Inventing Interactive

Of Mice and Windows

June 13, 2011 - In Present

The tale of Apple popularizing the mouse in the 80′s — taking it from the relative obscurity of the labs at Xerox PARC — is a technology and industry legend. But the fact that mouse had earlier beginnings, invented by Douglas Engelbart (and featured in his Sketchpad demo) in the 60′s is less discussed. Malcolm Gladwell examines this evolutionary sequence as part of his fantastic article in the New Yorker entitled “Creation Myth.” Gladwell describes…

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Crazy UIs

June 3, 2011 - In Past, Present

Generated Crazy I started the day reading a fascinating article on generative interfaces, “Can Algorithms Help Design the Ultimate Gestural Interface?” At first I thought it was about generating, algorithmically, user interfaces — something I’d love to see. What would a UI that was designed by a computer be like?! (I searched, but closest to this was work on robots generating their own spoken language.) But that wasn’t the case. Instead the article was about…

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Quick Post: Multiscreen Patterns

May 31, 2011 - In Present, Quick

Designing for multiple screens brings a wide range of design issues. Take a look at this collection of Multiscreen Patterns from the German design Studio Precious. The slideshare presents six different screen ecosystems. Definitely worth a look. Simple and beautiful.

Animal Interactions

May 25, 2011 - In Present

Warning: This post may destroy any credibility I may have. But it’s not all bad — I get to post a picture of my dog! What does it mean for animals to interact with digital media? Do our pets care about our phones or computers? Our dog Suki (@suki_the_dog) seems completely oblivious to screen-based media. Sure, she may paw at my laptop, but that’s just to get my attention. The TV can blast away and…

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Searching for Serendipity

May 24, 2011 - In Present

I’ve always thought serendipity is important — something that I’m not sure I’d normally even bother to mention. But a couple recent things have made me want to not only build more experiences that support increased serendipity, but find ways in get more of it in my life, too. Ethan Zuckerman’s CHI keynote “Desperately Seeking Serendipity” is so full of interesting ideas that I’m having trouble getting it out of my mind. He’s taken his…

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SixthSense: Newspaper showing live video news

Handheld Projectors

May 17, 2011 - In Present

There’s something a little amazing that happens every time you set up a video projector. All the cables get connected, you turn the projector on, and during the process of placing it, the image may show up on an unexpected surface. It’s cool, so you move the projector around to see what it looks like in other places. For example, at home, we often watch movies outside on a screen, but have tried projecting onto…

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3 Dreams of Black

May 13, 2011 - In Present

Take a look at “3 Dreams of Black” — an interactive web-based music experience. It’s part song, part music video, and even a little crowdsourced content. Directed by Chris Milk and developed by Google, it’s an interesting followup to “The Wilderness Downtown“, which they worked on last year. The interactivity is fairly limited — restricted to left-right panning at select moments — but that this is all being rendered live, in the browser, is pretty…

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Codebending with Illucia

May 11, 2011 - In Present

Ok – so at first “codebending” is going to seem like a pretty weird idea and little more than a fun geeky art hack. But it’s way smarter than “just” that. Illucia is a codebending instrument from Paper Kettle that allows the user (performer?) to connect different software programs together and control their interactions. It’s mostly games — like “Soviet Life Sequencer” that combines Tetris with Conway’s

Microsoft Gesture and Display Research

May 11, 2011 - In Future, Present

Here are a couple demos from Microsoft Research that I’ve recently discovered that are full of interesting future interaction ideas. The first video asks what we could do with touch-interfaces if we weren’t limited to finger (and multi-finger) input. What if we could use our whole hand? Called Rock & Rails, the technology demo proposes three new gestures types: a fist, the side of your hand extended straight, and the side of your hand curved….

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It Gets Better

May 10, 2011 - In Present

Just about every time I watch a video from the It Gets Better Project site I cry. The interactivity is anything but interesting… it isn’t much more than a bunch of videos that users have uploaded to YouTube. But as content goes, it doesn’t get any better. The site, started in September 2010 by columnist Dan Savage and his partner Terry, was in response to several students taking their lives after being bullied in school….

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