[HN Gopher] A brief rant on the future of interaction design (2011) ___________________________________________________________________ A brief rant on the future of interaction design (2011) Author : picture Score : 205 points Date : 2022-05-25 22:12 UTC (2 days ago) (HTM) web link (worrydream.com) (TXT) w3m dump (worrydream.com) | notjustanymike wrote: | Why is it that, without fail, design sites talking about user | experience have a tiny gray font? | picture wrote: | You may use reader view, or zoom in. I opine that good design | isn't just about being usable to the lowest common denominator | (like huge font for grannies) but rather giving the user the | power to customize their own experience. | notjustanymike wrote: | This means the "good design" comes from the additional | functionality provided by the browser to overcome to the poor | choices of the site. | avgcorrection wrote: | Well this _granny_ doesn't have perfect vision so it's nice | when the default isn't tuned for perfect human specimen, | especially when the default doesn't seem to buy us anything | (what does grey text accomplish?). | | Not that this website is _that_ bad... I just find this | attitude to be annoying. :) Maybe I'm still in partial denial | about my deficiencies. | | Thank goodness for my browser's reader mode though when the | website has way too long lines. No credit to the website | designers, of course. | underbluewaters wrote: | I've seen demo mobile apps that used the vibration motor to give | haptic feedback, simulating the feel of buttons and such as you | moved your finger across the screen. At the time I thought for | sure the next iPhone would feature "Haptic Touch" apis and it | would just be a given in a few years. Still waiting... | bobbylarrybobby wrote: | Well there is haptic feedback on the newer phones, usually to | tell you you've crossed some drag- or timer-based threshold, | but yeah it's pretty limited in scope. | PhilipTrauner wrote: | _UIFeedbackGenerator_ (https://developer.apple.com/documentatio | n/uikit/uifeedbackge...) has been around for a while, but it's | not exactly capable of "positional" feedback. Still, vibrating | in response to actions such as rearranging list entries or drag | interactions that require a certain distance threshold to be | passed can feel quite satisfying. | douglaswlance wrote: | The future of digital interaction will be three dimensional and | skeumorphic. | city17 wrote: | I also have a preference for more tactile inputs and was looking | around earlier at some different controllers, e.g. MIDI sliders, | knobs, buttons that you can connect to pretty much any | application. Or alternatives like the Surface dial or Streamdeck. | | Interested to hear if anyone has a setup like that that feels | nice and is actually useful? | nathias wrote: | bring back old school mechanical knobs | bmitc wrote: | It's really unbelievable how effective knobs, switches, | buttons, dials, and dedicated screens or displays are. | a4isms wrote: | Says EVERYONE who drives a late-model car that sticks | everything behind the sliding fingers under glass UX, from | climate controls to the volume of the stereo. | | This is a known problem, and one that will get people killed, | because it demands that drivers focus on the infotainment | screen and not the road to do a mundane task that their tactile | fingers could easily perform on their own with mechanical | controls. | nfoz wrote: | Using synthesizer hardware is a joy of an experience. | tenebrisalietum wrote: | It's interesting tha synthesizers went through this already. | | In the 70's and early 80's--analog synthesizers--everything | was knobs, sliders, and real buttons. | | Then everything was stuffed behind a minimum of buttons and | maybe 1 or 2 knobs/sliders if you wer lucky, and a plethora | of options and menus buried behind often a thin 16x2 LCD | display. | | That was the early to mid 90's--analog sounds in electronic | music started making a comeback, and by the latter half of | the 90's and beyond everything started to have knobs and | sliders again, even if the internals were no longer analog. | | I do wonder if not for that trend driven by the TB-303 and | what not, would that even have happened to synthesizers. | | Maybe the same blacklash and pendulum swing will happen with | everything else, but it seems like there's more pressure than | ever to make users fit the product and save costs that way, | rather than make the product for users and accept the price | increases. | TremendousJudge wrote: | The most praised multi purpose keyboard maker out there is | Nord, and the whole point of their stuff it's that the | interface is physical knobs and buttons | bowsamic wrote: | Imo, the idea that it would be great to type on a glass touch | screen is Steve Jobs biggest and most long-lasting misstep. | | Overall I think it's interesting and bizarre that both modern | technology and visions of the future have totally sacrificed | tactility. It seemed to be all about removing the real world: | tactile interfaces are old fashioned, in the future everything | works in a way that has minimal connection to reality, e.g. a | Minority Report style UI, and so obviously is ethereal and cannot | be touched. It makes me wonder why we had that ideal in the first | place, and whether that ideal shaped technology or vice versa. | Why did we fantasise about losing tactility? | | Something I've also noticed is that we almost seem to be unable | to imagine a programmable tactile interface, even in science | fiction. I guess humans wanted "something extra/futuristic/other- | worldly", and that meant having things be unlike anything else in | the world, which as the author points out, means something | without tactility. | mrbombastic wrote: | IMO tactility was sacrificed