probably have more problems with it, since the amount of running software, and their status, is much more complex. One of the biggest problems that I see with it from the get-go is that Stripes doesn’t have any clear way of handling notifications on the go, or how does the system work with applications which need multiple windows, like Live Messenger or Skype?
Anyways. Head on, past the break to see an introductory video (in glorious HD), the prototype can be found from here
Continue reading “Man makes Flash OS UI prototype as master thesis”
Couple of guys in University of Toronto have come up with prototype for pen (stylus) driven computers/displays. It utilizes the usually untapped resource of pen pressure as part of input system. The great thing about stylus pressure is that it’s analog input, meaning that you can have “infitine” (at least when compared to digital) amount of different levels. In the video they use it for fluid zooming, video track control and dynamic controls. I personally loved the zooming eyedrop tool. Why doesn’t my Photoshop do that?
Video in the full post, head on.
Continue reading “Stylus interface with dynamic, pressure sensitive, controls”
This time around, though, it’s supposedly complete application platform, the g-speak by Oblong Industries. It’s definately the most impressive video I’ve seen, since the platform seems like complete solution, not just some weird hack, and the hand tracking seems to work flawlessly. The downside being that you need to wear stylish gloves from the future to use it, I guess they could use some consumer style hand tracking.
When the dust settles and all awesomeness is placed aside, I still fail to see how that is actually anything but cool toy (could appear at CNN, though). Compared to display+mouse+keyboard that is just awkward and slow, the traditional combination beating the G-Talk, 10 to 0.
Check the video from full post.
Continue reading “Yet another Minority Report UI, this time it’s awesome”
Remember the coolness dripping user interface from Minority report? (oh, come on! who doesn’t?) Now the new company called Mgestyk Technologies is poised to take that into consumer reality.
Now, as the you might seen the Johnny Chung Lee Wiimote interpretation, Mgestyk system seems to use the same principle, illuminating the users hands with IR-light. However, they have taken it to new level using something I’d guess is some sorts of blob recoginition, which figures out the orientation of the hands, numbers of fingers etc. This in turn seems to be hooked to something that sends keypress events to the system.
I can see one problem with this type of systems. It’s not analog, like you can see from the driving & the flying games, which is a damn shame. Though this I would presume is could be fixable; just imitate joystic events.
Although I would say that I would be much more interested of applications that would be usable to day-to-day gaminglife. Like, say, driving the car in a game without the actual wheel… it’s nice as a toy but it doesn’t have anything on real-life-psysical-wheel-and-pedals-combo. Sure these kind of applications will find their way to advertising (and to CNN 
) and later on to say TV controls but I hardly can see them as the only way of controlling, at least not yet. As an way of enhancing user control on the other hand… In my last article I’ve talked about enhancing natural behaviour and the using it in the world of gaming (posture guided gaming). I would say that “bodygesture based control” work best on the secondary means of control, that overlaps the primary (possibly haptic) means of control, giving the user more precise (and in some cases and natural way of fine tuning things.
Check the video after the break.
Continue reading “Minority Report UI, consumer style”
The spanking new iriver SPINN
I’m not talking about just GUI (Graphical User Interface) but of UI as a whole or HMI even, which involves more than just tapping the screen. Just look at how many times the user has to reposition his hands while using the brand-spanking-new wheel/roll thing. The movement is so limited that with one spin you can scroll only couple of menu items.
Check out the video from followup.
Engadget
Continue reading “Video of new iriver SPINN UI – Complicated and slow”
