The consensus from the brief review of the interface comps last week was to simplify. Trying to put everything on one screen was confusing, and I had lost a clear hierarchy in the design. This revision takes those comments into consideration. I’m still playing with the treatment of the masthead and of the button layout.
It’s not there yet, but I think I’m getting closer. (more…)
The first web interface wireframes for Cloud Reader. Overall comments: too busy, too complicated for what is supposed to be a simple service. Good advice, back to the sketching. (more…)
Some exploration of possible logos for the Cloud Reader project. I think the silhouette of the cloud is a bit literal, but most responses from the class were supportive of it.
The first version of the logo. Many people indicated that it reads as “cloud beader”.
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Brainstorming some sensors and possible applications. Two quick examples. Wake-up Coffee and Deflation.
There are several habitual activities that I do upon waking up, regardless of what time that ends up being. One of them is to make some coffee. Many coffee makers have timer features, but my preferred device, a single-serving espresso maker does not. Even if it did, I don’t always get up at the same time every day, so I’d have to reset the timer each time. (more…)
I’m running a linux-based home theater pc (HTPC for the uninitiated). Originally the user interface was solely MythTV, but lately I’ve been trying out XBMC, Boxee for media management as well asvarious fullscreen web apps (Hulu, NY Times Reader, Netflix WatchNow, Adobe TourTracker) to see what does and doesn’t work from ten feet away.
MythTV, XBMC and Boxee work well on the TV. Each can be controlled almost completely with arrow keys / directional pad. Understandably, the web-based interfaces are lacking. The text is generally too small to read at it’s default sizes and simply zooming to text sizes unpredictably alters the page flow. These interfaces also require the use of a pointing device. A gyro mouse provides control over the pointer, but most hit areas demand a high degree of precision which is difficult to attain from the couch. Also, reading a large volume of text at a distance is not an ideal experience for me. This was one reason for the design of Cloud Reader – presenting a serial string of words one at a time, occupying the entire screen. The trade off is temporal display for spatial limitations.
The interaction with mobile devices is the next considerations. There was an interesting thread on the IxDA mailing list asking folks for their common uses for devices [google doc]. This will demand some attention. Here is a list from the doc:
On the bus – Knowing what is my stop, Waiting for the bus – When is it coming?, Read something while waiting, Listen to music, On the motorcycle – Control music (play,stop,pause,next,prev), Answer a call, At the supermarket – Compare prices with other stores, See what i need to cook a recipe, Running (general working out) – Listen to music, Navigate, Keep track on speed, route etc, At the bank – carrying needed documents and numbers, Lost – Being able to point where is North and South, Needing to get from point A to point B – Find a route, look at a map, locate the closest gas station/bank/post office, Relaxing in the park – Read a book, Listen to music, Look at a map, Take a picture, Out and about – Blog, Twitter, upload photo, At a store – Comparing prices and availability with other vendors, looking up someone’s Amazon wishlist (or other registry), Watching tv – Looking up facts about actors/movies/shows, looking up the next playtime for a show/movie I might have missed, See an advertisement (print, billboard, etc) – Visit advertisers site, schedule DVR, locate nearest movie theatre, find a gas station, Looking for a gas station – Best gas price, Service station amenity list (food, car washing…), In a grocery store – Compare prices, look up weights, cross off grocery list, review recipes, Charging – Synch with computer, look up new items to download, apply fixes, While reading a book – Look up for possible meanings,synonyms and antonyms of words thru google, While travelling – To check the ticket status of waiting list tickets, With one hand – can’t this apply to any of the above?, Sleeping – Alarm, in a meeting (office) – taking notes, display datas, Walking from a meeting to another – see the address
(Oh! Naiveté! A laypersons notes on revolutionizing UIX)
1. Tagging / metadata. – Non-hierarchal storage system. Mandatory (semi-automatic) tagging system. Tags used to enable following spatial recall / gestalt grouping / temporal arrangement. (Spotlight / Google Desktop Search / OpenMeta)
2. Portal – Extension of metaphor of cloud computing. device becomes access to cloud-based data. thin-client via internet. No saving / opening / closing files. All changes are automatically, atomically applied to the storage system(s). Can revert to any point using a versioning system (time-based?). (Time Machine – subversion)
3. Spatial memory – Ability to recall location relative to current position. Use extremely granular geotagging. Continuously update shortcuts to media and applications used frequently / recently in the current location. How to affect this without actually shifting objects around on the user’s computer? (Google – Lattitude service)
4. Temporal Recall – Remember when something was last used, rather than it’s location or name. Objects arranged in groupings of time periods.
5. Gestalt grouping – Assembling similar objects together. Objects may have several, overlapping group memberships. Incorporating the with above concepts.
All of these serve to augment the user’s capacity for recall and act as an extension of their memory. Inverting the data push into pull would extend senses and awareness of environment beyond natural abilities.
Designing buttons for mobile devices. Each button has to evoke a word from a provided list.
happy, angry, scared, fast, nervous, cute, dangerous, search, glamourous, full, skinny, noisy, painful, tiny, quiet, hot, cold, sexy, free, autumn, childish, breaking news (more…)
Our first assignment was to redesign the front page of the New York State Motor Vehicle Services website. I’ve recently had to navigate it to update my driver’s license, and found it very frustrating to use. The front page is overwhelming in the number of links and choices initially presented.
In the spirit of John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity, I used this as an experiment in asking “What can you add by taking something away?” – In particular, I was attempting to add some sanity through organization. My notes detailing the reorganization are below. (more…)