in favor of versatility because we | don't have a material that is both tactile and versatile and | simulating such a thing is hard. And IMO it was a good tradeoff | to make, instead of a tactile keyboard you have a keyboard that | is infinitely adaptable. Maybe that changes with AR advances, | could be gloves? embedded chips that send electrical impulses | to your hands? an actual material versatile enough to be | tactile and adapt to all the needs of a modern computing | environment? But all those seem pretty far fetched to get into | consumers hands in the near future and certainly back then. | There are slight advances here with things like haptic engines | in phones but it is still a far cry from the feel of a real | tactile substance. | xav0989 wrote: | IIRC, there was a US Navy ship whose stations had physical | buttons, knobs, and switches that were software controlled, as | in they mapped to different function depending on if the | operator selected the weapons, or navigation, or radar, etc. | functions. | | You still had the tactile interface, but you gained the | flexibility of the dynamic interfaces. | | Not sure how well it performed though. | picture wrote: | I think that's a pretty common design pattern for | industrial/reliable applications. Multi Function Displays | have been common in "glass-cockpit" aircraft for a long time. | The F16 notably also feature master mode switches on the | group of buttons below the HUD. It allows the operator to | quickly switch between air to air, air to ground, dogfight | modes, etc, bringing up relevant displays and controls at a | moment's notice. I've heard that pilots consider F16 one of | the best designed in terms of interface. | | Soft buttons are also pretty common for test and measurement | equipment. I own many modern digital oscilloscopes and | spectrum analyzers, all of which feature physical buttons | around the screen that are selected by software to do | different things | March_f6 wrote: | Did I read this article wrong? Are hands a metaphor for | something? A lot of people can't and/or eventually won't be able | to use their hands. This was as true in 2011 as it is now. | sleepydog wrote: | Are the "pictures under glass" interfaces critiqued in the | article really any better for those who cannot use their hands? | I have full use of my hands, so I am not sure, but the few | people I know with limited hand control use some specialized | input device that they can operate with their mouth, eyes, or | head. | causality0 wrote: | The war on tactile interfaces is doing incredible amounts of | harm. Personally my life got perceptible better after I | 3D-printed mouse buttons and glued them on top of my laptop's | clickpad. | nfoz wrote: | Could you share your model for this? How well does it work? | I've considered doing the same. | | The set of laptops I'm willing to run non-macOS on is limited | by the set of laptops that have physical touchpad buttons, and | that's a diminishingly small market segment :( | causality0 wrote: | They work quite well. The biggest difference is that they're | attached to the same plane so the sides of the gap between | them don't move up and down independently of each other, | which makes it slightly harder to tell which side is which by | touch. The pad can still sense your finger through them so it | knows where you're clicking. I can post the model after I | return from vacation next week, but you'll have to shape and | size it for the target touchpad anyway. It's essentially just | a flat rectangle with a radiused corner that's half the | length of the touchpad, with a semi-circle in the middle to | index my finger on. The thickness is 0.6mm for the tallest | part. This will vary depending on the geometry of the bottom | edge of your pad. I used silicone glue so it's easily | removable with no surface damage. | | https://i.imgur.com/yQj8TYJ.jpg | kwatsonafter wrote: | Does anyone know if it's possible to visit DynamicLand in | Oakland? Massive Bret Victor fan. | carapace wrote: | I think kinematic UI's would at first seem new and fun, but then | become tedious. Sign language has less bandwidth than speaking or | typing and expends more calories. | egypturnash wrote: | "So here's a vision of the future that's popular right now. | [video embed, black with the text THIS VIDEO IS PRIVATE]" | | I like this vision a whole lot. | [deleted] | morley wrote: | Is there any research into causing flat surfaces to simulate a | bump while still remaining flat? I think I've read about | interfaces that can raise or lower some parts for buttons, but it | would be a lot more convenient to have a glass display where you | can "feel" the outline of a button electro-chemically without it | actually being there. | pbhjpbhj wrote: | They do fingerprint reading through the screen on mobile phones | by using ultrasound; I wonder if you can up the intensity to | provide a haptic affordance to on-screen 'features' like | buttons and such. | munro wrote: | Great stuff, especially posted to a programming community. I | wonder if coding a system was more spatial & tactile. I think may | just make it easier to get back into a project after setting it | down for a month or more, who knows. | seltzered_ wrote: | Title edit request: from 2011 | | https://hn.algolia.com/?q=a+brief+rant+on+the+future+of+inte... | dmitriid wrote: | Doesn't matter if it's from 2011. It's evergreen | rchaud wrote: | Except for the Youtube embed shown right at the start of the | article. | ghoulishly wrote: | Mirror of the video if you're interested: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KytMZOLyF4Q | makeitdouble wrote: | Perhaps it's the 2011 date that makes it odd, but I think the | author is picking way too much on dumb marketing commercials, | when there are