Can you believe it’s been 10 years since we’ve been ‘Googling’? And longer that we’ve been using other, basically identical, search engines. For the most part these search engines have done just what we expect them to do… providing us with a virtual card catalog of the millions of websites out there. I mean really… what would we do without them?
It’s curious though, that while we hear so much about the ‘Search Wars’ they have all pretty much remained the same. Sure, there have been a few minor advancements such as location based search, but compare that to the evolution that we’ve seen in other areas. I mean think about it… 10 years ago we didn’t have iPods, there wasn’t an xbox (let alone a wii!), we didn’t all carry around cell phones (let alone have constant internet access on them!), we didn’t ‘post our status’ or join the ‘People who hate Cilantro’ group on facebook (which by the way, I didn’t since I actually love Cilantro). But we were surfing the ‘information superhighway’ and clicking on those blue links… those same blue links that we are still clicking on now.
A few months ago I worked on a project for Microsoft’s Strategic Prototyping Group. I worked on the design for a ‘Synoptic Learning’ demo centered on showing exploration of the human body in 3D. It was built to be shown by Craig Mundie to several universities to get students excited about being a part of the future of technology.
The demo starts off with a (simulation) of Craig taking a picture of his hand with a Tablet PC. The system then ‘recognizes’ his hand as ‘a human hand’ and displays it on the screen. Once recognized you can: switch between different views such as the skeletal system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, etc.. It reacts to multi-touch gestures for zooming and panning to explore other areas of the body at both a macro and micro level. For whatever part of the body is showing on the screen, it displays ‘markers’, placed at very specific locations, for example, the brain, the heart, of even a particular synapse if zoomed in really far. Upon clicking or touching one of these markers, a panel is displayed showing information. Information from the internet, hilightling particularly relevant sources such as friends, professors, classmates, etc. (in the demo scenario the simulation was to show how a student might use this for both school and lifelong learning). So why is that relevant? Well… it’s all really just about new ways to explore and search for more relevant information via an experience that’s more rich and compelling.
The Search experience is going to evolve dramatically in the next 10 years… much more so than it has in the last 10. This will happen because of several factors. First off, business… Advertisers want more value from their ad money and will demand that the ‘right people’ see their ads. Secondly, content overload… there is just so much more data out there (and so much more that is particularly relevant to each of us including social media), that Search providers will have to find new and better ways to filter out the junk and deliver the good stuff. Lastly, because we will finally be able to deliver a richer presentation of data through new technologies such as Silverlight.
The Hex project that we did for Microsoft is just one of many examples of innovations in this area. Worldwide Telescope, a project we worked on for Microsoft last year, is another example of a new way to explore information. We’ve also been working on other ‘Search’ projects that really rethink the experience… ones that offer you better and more personalized content by better understand your intent. Ones that let you explore beyond the obvious to discover new content that you are likely interested in. Really, I think we are going to see a large variety of solutions… different ways to explore and visualize this information from rich 3D interfaces to more traditional, each offering a solution uniquely appropriate for the task. Users will be able to choose the best search experience to address their particular need. One thing I know… they probably won’t choose those same old static blue links.
Some exciting news this morning! We’ve been recently interviewed by a couple different journalists about our work in natural user interfaces and mobile user experience. It has been an exciting process for many of us.
Seattle Firm Artefact Joined HTC on Touch Diamond™ (via RCR Wireless)
The first article reports on the emergence of several mobile handsets that build upon the Windows Mobile OS. Martijn and Agnieszka were asked to speak to the process and benefits of design for greater user experiences in the mobile industry with HTC as the leading example.
The Evolution of Natural User Interfaces (via Smart Device Central)
In a way, this article by one of PC Magazine’s contributing editors, Jamie Lendino, builds on the IxDA event we held back in June on NUI. While we will see many more products that include NUI experiences, there are still many design challenges that are left to resolve. Not to mention, NUI does not mean it will replace GUI entirely just yet. Not until we all have the ability to control things with our minds.
Like most people (presumably), we at Artefact have us some serious Election Fever! Nervous with anticipation and wishing for the most directly participatory part of the democratic process (i.e., citizens voting for their leaders and representatives) to play out with as little voter suppression and electoral fraud as possible, we found the following sketch from Fred Armisen at Saturday Night Live to be a welcome and much-needed dose of comic relief:
Surely, you all can appreciate the SNL folks’ lighthearted jab at CNN’s John King, cable television’s reigning wizard of the Perceptive Pixel multitouch display. His skills with tapping, panning, zooming, rotating, and coloring are indeed formidable, but we can’t help but think that sometimes he just likes to monkey around.
As big advocates of surface computing and natural user interfaces, we know that multitouch surfaces and displays lend themselves to many wonderful moments of surprise and delight. Besides enabling powerful, new experiences which allow us to manipulate all kinds of data and media in order to better understand information and be incredibly productive, these impressive technologies can be a lot of fun too.
But - on a more sober note - there are certain times and places for fun, and there are others where we need technology and systems to perform their functions accurately, reliably, and intuitively for all possible users.
Like in the voting booth, for example.
According to Clive Thompson, “new voting technologies tend to emerge out of crises of confidence.” In 2000, we experienced such a crisis with the infamous “hanging chad” debacle in Florida. Since then, government and election officials have scrambled to avoid similar disasters by investing in technology “upgrades.” But so far, these experiments aren’t making anyone feel any better. Electronic touchscreen voting systems are falling out of favor, and this November’s general election is showing a significant shift back to paper ballots and optical scan technologies.
