What are user interfaces? They serve as a medium of communication between man and machine, whether it is a set of levers on an engine lathe or a keyboard and a mouse to control a personal computer. In the interaction design industry, recently, the shift of focus is from GUIs to NUIs. GUIs are Graphical User Interfaces and have been the mainstay of personal computing for the past 15 years. NUIs are recent – Natural User Interfaces aim to eliminate the learning curve of a man-machine interface and translate natural body movements to actions in the machine.
Natural user interfaces have progressed to the extent of trapping neuron transmissions to control objects. How far will designers go to make interfaces natural? Does the power of thought count as an input device? At what point does the interface stop being a barrier and becomes ubiquitous? At what point does an interface stop being an interface and becomes a direct connection between man and machine.
NUIs are in their infancy of-course. One of the major drivers of this paradigm is the iPhone and its multitouch interface – never before has a device has successfully implemented a non-tactile interface with so much success. Other recent examples include the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Move and Microsoft XBox Kinect. All these gaming systems aim to eliminate that one piece of hardware between the console and the player – the controller. It could be argued that the Wii and the Move still use controllers – true, but most of the input involves gestures on the player’s part. NUIs are hailed for the lack of a learning curve – learning the interface as such does not require practice or reading a manual.
The beauty of traditional tactile interfaces lay in their physical feedback. A beautiful circular metallic knob that controls volume – the smooth sensual movement as it snaps from volume level five to level six. Push buttons that feel like you were depressing your finger in a viscous gel. All this tactility and “fun” is lost in the transition from analog to digital control. There is a pattern in some of the nostalgia that is seen in some of the apps that are designed for the iPad – the shiny graphic buttons, sliders that resemble radio sets from the 60s for example. Designers are taking advantage of the nostalgic wave that is taking place now in a variety of fields – fashion, television, graphic design and product design.
Fashion is transient. This wave will crash, and then another will take its place. Kids these days don’t grow up using desktop telephones, so the rotary dial system would be completely unfamiliar if it was used on a mobile phone aimed at youth. The pretty sequences we see in movies like Minority Report and more recently Iron Man 2 inspire us to make some of it possible.
So what would interfaces of the future look like? Will we see them at all or will they be hidden from sight? Augmented Reality no doubt will play an important part in enriching daily experiences not too far in the future. NUIs would have evolved into being completely integrated into our daily personal computing devices. Will the concept of an interface exist at all? Humans would somehow directly interact with machines without the need for an intermediary.
The key to not taking the fun out of the experience is to find the right balance between tactility and naturality.
My Design Process:
Rework:
First Draft:
Industrial Downtown LA – unimaginative buildings from the hey days of mfg in USA, migrant workers in their thousands, heavy vehicles transporting goods and one building that stands out from the crowd – “American Apparel is an Industrial Revolution” (in Helvetica bold – a font they’ve made their own). And what a revolution it is!
Started in 2001 by Dov Charney, this business grew from modest nothings (selling basic tees on street corners) to 300 retail stores worldwide today. The characteristics of the founder are evident in the values of the factory and the brand today. Edgy, chaotic, bold and ever-changing, American Apparel is one of those businesses that have evolved into a living entity – one that is organically growing (out of control?).
Even though the numbers may show that American Apparel isn’t doing very well for itself (the company’s stock prices are rock bottom since early 2010), their employees definitely do not think so. Our tour guide – Alex spoke of the company with a glint in her eye – a sense of loyalty that comes only with happy employees. Their incentive based factory wages give their workers purpose in their efforts – allowing them to earn anywhere from $8 per hour to $30 per hour based on performance. A creative environment to work in, it seems as though their CEO Dov is one of those extremely hands on (pun intended, with all his sexual harassment cases) people who live the brand.
Lean manufacturing methods are employed on their factory floor, preventing overstock. Turnaround times for new designs are very short as well, sometimes even as short as 3 hours – from selection of fabric, design, cuts, sewing to a sample in Dov’s hands.
They take the “MFG in USA” tag very seriously! The factory is completely self sustained, everything from construction to graphics to IT services is done by employees in house. They do not rely on any external vendor for any of their business functions. This may turn out to be their achilles heel. The company is growing so fast and so quick that they are not able to maintain value for their shareholders. Their sales figures are falling, and so is the stock price. Where is the tipping point? And when will this giant living organism implode? Interesting questions that will only be answered by time.
So what is tomorrow’s TV watching experience going to be like? On-demand entertainment? meh, that’s so 2000s.
Let’s look away from cable, and towards what is a good direction today of the future of TV – media centers. Apple TV, Boxee, Qvivo, Google TV and Roku are just some of the media centre apps/devices that come to mind when you think of what you can do to improve your television viewing experience. All of them do some things well. How can you take the best of what each of these do and put them in one place? Make another app? Maybe not. Make one device/app that does it all? How often have you heard that line?
