Interactive Acts...

Touch App Design & Little Kiddos -- Great Advice from a Design Expert

2010-08-23T07:19:00.000-07:00

My personal opinion is that little kiddos are going to drive adoption of total-touch based human-computer interfaces. They did not learn to interact with computers using a mouse and keyboard -- and don't have to unlearn it. Give them some good content on a well designed device, and they have a ball!

Case in point, my two year old daughter LOVES our iPad. She has no idea how to use a mouse or keyboard, but give her the iPad, she can unlock it, and start up her favorite app, Jack & The Beanstalk. I don't think it is an accident that "Jack" is her favorite game -- a lot of thought and design went into the interaction. Allbeit, some over done and annoying to Mom and Dad, but overall, it is a great app.

Why?

I was doing some web research and ran across a blog article on Touch Based App Design & Toodlers by @LukeW. Great article! Basically, Luke breaks down a few tips on what works and doesn't work when designing applications for little munchins, including accomodating little gestures, doing away with splash screens, and non-intuitive menus. Simple, but very important.

Music as a natural use of multi-touch interfaces

2010-08-18T11:56:00.000-07:00

I have been seeing a trend lately of adoption of multi-touch interfaces within music driven applications: ranging from piano playing to replacement of a traditional DJ interface. It makes me think that there is something about music that lends itself to early adoption of the more initiative interface... I know this is deep and yet a simple concept, but there has to be something to the way music makes us feel that drives us to ditch the mouse and keyboard at first opportunity in preference for a multi-touch interaction. I wonder if anyone has studied this?

Here are a few links to music based multi-touch applications I have seen in recent days:

AudioTouch OS by @SethSandler
DJ Table Concept as a senior project by Greg Kaufman

Apps as a symptom of the multi-touch interaction shift

2010-08-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article on TNW about the Internet and the shift from browser to (mobile) apps... the argument is that the real shift going on is the way we interact with our devices, we now use our fingers rather than a mouse. I completely agree with this argument. I think the development of mobile web driven apps is a symptom of the shift in human-computer interaction, mainly driven by the fact that our mobile devices are the first multi-touch devices we have started using. As we go forward, multi-touch functionality is going to be expectation of the user in every application used regardless of the device used.

Hi There

2010-08-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

Hi.

This is my first blog post. I am starting this blog as a way to store and share cool new multi-touch applications I find new/different/interesting. At 3M, I look for new ways to use multi-touch technology in a variety of markets, especially true multi-touch (many touch input). I'm using this blog as a way to gather those cool uses of multi-touch and share them with future multi-touch users. True multi-touch technology has the abilty to flip tradtional human-computer interfaces upside down. Here's to hoping it does! If you have developed a cool multi-touch app, please pass it along my way. I'd love to check it out!