In the upcoming days, we will share our thoughts on how technology has shaped the voter experience, not just in the actual or figurative “booth,” but in the months or years before and the days or weeks after. We’ll take a brief look back at where we’ve been, then look ahead to what might be in the year 2028. We will speculate on how trends in technology, society, and culture may affect the future of the voting process – from the moment citizens register and become involved in educating themselves, to participating actively in democracy, to what happens when votes are being counted and results are being reported.
We believe the voter experience will become more user-centered (it already has, to some extent, with things like mail-in and early voting), but how exactly? Will the next generation voter experience be limited to outside the polling place or inside as well? Will the polling place be physical or virtual? Will Americans be voting online following Estonia’s lead? Will we add more transparency to the process by creating open-source code for our voting machines like the Aussies have already done? Will we cast our votes using RFID or via text message? Will it all be telepathic?!
In the meantime, though we still have dumb or suspicious machines recording our votes and possibly illegal efforts to purge voter rolls, do the Web 2.0 thing and participate, co-create, mash it up, get social, and monitor and capture your experiences (but check your state laws to make sure you aren’t breaking them!). Here are some suggestions:
This post has been long overdue, but we have good reason for it, which I’ll cover in a second. First and foremost, I’d like to share a couple thoughts with you on the things that Bill demonstrated to us that day that really resonated with the group: you can sell the design by mimicking the experience on the spot, and that the best way to know how something works is by making it yourself (even if someone else has done it). Together, these examples make a great case on the power of prototyping and experimentation as a way to understand things.
For the uninitiated, Bill Buxton has been in the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) arena for some time exploring the various ways people may interact with software experiences through input methods like touch, pen, etc. In other words, he has helped advance the understanding of all things cooler than the mouse, and more.
Selling Design by Example
Here’s a scenario: You’re in a review meeting, and your client isn’t quite bought off on the idea yet. They didn’t quite understand what a “synchronous multi directional touch based media reconfigurator” was, but the idea sounds cool enough! So how do you get them to really get it the same way you do? Mimic the experience, or really, live prototype. A live prototype enables you as a communicator of ideas and insight to demonstrate the vision by having someone participate in an activity that resembles the concept. The example Buxton makes is by pretending you’re Charles Xavier and you can move the mouse by waving your hand . While they waved their arms in the air, you would move your mouse according to their gestures. Yes, it sounds a bit crude, but the aha! moment is completely worth it.
Another example would be demonstrating different ways of doing collaborative white boarding. Bill asked yours truly to stand on the other side of our opaque doors. We would both write with dry erase markers at the same time. Surprisingly, we did not conflict with each other while writing and ended up with a nice image of a man and his dog smoking a cigar. The idea here is that as other people join the session to collaborate, their shadows provide enough feedback to indicate their position. This reduces the uncertainty in where and how people will work together in a shared spac;e especially thinking about this in terms of remote collaboration.
Now, this isn’t something that you do as a planned activity, but a skill that you become familiar with incase you need that extra bit of push to get things in the right direction. The beauty of this is how low tech it can be and how easy it becomes to learn about an experience without having to do so much work up front. This concept leads into the next idea of learning by doing.
MAKE Experiences
This isn’t exactly a new lesson learned, but a great one to remember. In the business of designing new experiences, our role is to be experts in that space. Sometimes the best way to really understand how that might actually work out is by simulating it right in front of you. Think of this as a live prototype, except you are afforded a little more time to play things out and use resources that have qualities that make for a better analogy. Those tools are coming out in a grassroots fashion where the Wiimote and all inclusive touch enabling projectors are becoming affordable components to hack and build on. We no longer need to wait for some company to commercialize the technology. We can go to the store and pick up the pieces and learn about emerging technology by being a part of the invention.
Closing Thoughts
For the most part, he discussed touch input and technologies, which is quite relevant to our times today. As the greater population familiarize themselves with touch enabled software beyond just the ATM, it is important that we continue to experiment and learn best practices regarding the various applications they will be engaged in. Luckily, we are becoming more fluent in methods that enable us to get to answers much quicker, without the need to break the bank.
The visit really helped reinvigorate the inventor in all of us. Everyone needs to continue to play and make things that don’t really result in anything but an understanding about the intricacies of different experiences. There are inexplicable things that we gain by practicing with our other senses. So we want to thank you, Bill, again for talking to us and sharing your spirit of getting down and dirty. We’ve taken that drive to continue our work with Frontier projects and the nifty little things that are coming out of it (link to DIY table). Now you see why we’ve been so busy getting this post out!
The Seattle Interaction Design Association group would like to officially invite all members and students to the next event! We’re very excited to announce that the theme of this event will be on natural user interfaces (NUI) and the future. We will spend some time exploring NUI interactions and the implications for it in the future five years and beyond. To help us with this discussion, August de los Reyes, Dennis Wixon and Sabrina Boler will kick us off with a talk on their insights on their experience with Surface and other input technologies. Following will be an open floor for conversation, networking and some hands on experience with NUI related stations. Please join us for this exciting occasion where we will discuss, learn and story tell the next generation in user experience!
RSVP with Chrish or Kevin [at] artefactgroup [dot] com
This will be a catered event with light snacks and beverages (alcoholic and non alcoholic).
Parking is available on the street as well as across the street in a paid lot.
The event is also free.
RSVP: Contact Chrish or Kevin [at] artefactgroup [dot] com including any additional information regarding number of guests or questions about the event.
by 
by 
