king talk

I am guilty of owning an iPhone 4S and I’m guilty of being excited about Siri. Recently John Pavlus wrote on Fast Company Design that Siri is the ultimate interface: none. So I’m asking myself: if it is the ultimate thing, why does it still feel so artificial to use? Turns out that usability is not so much about the input technology, but rather about trust.

It’s a bloody command line!

If you break it down, Siri is just a software that handles text input. It knows a certain set of commands that it can act upon. This puts Siri into one box with terminals or other language interfaces like Quicksilver or Enso.

The problem with command lines from a usability standpoint is that they are completely opaque – you do not know which commands the machine understands. Even worse, you have no idea what it will do if a command is misunderstood. That means that a command line is either perfect because it understands everything, or it sucks because it is unpredictable. Alas, I have yet to see a perfect command line interface.

Image by The Oatmeal

Siri is still a magnificent piece of technology. It understands more than any other such system (at least when the input language is set to English) and it can do incredible things. But ultimately, a technology is never judged by its merits, but by its flaws (or the lack thereof). Working flawlessly creates trust. But every misinterpreted result makes Siri a little less trustworthy.

For the better part of this year I worked on installation projects like Streamflow and Holodeck. But in the last couple of weeks I finally had a classic interface project on my desk again.

This also meant that I got the chance to do some interface sketches again; something I almost forgot could be fun. Here are a few things (re)discovered and found interesting.

The Purpose of Sketching

The only reason why I do sketches (and not start directly with, say, wireframes) is to organize my thoughts. When I think about an interface, I always see a few details very clearly in front of me while the big picture is still blurry. Sketching allows me to organize my thoughts, combine them and create new stuff based on older drawings.

Use a Pen you Like

Everyone has a different style when it comes to bringing thoughts to paper and the pen should support that style. I personally need a rather thick pen for drawing and settled with an Edding 1300 felt marker. It is thin enough to write annotations but also thick enough to force me to ignore details in the beginning.

(Paper) Size Matters

I sketch on A3 paper. It is still managable in its size, yet large enough to accomodate a whole group of sketches. I like to draw interesting details next to the basic layout so that I get a clearer idea of the whole composition.

Start Tiny

My sketches grow as my idea of the interface becomes clearer. While the first sketch might be just 5 by 5 centimeters, the last one might fill a whole A3 sheet.

The size of the initial sketches also depends on the pen I use.
The thinner the pen, the tinyer the first sketches should be. This keeps me from trying to figure out every detail in the first sketch and thereby also reduces the fear of doing things wrong.

How do you Sketch?

Do you use similar techniques for sketching or are they completely different? Let me know in the comments!

Fitts law is one of the most important principles in interaction design. What is it and how does it apply to various types of interfaces?

In 1954 an Ohio State psychologist published a paper named »The Information Capacity of the Human Motor System in Controlling the Amplitude of Movement«. It presented a model for measuring the time it takes someone to hit a certain control of a machine, based on the position of the hand, the distance to the control.

The author of this paper was Paul Fitts and his findings are a key ingredient to every measured user interface design process. It was – and still is – glorified by many designers and engineers, probably most notably by Bruce Tognazzini, the first application software engineer at Apple. He even developed a set of questions about it which he would ask every aspiring software engineer. So what’s so important about it? Let’s have a look. continue reading …

As i love supporting good friends when they produce such awesome work, i thought i would post something that a friend has recently been involved with. The video responds to the Munich 2018 Winter Olympics hosting bid. The interface design and animations are by Marc Osswald.

Marc was approach by Schusterjungen & Hurenkinder and Technik und Design GmbH in München to produce an interface system that would coincide with making München stand out as a vibrant and inspiring city to host the famous winter games in 2018.

The interaction helps the viewer navigate themselves around the famous Germanic city of München. The user is able to explore around the ‘proposed’ sites that are being turned into Olympic and tourist hotspots. Many of us already know that München last hosted the games in 1972 in where the Olympia site still stands to this day; I hope that if München wins the bid that the old site will both reflect and being incorporated in a way that responds to its history.

The interaction was used as a showreel piece during the winter Olympics this year in Vancouver, Canada! Bravo to Marc for such nice use of interface design!

While you are reading this culmination of words, we are heading to Linz, checking out the ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL. We will provide you with more information, after this short break…