All these services do the same mistake with their content. The focus is on apps and the service that would use to get the content and not on the content itself. Let’s say I’m interested in a recent bollywood movie. I open up my media center, open the netflix app, search for the movie, wait, and it tells me that it isn’t available! I try iTunes, still no luck. Hulu, no way. An obscure streaming service in India – YES! Now I can eliminate all this bouncing around and go directly to the content if I was able to.
I don’t think content categories will change very much in the near future. Movies will still be movies, TV shows will still be TV shows and live sports will still be live sports. Interactive TV you say? That’s for the media execs to worry about. But if that does become a reality, all it will do is add another category of content. Focus on the content and not on the service. Whether I’m watching the movie from Netflix, iTunes or hulu should not matter as long as I get the best experience. How do this make business sense? This will drive services to get even more content, at even lesser prices. Consumers would even out between all the available services based on price and quality.
What about displays? How many of us have screens big enough to support high definition content? How many have more than one of these around the house? Display technology will evolve, sizes will increase, prices will drop – but they will still remain displays framed with a border sitting in a room in the house. There will still be devices – content providers – that are hooked onto displays (or embedded within them) to bring you your favourite content.
Is it going to be “social”? Definitely. But not just your friends and followers on facebook and twitter being able to like, comment and retweet what you are watching currently. Let’s consider an ideal experience – I would like to see what my friends are watching. I would like to be able to watch them instantly – streaming from some service or the other that I shouldn’t have to worry about subscribing to. If my friend is able to watch it, so should I. What else would be social? Watching the same movie, synchronised, sitting in two different parts of the world? Sharing experiences? A lot of this relies on bandwidth availability as well. I’m assuming that in ten years, all urban areas around the world will have access to bandwidth enough to stream 1080p content instantly (far-fetched? maybe not).
Of all the media centre devices/apps that I spoke about earlier, Google TV seems the closest to this direction. There’s still a long way to go for content providers to make all their content available on the internet. Services that bring these to us are constantly updating their libraries. What we need is one experience that is content centric and social.
Bare tracks lay in wait for the mammoth locomotives to chug by. I wait, on a bench for my train to arrive. The light is dim, it is the time for the sun to rise. Artificial lights turn everything into blue white. A stray dog limps by looking for someone to feed him his morning meal. It is quiet. I am early. Tea vendors are a bright spot on the platform. Crowded with morning tea drinkers, colorful with the variety of fatty edibles on sale. The newspaper vendor walks by, breaking the silence with a sharp call of the morning headlines. I am enticed to buy one.
The lights are still red, when will my journey begin? Large victorian pillars that have stood the test of time remind me to be patient. An announcement sounds – a melodious tone and then a crisp voice says that the train will be delayed. The sun has risen now. Warm yellows fill the air, and light up the haze of the morning cold. Almost immediately, the platforms begins to fill. More impatient people break the silence with their chatter. All waiting for their journeys to begin.
The train arrives. I brace myself for loud horn as the spanking new electric engine passes me by. As the train slows to a stop, the crowd lunges for the doors. I am caught in the confusion; desperately holding onto my bags and my clothes, I dive into sleeper coach. The crowd thins, people have found their seats, and have bid their relatives goodbye. Some tears fly.
I wrestle into my side berth, warm morning rays light up the coach cut only by horizontal iron bars of the windows. Warm sun, cool air, I think of all the times I have travelled the railways. I am flooded with childhood memories, memories of sitting in dad’s arms at the nearby train station waiting for the 7:15 AM Madras Mail to pass by. The love for the railways started at a young age methinks.
The lights have turned green. The distant horn of the engine signals departure.
Those were the days, in memory now like a lost love.
Picturesque surroundings, undulating terrain.
It’s where we were free birds, flying flights of hope and imagination.
Learning the ways of the world, climbing the ladders of success.
Times of innocence, times of experiments.
Where time stood still, and yet flew by so quick.
It’s where bonds were forged in stone, lifetimes lived.
Broke the chiseled confines of our upbringings and discovered new.
Ideas, experiences, stories and lives exchanged,
In the world of Manipal that was our home.
We lived every second, every minute of every day
Lived like there was no tomorrow.
Nature’s elements played an orchestrated symphony,
Sun shone, lashed away at the spring flowers,
Clouds burst, quenched the parched land,
Winter came, and went, in a fleeting moment.
We were prepared, to go head first
Into the world that beckoned like a known enemy,
We fought, lived and loved every moment.
Those were the days, in memory now like a lost love.
