Inventing Interactive

Complexity and Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace

In What Movie UIs Say About the Future, Tony Walt reviews a variety of interface types featured in some recent movies. His discussion on Complexity was particularly interesting — especially in the context of the iPad and its move towards simplicity:

I’ve noticed that UIs in feature films are continually getting more elaborate and complex. Meanwhile, though, real-world interfaces are getting more simple and intuitive. It seems an odd contradiction that the futuristic UIs we dream up for movies follow one path, while real world ones are heading down another path.

But the reason for this is simple. Complexity conveys the impression that a system is very robust and advanced, and a character’s mastery of a complex system is more impressive than it would be if the system were simple and intuitive. No matter how complex the system gets, the hero can always operate it expertly, leaving the audience dazzled by the UI and the character’s skill. In the real world, though, users are more often like Mr. Magoo than like Tony Stark or an MI5 agent. So while high-aptitude, heavily trained users might be the fantasy world for UX professionals, it’s not the world we live in. The trend toward complexity in movie UIs doesn’t give us much of a preview of the world to come.

The example he shows is one of the heavily Microsoft Surface inspired interfaces in Quantum of Solace. The UI looks cool and dramatic in the film: lots of dynamics, broad user gestures, and a modern graphic language. And, to Tony’s point, it is definitely complex — totally counter to Surface’s NUI (Natural User Interface) design principles.

Gary Flake’s recent TED demo of Pivot is a real-world parallel. Like the Quantum of Solace UI, Pivot allows the user to move between data sources, and rapidly from high-level to very detailed views. It has a similar one-thing-leads-to-another magic to it. But, watching Gary’s demo, I’m not sure the UI is any less complex.

Does Pivot suffer from having an old-school interface? Do tools like these need clear hints and suggestions for users, so they know which avenues make the most sense to explore? Or are those sorts of smarts an AI fantasy?

Simplified interfaces are definitely an important trend. But not everyone in the world is a Mr. Magoo. There will remain experts who need specialized tools. And it’s not always inappropriate for those tools to be complex. Plus – it’s a lot of fun to see fantasy UIs in film. But it’ll be interesting to see how they evolve in future films, as our expectations for computer interactions move towards simplicity and ubiquity.

Quantum of Solace

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Skinput

It’s kinda crazy – but kinda cool, too. The premise: as technology gets smaller and smaller it gets harder for us to interact with the devices. The solution: use our bodies as input devices!

Chris Harrison’s research project, Skinput, to be published at CHI 2010, is fascinating. It’s fun to imagine what this might be like in a few years as technology advances, maybe combined with some sort of augmented reality tech…

(Source ignore the code.)

Update: Chris’s Skinput was done as part of his PhD research at CMU. It was done in collaboration with Desney Tan and Dan Morris at Microsoft Research, who have this video demoing the technology.

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Nintendo’s Magic Window

Take a look at this charming new game for the Nintendo DSi — Rittai Kakushi E Atta Koreda which roughly means: “3D Hidden Images: Found it! Here it is!”

The premise is simply: explore 3D scenes and find hidden letters… Tilt the device around to see the scenes from different perspectives. What’s beautiful is how the screen feels like a window into an alternate world. What’s amazing is that the DSi has no accelerometer, it does all the visual magic by calculating movement via motion tracking with it’s front-facing camera!

Sadly it’s all in Japanese. (But there are more images on the game’s official site.)

It’s great to see how something this unique can be created with such basic hardware (even if the game-play experience doesn’t sound like it’s going to win any awards). A reminder that it’s not always technology that needs to always be the driver.

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Mag+ vs The September Issue

I’m a fan of BERG, and so was excited to discover this video of Mag+, a digital magazine design concept they created for Bonnier. BERG’s Jack Schulze talks about what people like about printed magazines… things like the of significance the cover (and our long-term memories associated with them), the sense of completion when done with the magazine, and the balance between text and images.

And they’ve developed a great looking demo. The video shows the prototype magazine in use in a variety casual settings. The UI dismisses cliche’s (like the page turn transition), and strives to be something new and digitally relevant, while holding on to traditions that make magazines appealing.

But, In the end, I don’t think their concept truly captures the spirit of magazines. It feels much too structured. They show a fixed-layout approach — that lacks the graphic and structural diversity and flexibility that print magazines offer. And the concept doesn’t address interactivity of content at all. But it’s a thought-provoking attempt at a very difficult problem.

It may seem unrelated but… this past weekend I rented The September Issue, a documentary about Vogue magazine’s editor, Anna Wintour, and the production of their September 2007 issue. Seeing all the work that went into the issue’s editorial was inspiring — giving me a new perspective on fashion and what that magazine does. And, I was amazed at the physicality of their process. It wasn’t clean or digital. Instead, it was a jumbled (but very organized) mix photos, layout walls, stacks and stacks of inspiration images, and binders of collaged photos, text, post-its, and hand-written notes. This production process comes across in the printed magazine, too.

As digital designers work to re-invent magazines, we should look to the editorial and creation process for inspiration. Not only does it offer a wealth of untapped back-stage content, but it contains the seeds for what the UI should be. Digital magazine UIs shouldn’t be a one-size, one-design, fits-all solution — but something far more flexible. They need to embrace the diversity of content, and experiences, that magazines offer.

The September Issue

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Domestic Robocop

Check out this crazy augmented reality scenario by Keiichi Matsuda.

Done as part of his masters in architecture, he describes the film:

The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.

It feels pretty retro — like something that could’ve been envisioned in early cyberpunk science fiction: “High tech and low life.” All this AR just to brew a cup of tea is a little absurd. I think a different scenario, and more subtle (and insidious) placement of all advertising, could have yielded a more thought-provoking piece.

But still, with it’s stutters, pixelizations, and contextual interfaces, it’s a lot of fun to watch.

Set your advertising level.

Something to do while you wait for the water to boil.

(Source: Timo Arnall via Berg)

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Caprica Paper

The recent SyFy series Battlestar Galactica series was incredible. A captivating vision of our pre-history. I’ve tried watching the follow-on series Caprica, which takes place sixty years earlier, but haven’t yet been drawn in. The show, however, has an interesting technology…

When a character in Caprica wants to “go online” (or whatever it’s called in their era) or exchange information, they do so through what, at first, looks like a piece of paper. The paper appears to have graphics projected onto it — and it recognizes touch and gestures. It has the qualities of a super-thin and flexible screen with built in wireless communications.

It’s great to see the folds and texture of paper and how they affect the display and influence the interaction. A tactile, yet very informal, way of using digital media. Very similar to how we currently treat paper.

But the interfaces don’t seem fully thought through. I can’t tell if the paper is single-use or disposable — as characters use both new and old, used and creased, sheets. The pages don’t seem to hold a lot of information. And they don’t show dealing with large amounts of dense content.

Singularity Hub points out that this technology is similar to Pranav Mistry’s SixthSense which was demoed at TED. So maybe it’s not so fantastical after all.

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