Radial Menus, Release to Select

Engaget recently covered the release of a new mobile device by Enblaze. I like the radial interface, and the move away from buttons, which in my opinion is one of the weakest interactions of a touch screen. Some downsides of this approach include

• accidental triggering of features when you lose your grip momentarily
• Bias or inefficiency (unless it automatically switches) to switch between left and right hands
• Loss of spatial memory
• Loss of the visual efficiency in vertical and horizontal grid alignment

Multitouch on the Desktop

This video demos SpaceClaims upcoming multitouch-enabled feature for their 3D CAD system. Some of these gestures, like the '2 finger to anchor, 1 to control', I first saw in Jeff Hans work. Makes for a great looking demo, but would only be sustainable with a tablet PC or something like a cintiq before your arms fall off. From my perspective, the solution will be a replacement device for the keyboard, where your hands are not interacting directly with the screen — but are one abstraction away from, like a mouse — and that's quite the UI design challenge.

From interactiondesign.se

Testing feed — Anyone use Atom?

Hi all, 

Sorry for the slow updates, I've finally got the UI&us feed working again, I think!

If this post has appeared in your reader, please comment and let me know.

I've not got an atom feed setup. Let me know if you use Atom rather than RSS.

More posts coming soon,

Keith

Now hosted on Squarespace

Hi all,

I realize it's been a little quiet around here lately — I've been busy transferring UIandus.com to a Squarespace hosted site. On the upside, this should mean much better uptime, on the downside I seem to have broken some images in the blog comments.

If any regular UIandus readers notice anything else unusual, please do let me know!

Thanks for your patience,

Keith.

20 Apple Tablet Guesses

Business Insider Compiles the best 20 Apple tablet mockups they've found from around the web. Only three have an optical drive, but that's three more than I expected.

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On the Importance of User Testing

Who needs user testing when the Home Shopping Network will do it for you for free. (Via Geekologie)

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UX Exchange

UX Exchange is a stack exchange site for User Experience design. Looks like a pretty good resource for getting and providing solutions. (Thanks atariboy)

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Fun in Interfaces

I like it. You can watch more fun videos here. (Thanks anderson_f)

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Adding Context to the Desktop

Here's a prototype I've created to show how the Mac desktop might be augmented with contextual information/images. I've been thinking about this for a while, but was inspired by the release of the Windows application, Fences. I'm using the desktop as a simple demo space, but in reality this information could be added to any spatial file/folder view. I look forward to your comments and ideas.

UPDATE: Rémy has pointed out the Mac app-in-development, Grape (thanks!). The developer has stated it's development is currently 'on hold', but it's stated plans are quite ambitious and would be something like a 2D combo of Fences and Bumptop.

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Hot Bumptop

Bumptop, an augmentative 3D desktop for Windows, looks to be getting [edit: some] things right. Via Lifehacker

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