countless of companies in the world shipping | actual products fitting these ideas. | | For instance Nintendo has been exploring that space for so long, | coming up at mass market level with different paradigms to | interact with their devices. Microsoft has a long history of | UX/UI research and actual shipped adaptive products, including | for people with special needs. We're going way past 2011 but | there is also a ton of research on better haptic feedback and | ways to make the "R" part of VR more real. | | On the other side, I'm sure I'm not alone in disabling most of | the input haptics and sounds and animations when setting up a new | phone or laptop. Glass is fine for visual things, and I'm also | fine with only visual feedback when using hand tracking on the | Quest2 for instance, and the stuff I am manipulating are menus | and lists, and I'm fine with no tactile feedback for | fundamentally virtual concepts. | bmitc wrote: | Can you give other examples of countless? You've listed two | companies, Nintendo with their Switch controllers and Labo and | Microsoft with things like the Surface Dial, that are some of | the only companies exploring stuff like that. You make it sound | like it's ubiquitous when 99% of people interact with the | digital world through one or two fingers (or a few more with a | keyboard or a hand with a mouse). | makeitdouble wrote: | Google went with squeezing on past phones, Sony put a | tremendous effort on the trigger mechanism for the PS5, Panic | playing with the crank handle on the Playdate, to stay on | very public products. And yes I see a lot more on up to come | products designed for VR. | | I agree 99% of people interact with very shallow feedback, | and that's I think a reasonable state, 99% of the | applications we use are effectively shallow and require very | simple input and only have a basic output (it makes me think | about the amount of people using no more than 2 or 3 keyboard | shortcuts for their daily tasks on a desktop computer, | they're not stressing about getting more from these | interactions) | | PS: I feel silly not mentionning on Apple or Samsung's stylus | with pressure and angle sensitivity... | crooked-v wrote: | Steam's VR controllers and the Steam Deck play with a | distinction between "touch" and "press" with | buttons/joysticks, for more intuitive multimodal controls. | For example, various Steam Deck control schemes have gyro | aiming, but only while you have thumb touching the stick. | It's one of those things that's very intuitive in use but | hard to explain the "why" to somebody who hasn't tried it. | munificent wrote: | I think in many ways, you're reinforcing his point. Your | perspective here is one that doesn't even _consider_ ways of | interacting beyond touching a flat screen. | | When you talk about haptics, you only mention passive haptic | feedback: annoying bumps, buzzes, and rumbles. You're right | that those are annoying and mostly useless (though the haptic | feedback on MacBook Pro trackpads is quite nice). | | But that's not what he's talking about _at all_. His whole | point is that interacting with tool 's _isn 't_ "fundamentally | virtual". That's a _choice_ that technology has made because | screens of pixels are so amenable to software control. | | If you want to, say, decide which restaurant to eat at, there's | nothing intrinsically visual or 2D about that. We assume that a | screen is the only natural way to do that simply because we're | used to that paradigm, which is _exactly_ the problem he 's | ranting about. | | Imagine a "restaurant tray". It has, I don't know, physical | sliders and buttons at the top where you can specify what kinds | of restaurants you're OK with. When you do, a bunch of tokens | appear on the tray for every potential restaurant. You and your | party can reach out and grab them. Group a few together as | potential ones. Sweep the ones no one wants off to the side. | Maybe let each person take and hold their favorite, or pull | them over to their side of the tray. Swap and trade them like | poker chips. | | Think about how much more immediate and collaborative that | process would be for reaching agreement on where to go. | | _That 's_ the kind of stuff he's talking about. You might be | thinking, "Well it would be too hard to build a system that | creates physical tokens for every possible restaurant." But, | again, that's a technological problem we'll only solve if we | have a vision for those kinds of experiences in the first | place. | | If we can't see beyond pixels on screens, we'll never get | there. | rchaud wrote: | > "I call this technology Pictures Under Glass. Pictures Under | Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our | hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade." | | Anybody remember the 2008 Blackberry Storm, the company's iPhone | competitor? It had a "clickable" glass panel, to bridge the UX | gap between the tactile KB BlackBerry phones and the touchscreen- | only Storm. Touching an icon required tapping the glass panel, | which had some give, making it feel like a big button. | | It was far from a perfect experience. The touch events all | worked, but I always felt that I was about the break the screen | with each successive touch. | pruett wrote: | Legend | blenderdt wrote: | Since this is from 2011 you should take a look at his future of | interactice design: | | https://dynamicland.org/ | Pulcinella wrote: | I mention it elsewhere, but unfortunately I don't believe | Dynamicland exists anymore as a physical space. