[HN Gopher] A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design (2011)
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A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design (2011)
Author : yarapavan
Score : 35 points
Date : 2024-10-14 16:18 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (worrydream.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (worrydream.com)
| big-green-man wrote:
| I like this perspective and I share it. It frustrates me to watch
| the initial Demo of Apple's concept of a touch oriented computer,
| seeing multi touch demonstrated, moving objects around, and to
| sit here typing this on something like it, except it's one finger
| at a time and multitouch was dumbed down into pinch to zoom and
| little else. I can't stand the fact that almost all computer
| interfaces outside smartphones are interacted with using only the
| right wrist and index finger. The future is what we have now but
| transparent, what we have now with no bezels, what we have now
| but made of disposable paper, what we have now but the size of a
| table. It's just not compelling to me.
|
| And it's because it's hard imagining a completely new way of
| interacting with computing technology. People that are able to do
| that don't get paid script writers salaries, they get paid Steve
| Jobs salaries. And they are worth billions to organizations
| capable of making them a reality.
| jonbell wrote:
| Funny side note: he was paid $1 of salary
| seism wrote:
| When I am forced to use a phone or tablet of a brand and size I'm
| not used to, everything seems wonky and out of place. Yet I can
| adapt to a different brand and size of car in a few minutes.
| Replacing tactile memory with skeuomorphism, is like a prosthetic
| arm that can extend 10m to replace your sickly feely biological
| one. I'm always up for advocating for more arts & crafts as part
| of interaction design.
| vintagedave wrote:
| The worst of it is even the Pictures Under Glass have got worse.
| They used to be designed to look like things, so you'd see
| something that looked pushable and push (tap) it.
|
| So even if there was no tactile engagement there was visual
| engagement communicating tactile interaction.
|
| Now even that's gone. Our Pictures Under Glass are bland and flat
| and look like translucent acrylic and, well, glass.
| Lalabadie wrote:
| Back when Apple announced "3D Touch" (by name before showing
| it), I dearly hoped it was _finally_ introducing above-the-
| screen finger detection. Instead it was pressure sensitivity,
| and even that got dropped a few years back.
|
| I'm still hoping for a hover-like mechanism that allows
| touchscreens to have non-commital interactions. As you say,
| touch is surprisingly devoid of depth for its maturity and time
| on the market.
|
| I'm hoping some level of above-the-screen finger detection
| comes eventually, because if it gets to a mainstream
| distribution stage, it opens the door for bleeding-edge to aim
| for larger detection distances, and eventually seeing hand
| gestures above the screen.
|
| Whether it's in this form or something completely different,
| our screen interactions need to be broadened, especially in a
| direction that allows users to signal intent but not commitment
| (like hovering with a mouse, or looking with eye tracking).
| mncharity wrote:
| > it opens the door for bleeding-edge to aim for larger
| detection distances, and eventually seeing hand gestures
| above the screen [...] our screen interactions need to be
| broadened [...] signal intent but not commitment (like
| hovering with a mouse, or looking with eye tracking)
|
| My laptop used to have several cameras (flopping up from
| behind screen) for 3D hand tracking, (crufty) keycap touch,
| and head/gaze pose. With shutter glasses, overlaying a
| slightly-raised transparent top-down view from a keyboard cam
| was helpful and tolerable. Browser-based stack. Input fusion
| with diverse latencies required app state rollback. Fun(ish).
|
| > _finally_ [...] even that got dropped a few years back
| [...] eventually [...] broadened
|
| This was profoundly frustrating. Waiting for a couple of
| giant companies, interested only in _extremely_ difficult
| mass consumer markets, to make tech available so it can
| _afterward_ be explored and nitches probed, with patents
| shackling everyone else, was just... sigh. Pharma turning the
| nation 's explore-exploit dial hard over regrettably leaves a
| lot of paths forward nonviable.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _A brief rant on the future of interaction design (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31511361 - May 2022 (132
| comments)
|
| _A brief rant on the future of interaction design (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21116948 - Sept 2019 (153
| comments)
|
| _A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6325996 - Sept 2013 (35
| comments)
|
| _A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3212949 - Nov 2011 (150
| comments)
| bbor wrote:
| This is incredible work, thanks for sharing. That said, does
| anyone know what kind of technology they're gesturing to? Maybe
| I'm really stuck in the present, but short of tangible holograms
| I'm not sure how we'd make tactile computing devices.
|
| The keyboard is tactile, and I've long dreamed of augmenting
| Alexa by covering my house in purpose-specific buttons, but that
| seems like a short road. Even the most advanced HCI device I've
| ever seen proposed by a consumer company--Meta's Orion wristbands
| that read hand movements by measuring the electrical signals in
| your wrist--aren't tangible in the slightest.
