A friend showed me this cool video clip.
http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html
BUT Before watching it read this: There are two teams of people, one wearing white clothes and other wearing black clothes. Each team has a ball that they throw to another member of the same team. Your job is to find out how many throws does the white team members do.
OK, now watch the video.
Did you find anything wierd. No? Then go back and watch the video again. But only this time, don't work on counting the number of throws of the balls, just watch the video relaxed.
Did you see what you missed first time?
Cool... isn't it?
Enjoy!!!
Friday, October 21, 2005
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Do what I mean
When we hear about the user interface talks, one theme always sticks out 'Do what I mean'.
We expect our gadgets, our software programs to do what we mean and not what we tell them. But this is a challenging problem. The means by which we can "tell" our gadgets what we want, are not sufficient to convey them what we "mean". This is the gap between syntax and semantics.
The innovations in User Interface strive to bridge this gap. Ipod is an excellent example of such innovation. The advances in the desktop GUI is another.
What is it that makes it so hard a problem? Or why is this a problem at all? Here are my 2 cents on this topic, in context of my Ipod.
Why is ipod's interface more user friendly than previous music players?
Let us first see, what we want a music player to do? - play a song, go ahead/backwards one song, forward/rewind a song, browse the playlist. Each of these tasks are traditionally placed on buttons. Buttons are perhaps the only input mediums we engineers would imagine an electronic gadget to have. This is because the implementation of the music player (or any other electronic device) has been based on binary switch logic. But that is not what a user would expect. So the designers of the ipod used a wheel to hide the digital implementation to serve the analog semantics. Browsing should be as smooth a process as moving your finger is. The song skipping is however a digital command and a switch should suffice for that, so clicking the same wheel will serve the purpose.
Easiness is another aspect of ipod's UI. An interface should be intuitive. A gadget should have advanced features, but the user interface should serve only the most intuitive purpose first. So for advanced users few more controls could be stuck on the device. But that would be so ugly. Imagine having Up/Down buttons, Settings button, a button to turn on the backlight of ipod. Apple's solution to this problem is ingenious - Instead of providing these additional controls in space, hide them in time! You use the same buttons that you use for song playing, but for different length of time and voila! you uncovered an advanced feature of your ipod. It sounds so obviously 'intuitive'! Then why hasn't every gadget done this. That is because, bridging this gap between syntax and semantics requires fine engineering of the product. Time multiplexing several functions on a single hardware switch, needs carefully written code. The polling techniques to read the switch, the contraints on the size of the code - all need ace engineering. Only then, the meaning that the user expects gets conveyed to the gadget.
I've more thoughts on this issue, but 'll save them for some time in future. Till then, any comments are welcome.
We expect our gadgets, our software programs to do what we mean and not what we tell them. But this is a challenging problem. The means by which we can "tell" our gadgets what we want, are not sufficient to convey them what we "mean". This is the gap between syntax and semantics.
The innovations in User Interface strive to bridge this gap. Ipod is an excellent example of such innovation. The advances in the desktop GUI is another.
What is it that makes it so hard a problem? Or why is this a problem at all? Here are my 2 cents on this topic, in context of my Ipod.
Why is ipod's interface more user friendly than previous music players?
Let us first see, what we want a music player to do? - play a song, go ahead/backwards one song, forward/rewind a song, browse the playlist. Each of these tasks are traditionally placed on buttons. Buttons are perhaps the only input mediums we engineers would imagine an electronic gadget to have. This is because the implementation of the music player (or any other electronic device) has been based on binary switch logic. But that is not what a user would expect. So the designers of the ipod used a wheel to hide the digital implementation to serve the analog semantics. Browsing should be as smooth a process as moving your finger is. The song skipping is however a digital command and a switch should suffice for that, so clicking the same wheel will serve the purpose.
Easiness is another aspect of ipod's UI. An interface should be intuitive. A gadget should have advanced features, but the user interface should serve only the most intuitive purpose first. So for advanced users few more controls could be stuck on the device. But that would be so ugly. Imagine having Up/Down buttons, Settings button, a button to turn on the backlight of ipod. Apple's solution to this problem is ingenious - Instead of providing these additional controls in space, hide them in time! You use the same buttons that you use for song playing, but for different length of time and voila! you uncovered an advanced feature of your ipod. It sounds so obviously 'intuitive'! Then why hasn't every gadget done this. That is because, bridging this gap between syntax and semantics requires fine engineering of the product. Time multiplexing several functions on a single hardware switch, needs carefully written code. The polling techniques to read the switch, the contraints on the size of the code - all need ace engineering. Only then, the meaning that the user expects gets conveyed to the gadget.
I've more thoughts on this issue, but 'll save them for some time in future. Till then, any comments are welcome.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Curtains for Windows
This is about two new tools I found that are supposed to enhance the Windows experience.
Despite lots of windows bashing, it remains the fact that it is the operating system of a layman. But that doesn't give MS any excuse not to improve upon the UI. According to me, one of the biggest shortcomings of Windows desktop is it's lack of support for multiple workspaces. It is such handy utility to have that it is inexcusable not to provide that with Windows desktop. Thanks to Linux desktop developers (or whoever invented this notion before linux) for supporting this utility in GNOME,KDE desktops.
Fortunately one does not have to stop for the MS to provide this utility in the OS. Third party tools have been around that give you this experince on Windows desktop as well. I had used Exceed's multiple workspaces feature and was using it for a short while (soon I switched to linux through VNC). Yesterday I found this tool Virtuawin that gives you this feature and with enormous control over your UI experience. You can have any number of virtual desktops in any layout XxY. The switching between desktops can be done using mouse, keyboard. You also have a say on where your mouse pointer will be after you switch. A tiny icon in taskbar is used in most intuitive ways possible. I however did not run it with lots of windows open - to test the performance.
The other tool I found was Task Switcher. When you press Alt+Tab this utility overrides the default bar at the center of screen by a window, with the list of running applications. Sadly it doesn't work well with my WindowsBlinds. I like linux's temporary window raising utility over Windows flat bar. This particular tool might fulfill that need of Windows users.
I found these utilities from an article posted on /.. It has few more tools as well.
Despite lots of windows bashing, it remains the fact that it is the operating system of a layman. But that doesn't give MS any excuse not to improve upon the UI. According to me, one of the biggest shortcomings of Windows desktop is it's lack of support for multiple workspaces. It is such handy utility to have that it is inexcusable not to provide that with Windows desktop. Thanks to Linux desktop developers (or whoever invented this notion before linux) for supporting this utility in GNOME,KDE desktops.
Fortunately one does not have to stop for the MS to provide this utility in the OS. Third party tools have been around that give you this experince on Windows desktop as well. I had used Exceed's multiple workspaces feature and was using it for a short while (soon I switched to linux through VNC). Yesterday I found this tool Virtuawin that gives you this feature and with enormous control over your UI experience. You can have any number of virtual desktops in any layout XxY. The switching between desktops can be done using mouse, keyboard. You also have a say on where your mouse pointer will be after you switch. A tiny icon in taskbar is used in most intuitive ways possible. I however did not run it with lots of windows open - to test the performance.
The other tool I found was Task Switcher. When you press Alt+Tab this utility overrides the default bar at the center of screen by a window, with the list of running applications. Sadly it doesn't work well with my WindowsBlinds. I like linux's temporary window raising utility over Windows flat bar. This particular tool might fulfill that need of Windows users.
I found these utilities from an article posted on /.. It has few more tools as well.
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