UI&us is about User Interface Design, User Experience design and the cognitive psychology behind design in general. It's written by Keith Lang, co-founder of Skitch; now a part of Evernote.  His views and opinions are his own and do not represent in any way the views or opinions of any company. 

Navigation
Categories
External Articles

« New Podcast - Interview with Wil Shipley | Main | The Common Melodies in Mother's Voices »
Tuesday
Jul152008

You are broadcasting now

You are broadcasting right now. In fact it is suspected that why we have so much sclera in our eyes is because it helps other humans to know what we are focussing on.
Sclera
Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

(Thanks for the use of your eye, sis!)

The act of blushing is so refined that we blush more on the side where people are watching.

We are built to broadcast our thoughts and intentions. And yet, our computers pay almost no attention to us. In fact, your computer right now doesn't know if you are sitting in front of it or not. It's best guess is that you moved the mouse or trackpad lately. But it doesn't know which way you're looking, if you're resting your hands on the keyboard or mouse. It doesn't know if you're happy or sad, hot, cold or in a hurry.

The iPhone has a sensor that knows if you're holding it up to your face -- to turn off the touchscreen light and sensing. A mouse and keyboard could benefit a lot from this idea.
Mouse that knows if it is being held
Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

hand hovering keyboard
Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Eyetracking and face expression tracking is a little harder.. but we're approaching a state where it's becoming technically reasonable to do this on an average machine (with some sensitivity to privacy of course).

What do you wish your computer could tell about you?

 

EmailEmail Article to Friend

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Editor Permission Required
Sorry — had to remove comments due to spam.