The British Computer Society’s Annual conference on Human-Computer Interaction was held in Cambridge last week and I popped round to present a paper on using sketching as a design technique to improve collaborative design activity, enhance creativity, and generally help the design process. This is an approach we foster at Tinker.it! and we try to actively engage with our clients in this kind of collaborative idea generation.
Highlights of the conference were the Keynote addresses and a few interesting papers on tangible interaction (though these were old news by now). In the opening Keynote, Prof Anthony Dunne, Head of Design Interaction at the Royal College of Art presented several interactive student projects and generally perplexed the audience, many of whom are not used to thinking about interaction design from a designer’s perspective - a couple of the audience questions could be summed up as “What’s the point?” The Formal Methods (see wikipedia) guys had a field day.
UI demigod Bill Buxton presented a stimulating closing keynote which showed examples of user interfaces from days gone by, like a touchscreen interactive mobile phone from 1991(!) - no web access though, since that was BEFORE THE INTERNET. Remember that?? He suggested that we can get a lot of great interaction design ideas and bootstrap design by looking at what’s gone before. And he made a good case for studying your interaction design history books - yeah, they don’t exist. In fact, at Tinker.it! we’re currently working on a really cool retro-80’s project with some pretty novel and old user interfaces. The results will be at the BFI this weekend, so stay tuned.
The clever coders over at the Simile Project (MIT) have released a new tool called “Exhibit” for visualizing and enabling dynamic interaction with data. And it’s easier to use! Like their Timeline widget, which I used to time plot the references in my dissertation, you only need basic HTML skills and some data to look at and it is relatively easy to code something up. Simple examples and the required files to roll-your-own data visualziations are provided on their Simile Widgets website. Nice.
Sometimes, the ideal little package comes along and you don’t have to do all the hard work fabricating a physical user interace. While working on the Spot-On project at LKL, I found a very nify little “finger torch” that solves the problem of powering up an LED in a small form factor. This little guy’s is perfect for retrofitting with an LD271 infrared emitter, for Wiimote hacking, IR Motion tracking, and generally mucking about moving around infrared sources, for you Johnny Lee fans. This package combines 3 button cells, a switch and an LED into a tight little case with a hook-and-loop strap. Not sure if it’s emitting continuously or in pulses (PWM) but there’s a microcontroller under that resin blob (pic 2), so it seems likely. A little de/re-soldering and, you’ve got yourself a perfect finger-mounted IR pointer!
Wow. It had to happen, of course. Shapeways have developed 3D printing in a material other than resin or polymer, the traditional materials for rapid prototyping physical objects. They can do it in stainless steel! The magic isn’t toooo surprising though, as they use the same techniques. Stainless steel dust is fused into a solid form layer by layer. The finished model is then bronze filled and baked. The piece comes out with a matte finish but can then be tumbled for a polished finish. They appear to be targeting the maker/craft community and I can think of a lot of fiddly parts that I’d need to make. But it’s still not as good as the 3D printer that the clever guys at EvilMadScientist Labs (rock on, guys!!) homebrewed, which makes 3D models in cane sugar!
Whenever the big kid on the block makes a new announcement, it’s a popular pastime to beat up on him. People have had a lot of fun beating up on Microsoft for years and now that Google have matured and become one of the biggest fish in the sea, they are a target too. I’m not worried about everything becoming Googlified, though, and moreover when they come out with interesting new open-source technologies like Google Wave, I get pretty excited. There’s been a wave of hype since they gave their preview at Google I/O 2009, and with good reason. This communication format promises to be as grounbreaking as email and will enable new kinds of social interaction, facilitated by real-time updating, sharing, editing and even…wait for it…Natural Language Processing. Imagine real-time chat translation in dozens of different languages. I always take any NLP announcements with a grain of salt, and to be sure this technology will have its teething pains. However, the demo is extremely exciting. (I’ve signed up to the developer’s list for updates.)
At the very least, if this technology catches on it will truly change the kinds of online social interactions that are possible and will make significant challenges to both current social networking stalwarts (Facebook, etc.) and the old standby desktop applications. I can see particular benefits for collaborative document editing, technology enhanced education, an dare I say it: Physical computing.
Since Wave uses an open protocol standard, anyone can develop for it. I’m envisioning online collaborative conversations actuating physical devices and real world sensors updating Waves. The possibilities are exciting!
Interaction, Tinker.it! | admin | September 13, 2009 | 
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