|
| What am I missing? Can any fellow futurists point me in the right
| direction? I don't need "doable today" or even "the technology is
| worked out", but ideally I'm looking for something more doable
| than tangible holograms. See https://xkcd.com/678/
|
| EDIT; the VR suits from the Three Body Problem books come to
| mind, using tiny actuators and temperature controls (thermal
| actuators?) to simulate touch. I could see that in a glove for
| sure, and that's probably the most futuristic tactility gets at
| this point, but I doubt it'll ever see fully-body usage, both for
| technical feasibility and user convenience reasons. There's a
| reason the TV show replaced them with brain-modulating
| headsets... I guess _that's_ really the end dream.
|
| What is a tangible hologram (or any interface, really) other than
| an illusion, at the end of the day?
| _rpf wrote:
| Bret Victors current project is Dynamicland, a real space he's
| been building to explore computing within the physical world,
| with humans at its center. The system he invented is known as
| Realtalk, and is integrated into the building, where cameras
| and projectors engage with the humans within it.
|
| https://dynamicland.org/
| alanbernstein wrote:
| > a dynamic medium we can see, feel and manipulate
|
| I wonder if this is a "pick 2" situation.
|
| Touchscreen: see and sorta manipulate
|
| Orion: manipulate (in only the weak sense that it uses more
| than one finger)
|
| Braille display, haptic glove/suit: feel and see (redundantly?)
|
| In my touchscreen-biased mind, I can't imagine a technology
| that could do all three of these, which I would want to use
| regularly or carry around, or wear for hours at a time.
|
| The touchscreen, combining the "see" with at least a tiny bit
| of the "manipulate", is actually an amazing step, but it may be
| a dead end. I've seen research into things like tactile
| screens, with adjustable surface height. But the benefit it
| gives is evidently not worth the cost in development,
| manufacturing, or complexity.
| bbor wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time, really thought provoking... Will
| definitely be kicking that around in my head. No
| counterpoints.
|
| I was going to correct you that Orion is just a baby step
| towards Minority Report holograms (aka plain ol' non-tangible
| holograms), and that reminded me: the famous opening scene
| had lots more than holograms!
|
| Specifically, they had physical objects (harddrives, knobs,
| spheres, etc) that didn't seem to have much electronics
| actually in them, but that were tracked and responded-to by
| the computing system in a dynamic way. For example, easily
| passing data between the hologram and a little ball that you
| can easily move to another display, give to someone else,
| etc. in a completely seamless (read: AI-managed) way.
|
| That might be my biggest hope for the future, while we're
| waiting on tactile gloves. This kind of thing:
| https://www.behance.net/gallery/105147921/Apple-x-
| Procreate-...
| RevEng wrote:
| I don't know about full 3D manipulation, but we used buttons
| and switches and levers for decades. They worked great. They
| are easy to see, feel, and manipulate. They can't move or
| change, so muscle memory develops naturally. You can use them
| while not looking and with gloves on - essential when driving
| or operating other dangerous machinery. The natural constraints
| of them meant that they were ready to discover and learn.
|
| Over time we got better at packing more into a button.
| Multimodal buttons became a thing, and once alphanumeric
| displays become practical, a single knob or arrow keypad to
| scroll through tiny menus became common. Twenty years after
| that, everything is a flat, touch sensitive button, and more
| and more we hide them from even being visible until they are
| interacted with.
|
| I believe the reasons for this are two fold. First, they are
| futuristic. People are drawn to new, shiny things, even if they
| are functionally worse. The second is cost. Physical switches
| are quite expensive compared to digital electronics. As
| touchscreens have become cheaper, they have replaced more
| physical inputs. Similarly, they have replaced discrete
| indicator lights, meters, and other single purpose indicators.
|
| The cost savings is modest in terms of an entire product, but
| businesses will spend days saving one cent in production costs
| because it adds up over millions produced. It usually amounts
| to a small percentage of profits, but they'll chase anything.
| bbor wrote:
| Great points, it just occurred to me that I'm biased towards
| high level applications! HCI equally applies to our
| appliances, factories, and vehicles to name a few, and I
| absolutely agree that physical affordances are not quite as
| outmoded as Musk might say they are.
|
| Fun fact that we don't talk about enough: I'm not sure if
| it's still happening, but at some point, the controls in the
| spaceX shuttles were touchscreens running _javascript_. It
| brings me joy (and obviously fear!) to imagine an npm
| _node_modules_ directory makings it to space... I think the
| consensus is spot on that there can absolutely be too many
| touchscreens.
|
| More fundamentally your answer doesn't really speak to what I
| was thinking of, though: general computing. Buttons and
| switches are great for purpose-built machines, but the
| applicability to general computing is minimal. How could one
| possibly fundamentally expound upon the keyboard or mouse?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I had the privilege to work with one of the best Interaction
| Design teams around (DDO). It really opened my eyes to the
| process.
|
| I enjoyed this rant. I know it's old, but this is the first time
| I've seen it.
| mncharity wrote:
| https://www.dubberly.com/ - liked
| https://www.dubberly.com/concept-maps
| https://www.dubberly.com/projects
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Cool! They're still around!
|
| Hugh Dubberly was a pretty decent chap. I liked working with
| him.
|
| They had this _massive_ inkjet printer, and would deliver
| room-length charts.
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