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31531398 | wly_cdgr wrote: | Young interaction designers have been ranting about this for a | while, but I for one do not want what they think I want. I like | flat screens and want flat screens, even in VR | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | For perhaps the ultimate example of "pictures under glass", | contrast this product: | | https://www.slatemt.com/ | | with a traditional mixing console, full of physical objects to | press, grab, twirl, slide etc. | smm11 wrote: | Not totally on topic, but I just bought a new Mac running | Monterey. I've been running Win 10 and 11, and Ubuntu since 2014 | or so, otherwise. | | And the current OS X interface is nauseating. How we had decent | GUIs when computers were 1/1000th what today's are, and this | flat, ugly, undefined, pasty BS is acceptable is beyond me. | | No joke, I'm returning the M1 machine and will go back to dual- | boot Win11 and Ubuntu. Sorry, Apple, but you've lost your way. | twic wrote: | I suspect this emphasis on tactility is sentimental nonsense. But | we should definitely give it a serious try to find out! | | What i would be much more interested in is eye tracking. I have | three screens covered in interactivity, but the speed at which i | can interact with them - which is the speed at which i can | explore and experiment - is limited by the speed with which i can | grasp my mouse, then shove it around to position the cursor. I'm | convinced i could do many things so much more fluidly if the | machine could see where i was looking at transfer focus there in | a flash. | WillPostForFood wrote: | How do you feel about typing on an iPad or iPhone or membrane | keyboard vs a keyboard with actual keys and switches? | codalan wrote: | I don't anticipate replacing my keyboard and mouse with a | touchscreen for doing software development work. | | If it was measurable, I would guess that productivity plummeted | for most companies that replaced the traditional | computer/mouse/keyboard with a tablet. I remember going to an | AT&T store years ago and watching the customer care rep | struggle to get my information into their system with an iPad. | A five minute data-entry task on a computer took this person | almost 20 minutes on their tablet. | ajdegol wrote: | It's not sentimental nonsense: it's enactive cognition. | | I believe this is a hugely under appreciated capability of | humans, possibly one of the keys to a type of genius. | tablespoon wrote: | > I suspect this emphasis on tactility is sentimental nonsense. | | I don't think it's sentimental to think it's undesirable to | have one of your senses muted. | a4isms wrote: | Drive a modern car where everything that used to be a button or | switch is now hidden behind glass. Wanting the return of | mechanical controls with tactile feedback is not | sentimentality, it's usability. | euroderf wrote: | This glass-based crap is the most blatant evidence of | pervasive user interface CHEAPNIS. Yes, bring back buttons... | and big chunky toggle switches... and especially rocker | switches <3 Ditch the useless glossy glass crap and the el- | cheapo membrane buttons that rot out RSN. | pbhjpbhj wrote: | Rant: my car (Zafira) has an indicator stem that returns to | centre when you activate it. Normally they stay offset so | it's very clear the indicator is on. Pair that with a too | quiet 'tick' sound and the indicator on the driver's panel | being hidden behind the steering wheel ... it makes the | vehicle so frustrating to drive. Argh, HCI is so important. | | Also, while I'm here, the steering wheel is adjustable in | height as in many cars, but I've never seen a vehicle with | indicator lights on the driver's panel at the top and | bottom (they're all at the top) so there's always chance | you can't see them when you adjust the wheel height. I've | driven a lot of cars as we often hire. Seems like a | fundamental flaw to me. | [deleted] | DonHopkins wrote: | Speaking of interaction design, nice mechanical switches, how | fantastic hands are at manipulating things, and The Adams Family | Thing: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tQq7OTygyg&t=59m35s | | >Constructionism2016 Session 16: Plenary 4, Cynthia Solomon | | >One of the funny things Marvin Minsky did in his younger days is | that he spend time with another very famous computerist, Claude | Shannon. | | >And Claude Shannon and Marvin came up with The Most Useless Box | In The World. | | >It, uh, I have a video of somebody... What it is, is um, | actually, Claude -- Marvin designed it, and Claud built it. | | >And it's a box. You turn it on, and a hand comes out and shuts | it off. It goes back in. | | >People don't know, but that's Marvin and Claude Shannon. Claude | Shannon was the father on information theory. That's what he did. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useless_machine | | >The best-known "useless machines" are those inspired by Marvin | Minsky's design, in which the device's sole function is to switch | itself off by operating its own "off" switch. Their popularity | has recently been raised by commercial success. More elaborate | devices and some novelty toys, which have a more obvious function | or entertainment value, have been based on these simple "useless | machines". [...] | | >The version of the useless machine that became famous in | information theory (basically a box with a simple switch which, | when turned "on", causes a hand or lever to appear from inside | the box that switches the machine "off" before disappearing | inside the box again) appears to have been invented by MIT | professor and artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, | while he was a graduate student at Bell Labs in 1952. Minsky | dubbed his invention the "ultimate machine", but that sense of | the term did not catch on. The device has also been called the | "Leave Me Alone Box". | | >Minsky's mentor at Bell Labs, information theory pioneer Claude | Shannon (who later also became an MIT professor), made his own | versions of the machine. He kept one on his desk, where science | fiction author Arthur C. Clarke saw it. Clarke later wrote, | "There is something unspeakably sinister about a machine that | does nothing--absolutely nothing--except switch itself off", and | he was fascinated by the concept. | | >Minsky also invented a "gravity machine" that would ring a bell | if the gravitational constant were to change, a theoretical | possibility that is not expected to occur in the foreseeable | future. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw2Bq0HYu1M | | >The Ultimate Machine | | >Davide Moises (1973-), The Ultimate Machine nach Claude E. | Shannon, Die Sammlung David Moises, Multimediale Installation, | 2009 Technisches Museum Wien | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iattYDKp3A | | >SMALL moody useless box " leave me alone " box. This useless box | has an attitude. It has a variety of movements and behaves very | cute when you shut it off. [...] | mbesto wrote: | Surprise there is no mention of the terms: Gorilla Arm and | Tactile Feedback (haptics). | | These are the two reasons the "minority report" style of | interactive design will never catch on for humans. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haptic_technology | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#%22Gorilla_arm%22 | DANK_YACHT wrote: | Hands feel and manipulate things because they evolved in a | physical world where that type of interaction was most efficient. | The digital world opens up new possibilities that don't need | physical manipulation to be controlled. It feels a bit luddite to | restrict interaction just to physical manipulation. I agree, | sometimes designers go too far, e.g. in the case of touch-screen | hvac controls in cars. However, there are also examples where | physical manipulation is not desired. For instance, the | smartphone is so powerful because it's not tied to one physical | mode of operation. It can have buttons for a calculator, or a | keyboard, or serve as a book, or a video game controller, or... | | Given that this was written in 2011, I commend the author for | having an opinion, but it has aged rather like milk to me. | Dangeranger wrote: | The author, Bret Victor, put his money where is mouth was and | founded a tangible computing organization named Dynamic Land[0] | that is funded in part by the research organization led by Alan | Kay. | | Dynamic Land might be the most interesting approach to | collaborative computing in person that I've seen to date. | | Bret designed the system, wrote the operating system, and the | libraries used to interact with the OS via physical objects. | It's awesome. | | [0] https://dynamicland.org/ | DANK_YACHT wrote: | I find Tilt Five[0] to be 100x more interesting than Dynamic | Land. They don't serve entirely the same purpose, but I think | it illustrates the difference between clinging to the past | (Dynamic Land) and embracing a digital future (Tilt Five). | Both solutions are powered by projectors and sensors, but | Tilt Five pushes the envelope a lot further than Dynamic | Land. | | [0] https://www.tiltfive.com/ | Dangeranger wrote: | I'll have a look at this, thank you. | | In what ways do you feel like TiltFive supersedes what | Dynamic Land is doing? | | [EDIT]: After reviewing the marketing materials, it looks | to me that this project is orthogonal to the goals of | Dynamic Land, and they don't really serve the same purpose. | | 1) Dynamic Land is intended to allow for computing by | interacting with real physical objects, and seeing the | outputs displayed back in the real world without augmented | reality hardware. | | 2) TiltFive seems intended to allow for holographic display | of traditional or specialized game content onto physical | objects. More like advanced AR than tangible or physical | computing . | DANK_YACHT wrote: | I guess my point is that what Dynamic Land is doing is | not compelling, so there will never be a perfect analog | to compare it to, unless you compare it to another | initiative that is also not compelling. Maybe Dynamic | Land makes a cool demo, but the approach isn't capable of | producing anything generally interesting. As far as I can | tell, there have not been any updates on the initiative | since 2019, so it looks like Dynamic Land might be dead. | What I find interesting about Tilt Five is that they | bring computation into the physical space. It might not | be tactile, but it's at least usable for something. | Another comparison to Dynamic Land is that Dynamic Land | tries to create computation in one shared environment. | Tilt Five, on the other hand, allows two people in | separate physical environments to share a digital | environment. These are just two examples of how a | digital-first approach is more compelling than Dynamic | Land's analog-first approach. | bmitc wrote: | > I guess my point is that what Dynamic Land is doing is | not compelling | | Have you used it? My gut feeling is that Dynamicland is | likely something that has to be experienced to be | understood. I saw Bret Victor present on Dynamicland at a | design conference, and there are tons of little happy and | unexpected accidents that come from people using it and | experiencing it. It's stuff that you can't throw into | bullet points. | nullstyle wrote: | Conversely, I find Tilt Five to be nowhere near as | interesting to me as Dynamic Land. Tilt Five doesn't push | the envelope on computing further as far as I can see, but | rather is just an expensive game peripheral for windows and | android phones; Dynamic land is attempting to develop and | enable new forms of media, especially communal media. The | two projects shouldn't be held in the same breath IMO. | | Besides, the Tilt Five developer program YouTube | commercial[1] is the worst. It's like an xbox 360 reveal | video at CES or a Qualcomm presentation about digital | natives. | | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-7lHqyBQeg | bowsamic wrote: | The question should be, can we have a device with a | programmable real-time tactile environment? | munificent wrote: | _> For instance, the smartphone is so powerful because it 's | not tied to one physical mode of operation. It can have buttons | for a calculator, or a keyboard, or serve as a book, or a video | game controller, or..._ | | Smartphones are powerful because the interface is | reconfigurable in software. That's orthogonal to whether the | interface is tactile or not. | | Imagine you go to choose between two smartphones: | | 1. One is like you have today: a flat surface of glass with | colored pixels underneath. | | 2. The other supports a surface that physically changes in | response to the application. Open the calculator, and a grid of | number buttons appear. Tapping one gives the satisfying click | of an old calculator. Switch to a synthesizer and a row of | piano keys appear. The have the bounce of a weighted piano and | play louder or softer based on how hard you press them. Open a | game and a D-pad and joystick materialize. | | I know which one I'd pick. | snowwrestler wrote: | Our computer interactions could be so much richer if we allowed | computers to observe and listen to us and our surroundings | continuously. They would learn faster, and have the full context | of everything we say or ask for or point at or do. | | But we don't allow that, because we are (rightly) worried that | doing so would give all our private and sensitive personal | information to greedy companies and invasive governments. | | The future of computer interaction depends not on better hardware | or algorithms, it depends on trust. And discretion. Solve those | problems and you will unlock huge potential. | stonemetal12 wrote: | They do such a bad job with the context they currently have, | that I can't see adding more context doing anything other than | confusing them. | natly wrote: | I wish more people experimented with hand input since this has | essentially been solved in recent years due to advancements in | computer vision: https://mediapipe.dev/. Yeah it might be awkward | to ask the user to activate their camera, etc etc. But right now | I'm barely seeing any experimentation in this direction which is | a shame. | | Part of me wonders if it's just that people don't know that this | is solved on the web, so make sure to go here and try it out and | make something if Brets article appealed to you: | https://google.github.io/mediapipe/solutions/hands#javascrip... + | https://codepen.io/mediapipe/pen/RwGWYJw | raihansaputra wrote: | I think one way this can be more acceptable is to redirect the | camera to view the hands above the keyboard instead of having | to wave my hands in front of my face. Interesting to be able to | enable gestures to swipe desktops without using the trackpad. | elefantastisch wrote: | Asking for camera access is not "awkward". In 2022, it's | assumed that if I say yes, you'll record absolutely everything | the camera can see, store it forever, sell it to anyone who | wants it, and use it to show me ads for crap no one wants. | There are a whole host of amazing possible apps using camera, | location, microphone, etc., but tech companies have proven that | they cannot or will not deliver these apps without egregious | privacy violations. | | Tech companies need to prove they can limit themselves to using | data for the purpose for which it was requested, then we can | talk about whether or not I'll give camera access. | woojoo666 wrote: | The LeapMotion was basically a really accurate Kinect for your | hands, and that was back in 2014. I always wondered why it | never took off, and I suspect it's a market issue more than a | technological one. Waving your hand in the air and doing hand | gestures just didn't provide enough benefit I guess | natly wrote: | I really wanted to play with it but never did because I had | to buy a whole thing (that I might only use once and there | wasn't many people developing for). With it being available | on the web (without a device) things might be different since | the the bar to try it out is much lowered. (After all oculus | has tons of fun games and things that use hand tracking so I | don't think you can conclude the idea doesn't have | potential.) | novirium wrote: | I had one of the LeapMotion input devices back around when | they launched, and really did try to use it in earnest - | using a whole bunch of shortcuts and AutoHotkey hacks to | navigate the OS with it. There were even experimental | programs people wrote to input text with it, using something | similar to chorded keyboards. | | It didn't really work out though. Long story short: my arms | got tired. Turns out that it's a kinda fundamental problem | with how they had designed the interface - hovering your | hands above something for extended periods of time is simply | just tiring and uncomfortable. | DanHulton wrote: | That seemed pretty obvious the first time I saw it, but I | figured maybe I was over-estimating the issue. I mean, | here's this darling company with a product everyone's | excited about. Surely they must have thought about that! | | I guess they did not think about that. | woojoo666 wrote: | Oh definitely, it just goes to show that a lot of the sci | fi gesture-based interfaces just aren't very practical | throwaway-jim wrote: | 404 | [deleted] | dang wrote: | Related: | | _A brief rant on the future of interaction design (2011)_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21116948 - Sept 2019 (153 | comments) | | _A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design (2011)_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6325996 - Sept 2013 (35 | comments) | | _A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3212949 - Nov 2011 (150 | comments) | pvsnp wrote: | I was wondering why this sounded familiar and it's from 2011. | Here are various things that have been invented along the same | lines as Bret mentions. | | * https://dynamicland.org/ - Bret Victor's vision, looks really | cool * Kinect was released (November 4, 2010) a little before | this article and presented another vision of future, but the | market didn't think so * Oculus now detects hands and I'm pretty | hopeful this will add more gestures and similar gait detection | will be huge for interfaces | | All in all, the incremental changes are starting to look more | like what Bret is suggesting rather than purely "pane of glass" | mcphage wrote: | > Kinect was released (November 4, 2010) a little before this | article and presented another vision of future, but the market | didn't think so | | The Kinect has pretty much dried up for video games, but the | company that developed the first version of the Kinect for | Microsoft was later purchased by Apple, and their technology | underpins the FaceID tech that appears in every iOS device | these days. | | (Apple has also had rear-facing Lidar on their iPads & iPhones | for a few years now, and I _believe_ that it is also an | evolution of the Kinect tech, but I don 't know for sure.) | | I am disappointed that it withered away for video games, since | it was really interesting & fun technology. | Dangeranger wrote: | Two things about Dynamic Land that I love. | | 1) Bret brought the computer into the world, instead of | bringing the world into the computer, e.g. Oculus or Vive. | | 2) The operating system that senses the world and reads | instructions from objects is influenced by Smalltalk, and from | what I understand allows for Smalltalk like programs to run on | it in the form of object instructions and interactions. | mlajtos wrote: | Ad 2, why do you think Realtalk has any resemblance to | Smalltalk? | | https://colelawrence.com/posts/2018-12-06-distribution- | model... | Pulcinella wrote: | Unfortunately I think Dynamicland is dead. The physical space | in Oakland doesn't exist anymore. It sounds like only Bret | Victor and maybe one other person are left and Victor is | relocating to a university Biology lab to try to implement his | ideas there. | | Source: Andy Matuschak mentions it in | https://www.notion.so/blog/andy-matuschak | | _One thing which comes to mind is that Dynamicland is a | strange laboratory. It was a space in Oakland that is no more, | but it 's a physical environment where the primary activity | being undertaken was creating this very unusual computing | system._ | | ... | | _And in fact, that 's exactly what the principal investigator | is doing right now. He's picking up and relocating the work to | very interesting synthetic biology lab, where maybe now that | the further development of the system will happen in a way | that's meant to support this professor's research._ | elil17 wrote: | I'm a mechanical engineer and my favorite way to interact with my | computer is with my SpaceMouse [1], a sort of joy-stick that you | can pull or rotate in any direction to drag, spin, and scale 3D | models. You can also use it to fly around Excel spreadsheets or | scroll through web pages. | | One thing that I love about it is the grip I can use - it's the | "precision" grip that the author discusses in the article, and it | gives me a lot of fine control over what I'm doing. | | The other day, I saw the haptic smart knob on Hackaday [2]. It's | a force feedback rotating knob with software defined detents and | boundaries. | | If someone could combine the SpaceMouse with the smart knob, I | think the resulting multiple DOF force feedback controller might | just be the input device of the future. | | [1]: https://3dconnexion.com/uk/product/spacemouse-compact/ [2]: | https://hackaday.com/2022/03/13/haptic-smart-knob-does-sever... | z_zetetic_z wrote: | Can you use the space mouse in 3 games? That would be cool! | | I don't do cad work, but I'm tempted to get a SpaceMouse for | the sheer coolness factor. | elil17 wrote: | I believe someone has rigged one up to work with Elite | Dangerous. There is no broad support, however. I would love | to see a game designed specifically for the SpaceMouse | BiteCode_dev wrote: | A tree of code scopes is a graph, and you have one per module, | plus a navigation history, which makes it 3d, even 4. | | A device like that could be adapted for dev. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | I'm curious as to whether or not anyone has any comments on | that wild Microsoft Surface "mouse," or "knob," or "dial," or | whatever. | | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/surface-dial/925r551sktgn | ckz wrote: | I own one! | | I'm a UI/UX designer who was historically very invested in | the Surface ecosystem during the early Win8/10 era, so this | was a day-1 curiosity purchase for me. | | As a physical object, I like it a lot. It's not _perfect_, | but it has a great weight, the Dial has a satisfying | resistance (like a 70s stereo knob), uses AAAs, and the | haptic feedback is solid for a digitally-triggered vibrating | motor (vs a literal ratchet). | | What I find, however, is that it's a superior consumption | tool vs creation tool. It's at its best when being used as a | single-function knob. Great for sitting at a desk while | reading a whitepaper, or perhaps controlling volume while | listening to music. Day to day I use a mouse with a stepped- | wheel, but the smooth scroll on the Dial makes it my | preferred way to handle longform content. Keeps a long | article flowing. | | However, it