Everyone has one. Some more fun than others, some more restrained than others, some more creative than others, and some more rigourous than others. Eventually, it turns you into the adult that you are now. The formative years of childhood is probably restricted to years 8-12 in my opinion (not based on any studies, that’s from personal experience). It’s that time of your life when you’re smarter as a kid and are more aware of the world as it is. It’s when you begin exploring the world beyond mud castles and eating dirt. It’s when you discover who you are and what you like doing.
My childhood was filled with building stuff. Origami books, paper planes, paper airports, paper what-not. Lego, mechanix, gwbasic. Looking back now I see in childhood-me a desire to create. A desire so strong to break apart and make anew. It gave me a thrill like no other. Also, I grew up most of the formative years in school with both my parents working. They probably felt that I needed something to keep myself occupied and kept this desire of mine satiated with more and more stuff I could build. I can’t thank them enough for that.
I would come back from school to an empty house with food on the table. I would eat, watch ninja turtles and go into my work room. The third bedroom in our house was filled with my stuff. A bed where noone could find place to sleep because it was strewn with paper all over. I had only one lego architectural set. With that I built everything from houses to ships. I remember even planning out the layout of the houses that I built. I had built whole airports out of paper and glue. Also among my creations was a chain link about 4 feet long out of blanks of cigarette packing (waste material brought back from office by mom for my exploits). However hard I try to recall it’s design and how I managed to make it, it eludes me. And I’m guessing the thought will keep bugging me till I find it.
At this point in my life with a ton of new things going around me, I am forced to think about my past and how I ended up being where I am. I get immense comfort in the fact that I’m here because I know what I want to do and I love doing it. As ironic as it is, I’m doing what I loved doing as an unassuming kid who would spend most of his holidays creating things.
Dare I say, A person spends a lifetime satisfying only his childhood desires.
As you all may know, auto rickshaws in Bangalore aren’t the most friendly of the lot. Getting around in Bangalore, specially if you don’t know your way around, is expensive and troublesome. There are ofcourse the good guys who claim that the bad guys have defamed the community by tampering with meters and harrasing customers for extra money. I also know of a friend who had 2 teeth broken because he refused to pay the extra 10 bucks demanded from the driver. The police are probably hand in pocket with some of their unions and hence they are unafraid of any police action. I use auto rickshaws pretty frequently and I make sure that I get into autos only if they go by the meter.
So here’s a solution – Gandhi guerilla style. It’s a quiet guerilla movement that will be driven by the consumer and will eventually end up becoming a validation system for autos. Atleast that’s what I want it to become. It’s pretty simple really, print these stickers (or take them from me) and stick the relevant ones anywhere on the auto when you finish a ride. Slowly but steadily these stickers will become more visible as more people take to this movement and the auto drivers will also aspire to have these “auto-friendlys” on their autos. The friendlys will become like what badges are for pizza delivery boys. A rating and a validation system that at a single glance will tell the customer that this auto driver is a good guy and will not cheat you. Here are the intial three stickers – the meter friendly, the people friendly and the traffic rules friendly.
And here’s what autos may look like with these friendlys on them.
A Friendly Auto
Ofcourse ideas for more friendlys are always welcome and maybe I’ll put out the template so everyone can make their own friendlys. Let me know what you think about the campaign. Whether this will help people or will drivers take advantage and print fake ones? Let’s organize an “Auto Friendly” tweetup to distribute these stickers sometime!
A question to Microsoft Windows users: Have you found yourself right-clicking on the desktop and hitting refresh for no reason at all? And maybe 3-4 times for good measure?
Does it really accomplish anything? Or it is an illusion to satisfy the user that his computer has suddenly been cleansed of all the dirt that was accumulated while working it so hard? I haven’t researched what really happens when you RightClickToRefresh, but I’m sure it’s pretty insignificant (guys at MS: do correct me if I’m wrong).
I moved to a mac recently and I was shocked and surprised that there was no equivalent to the RCTR in Mac OS. The closest that came was RightClickToCleanUp. But then that does something – it puts the icons in your desktop in a neat order. But I don’t like my icons in order, and more often than not I find myself using it simply because I need to satiate my RightClickToRefresh itch.
I have done some thinking and introspection as to why I have the itch and I have come upon a theory. I call it “The Zero of User Experience”. Much like Aryabhatta who many years ago discovered that was something in nothing and called it Zero. What is Zero? Zero is that number in our number system that denotes a value of nothing. Extend the same concept to usability and interfaces and you have things like RCTR in Windows. Photoshop has the arrow tool that doesn’t really do much else but help move your layers around. Alias has a context menu that literally says “Nothing”. Solidworks has the Esc button that deselects everything and cleans up your selections.
What do you guys think? Do you feel drawn to find a function in your favourite software that accomplishes nothing? Do you have the RCTR itch? Hit me up in the comments!
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- https://github.com/Prinzhorn/skrollr
