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

Suggested Improvement to the Mac Dock

Here's a mockup I made for a slight improvement on the way Apps in the Mac OS X Dock indicate that they can accept files dragged to them. Do you think it would be helpful?

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The UX hour, Episode 3

Sorry everyone - technical issues this week (again) meant this show didn't go live. Next week for sure. I'll be switching to QT Broadcaster streaming to Justin.tv which will let me record all video, no matter what happens.

Thanks to Lukas for taking the time out to chat to me. We'll try again soon.

Join me for episode 3 of the UX hour.

This episode I'll by joined by Lukas Mathis, User Interface Engineer and creator of the popular Ignore the Code.

LIVE
Sunday 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific Time, 23:00 UTC, 9am Monday, AEST

http://www.livestream.com/theuxhour

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Announcing The UX Hour

Get a User Experience problem solved, re-educate me on a UI&us blog topic, crowdsource your design dilemma.

'The UX Hour' an effort to give back something to the community from which I've got so much. It will be one hour a week live video, chat, and skype call-in session somewhat modelled on Leo Laporte's and 37signals' live broadcasts.

To be clear — I'm not a UX 'fixit guru'! But I hope to offer perspective, resource suggestions and a forum for User Experience and User Interface conundrums. There's been a bunch of times when I've been stuck and another perspective has saved the day. It's an experiment, which may or may not prove fruitful…but with your help it can be practical convergence of designers with possible solutions and differing perspectives.
Technically, it will be a Ustream/LiveStream/justin.tv session with chat and Skype (audio) call in. Unfortunately technical and bandwidth issues will limit video to 360x240 initially. I'll supplement with a skitch.com image thread for high resolution images that everyone can contribute to. Any technical suggestions welcomed.

The first UXhour will be at:

• UTC: Sunday 19th July, 23:00
• US EST: Sunday 19th July, 7pm
• US PST: Sunday 19th July, 4pm
• Australian AEST: Monday 20th July, 9am
• NZ: Monday 20th July, 11am

Sorry Europe, I realize this will be Monday 01:00 for many of you.

Watch this space and please share your suggestions! It should be a lot of fun.

* Credit goes to Matthew Sanders, a UX guy much more experienced than I, for coming up with the name. Thanks Matt, hope that's OK!
** Note to those reminding me that the UI&us podcast has one, and only one episode to date: hopefully this live approach will be encouragement for more podcasts

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What Shall We Do with a Multitouch Table

UPDATE: Added the Reactable (thanks Vincent!)

What Shall We Do with a Multitouch Table,
What Shall We Do with a Multitouch Table,
What Shall We Do with a Multitouch Table,
Early in the morning.

I've been investigating making a multitouch table for research purposes. Some googling lead me to Georg Kaindl's fantasitc, free, touché software for OS X built to integrate with home made optical multi-touch tables (video above). This software, in combination with some detailed instructions on how to build a laser-driven multi-touch table has inspired me to think about the possibilities. It seems pretty doable.

Here is an example of a touch table based on Open source software. This kind of interface lets many users interact simultaneously. I like the round form-factor of this example.

Here's the expensive Microsoft version, 'Surface' being covered by mainstream news. Could make for a nice, if not expensive, coffee table.

The cool Reactable.

But here's the question: what would you do with a multitouch table?

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Asus Puts Computer in Keyboard

This Eee Keyboard contains an entire computer, which you can hook up to various monitors/TVs or simply use the included touchscreen (which works sometimes). Looks very similar to Apple keyboards, In Chinese. I predict some future version of this, perhaps all touchscreen, will become a major segment of computing form factors. Via Gizmodo.

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Palm Pre Intro Video — HaveFun

I like this Palm Pre video which appears the first time you turn on the new Palm Pre mobile phone. It's fun, friendly, voice-over-less, and SHINY.

There's a certain 'lightness' to having no voiceover, just music. Could this style of video be used for general introduction videos? Could we do away with voiceovers completely?

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Lessons on Making Screencasts

A developer friend asked me recently if I had made the Skitch screencast video (which I had — embedded below). As my friend is planning to do a screencast for their application too, I thought I'd share a handful of tips and tricks I've learnt along the way.

The Skitch intro video was a success with 100,000's of views, comments dispersed all through it and generally positive response. It has it's share of flaws: the music over-stays it's welcome, I sound a bit like a late-night informercial, and the whole video packs in a few too many concepts for the time allocated. But I learnt a lot making it, so here's my…

TIPS & TRICKS for making sexy screencasts

• Use the right tools for the job; Screenflow (Mac) is the best I've used, and makes getting a professional, styled result very easy. I don't know the equivalent on Windows sorry, but it's probably Camtasia. This video was hacked together in iMovie; a tool not made for the job
• Much of the initial appeal of the video is due to the attractive intro/exit images, which represent the brilliance and taste of Cris Pearson and Jason Csizmadi (who made the Skitch icon). I think those graphics act as sexy bookends to bring up the perceived quality of anything I put in the middle
• The fancy animation was all done in Quartz Composer which is bundled free with the developer tools on the Mac. QC is just something I was familiar with, but it wasn't the perfect tool for the job. There are many tools around — Keynote '09 provides some nice animation opportunities I might try out as well
• Go easy on the music!
• Beg/borrow a professional microphone, mic stand and USB/firewire audio interface for your voiceover. Use a 'pop filter' to avoid plosives from P's and B's. As any Pro video producer will tell you, good quality audio makes a huge difference on how good your video seems to look
• In the Skitch video edited in zoomed-in shots for closeups of various interface elements. This was hard to do ten, but is *much* easier in Screenflow. Take the time to zoom in on small interface elements — otherwise many elements are impossible to see in a tiny video
• Often you'll need to experiment with video output settings of your movie editor to get the right size (without resizing by the video host), and make sure you get enough keyframes in (1 per second if required)

BONUS TIP: I find a script really helps me sound confident and word sentences nicely. But writing a script which sounds natural, and syncs to on-screen action is nigh impossible. So, I found the following strategy handy:

1. Have a rough idea in your head of what you want to do in your screencast
2. Record your screencast, showing what you want and describing it as you go. Don't worry if you say something stupid, or bumble your words
3. Now listen back to your screencast and type down what you said
4. Edit your speech text to be more succinct and helpful
5. Re-record your voiceover, reading from the text document while watching your screencast

The result is a natural sounding, confident voiceover which matches up seamlessly with your actions on screen. Obviously this won't work for video of yourself, unless you're from Hollywood. Speaking of skills, be sure to watch how the pros do it — for example the great Don McAllister of Screencasts Online, and Apple make nice friendly videos that engage non-geeks.

I hope some of this helps. I'd love to see your tips and tricks I've missed.

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Senseg Tactile technology

Maybe this is the missing piece of the puzzle which will move touchscreen input to the mainstream desktop interface. CrunchGear covers technology by Senseg which apparently imparts a pseudo-haptic feedback overlay with resolution of 'tixels', pixels which are about the size of QWERTY keys.

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