has not become an indispensable part of my | workflow. That may just be me. I need to pivot between | Windows/macOS/Linux over the course of a day, so a lot of its | proprietary-tech promise is wasted and I've built fewer | habits. I'm also not sure offhand how good the integration is | with design tools after the initial fanfare around Adobe, | Surface Studio, etc. | | Other tricky part: It's bluetooth. Once it's awake and in- | use, that's...acceptable, if you aren't actively looking for | tiny bits of input lag. But if you need it on-demand (sudden | noise from the speakers, etc.) and you haven't used it in a | while, it may be a couple seconds before it's responsive to | that first input. | | Still, it _is_ intriguing enough to me that years-on, it's | still on my desk and is one of the only bluetooth devices I | own, much less tolerate using. I think it's at it's best when | it's a context-sensitive linear actuator with some light | multifunction capability vs a new paradigm. | iratewizard wrote: | I was going to write you off as one of those weird trackball | people, but then I dug into the mouse. It does look like a | useful tool for CAD in conjunction with a normal mouse | elil17 wrote: | Perhaps weird, definitely not a trackball person! | jeffreygoesto wrote: | Not only that. Nothing beats flying through Google Earth with | a SpaceMouse! | sleepydog wrote: | I believe there was one of these, or a device very much | like it, in Google's headquarters in mountain view, as part | of a wrap-around google earth display that lets you zoom | around 3d space. | Stratoscope wrote: | Definitely. In Google Earth Pro there are a few settings to | tweak in the Navigation options. Turn on Enable Controller, | of course, and turn OFF Reverse Controls and Enable | Visualization. | | I also like to turn on "Do not automatically tilt while | zooming". I don't recall if that affects SpaceMouse, but I | don't like the default automatic tilt when using regular | mouse or keyboard navigation. | | Also if you are using a ThinkPad, be sure to try each of | the three mouse buttons (hold one down and move the | TrackPoint around) when not using the SpaceMouse. | munificent wrote: | Way back in 1996 at Siggraph, I tried out a "haptic pen". It | was a little pen on the end of an articulated robot arm. You | held it like a normal pen and moved it around in 3D space. The | robot arm would give you force feedback based on where the tip | was in space. It was strong enough to completely stop the pen. | | In the demo they had set up, there was a 3D model of a car, and | you slide the tip of the pen along the surface. The haptic | feedback would stop the pen from penetrating into the model so | it really felt like the tip was touching the volume of a solid. | | Super cool experience. | javiramos wrote: | Sensable Technologies, an MIT spinout, developed the | technology. The company was acquired by 3D Systems | (https://www.3dsystems.com/haptics) | | Note that Thomas Massie, US representative and climate change | denialist, was the founder of Senseable. | mepian wrote: | Sounds like the perfect sculpting experience if you combine | it with modern VR. | munificent wrote: | Yeah, 3D modeling was the use case they were demoing it | for. It was really impressive. | gmueckl wrote: | Was this pen on an arm later commercialized as the Phantom | Omni? | munificent wrote: | I have no idea. This was a quarter century ago. :D | Findecanor wrote: | Sounds like it. I worked for a few months building demos | for the "SensAble Phantom" (not Omni). | | It was limited in that it gave force-feedback only against | the sphere at the tip. The orientation of the pen could not | be restricted. We attempted to simulate feedback on more | DOF through leverage, but it was lacking: like using a | mouse to simulate a steering wheel in a driving game. | jkestner wrote: | The SpaceMouse is a great piece of interaction | design/mechanical engineering; makes CAD much less painful. | (Never tried it on a spreadsheet!) The key is the mechanical | springs in it which provide just a bit of resistance without | impeding precise control. It has a bit of a learning curve, | kinda like when Macs reversed the finger scroll gesture on | trackpads, but then it becomes part of my left hand while my | right hand mans the mouse. | elil17 wrote: | Honestly I did not find the learning curve that bad. It took | me about 15 minutes to get as fast with the SpaceMouse as I | am with a regular mouse. However the skill ceiling is high | and there's a lot of potential to get really good with it. | zwieback wrote: | Back in the day at hp we had "knob boxes" for the then | relatively new 3D CAD systems. Some MEs loved them, others did | not. | | Here's what they looked like: | http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=684 | Findecanor wrote: | Knob boxes have had a comeback, for controlling photo values | in Lightroom. | | There are plugins for using generic MIDI controllers (for | musical instruments) that have knobs, sliders and buttons. | Then there are also dedicated controllers that do basically | the same thing, but with specialised labels on the controls. | seltzered_ wrote: | While we're talking about HP, it's also worth noting the HP | Sprout PC they tried from 2014-2017 that facilitated | projecting (and then 2d/3d scanning content) on a 'touchmat': | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprout_(computer) , | https://youtu.be/GZMeY8leQBM?t=137 | zwieback wrote: | The best part of Sprout was the "turntable", which allows | auto-positioning an object at various angles relative to | the structured-light 3D camera. I was able to snag a couple | and use them with our other 3D acquisition systems. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-27 23:00 UTC)