It’s the era of the spatial UI

There’s a quiet user experience revolution going on, and although many people are aware of it on an ‘oh that’s neat’ level, I predict that we’ll see a snowball effect of user experiences in 3 dimensions.

The two big players that are bringing spatial UI into the mainstream are the iPhone and Wii.  Although iPhone is primarily a touch-driven device, anyone who has delved into the world of downloadable apps will find some very interesting uses of it’s spatial awareness features: Games that detect tiny changes in tilt angle for driving a car or balancing a pile of blocks, and apps that change to a different mode based on which way up you are holding it. 

You’re most likely already familiar with the Wii-mote and it’s spatial capabilities.  There are actually two features built into the Wii-mote: tilting (like the iPhone) and also pointing at the screen.  As you play through Wii games the controller takes on different modes – at one point you’ll be pointing at what to do next, then you’ll be tilting it to steer a vehicle, then waving it in ‘gestures’.  There’s been a deluge of sub-par games on the Wii since it became such a success, but look carefully and you’ll find games with highly innnovative interactions. 

Spatial UI has been beautifully brought together in the Siftables prototype, whereby small independent computers react to each other depending on each other’s roles and physical relationships.  Watch the presentation at TED and you’ll see it passes the ultimate test: It delights children. So this may not be a consumer device that people will run out and buy tomorrow, but the potential for UI innovation is fascinating.

Spatial experiences are going mainstream with 3D movies.After years sidelined at IMAX and amusement parks the 3D movie is back with a vengeance and it seems like every animated movie is now releasing in 3D. [update:] James Cameron in a recent Time article claims 2D is inherently harder for the brain to process, as opposed to 3 dimensions which the brain is designed to process.

So what’s next?  It’s hard to predict what will be a good spatial experience, how best to use the new technology and we’ll evidently need a period for people to just play with it and see what works and what doesn’t (there’s certainly been a fair share of both so far).  If you have the opportunity to build spatial awareness into your next product, I advise you to embrace it with fervour but also expect to prototype and go through a few iterations before you get it right.

Filed under: 3D, general, revolutions, trends, user interface , 3D, gestures, imax, Innovation, iphone, point, siftables, spatial, tilt, ui, UX, wii

UX needs apprenticeships

Something I regularly bemoan: the lack of knowledge, discipline, expertise, mentoring, schooling and respect for those things in UX in the workplace. It’s amazing how many people working in digital UX just make it up as they go along.  Some people really are smart enough to wing their way through but 90% of the time it’s a bad idea.

I encourage anyone in UX to go out of their way to regularly read and learn about how others are doing UX.  Share this with your co-workers and actively attempt to build learnings and improvements into your method.  Your skills and knowledge are never perfect – I’m amazed at how often some new technique comes along that I can use to evolve my own approaches. Every now and then I find somebody who takes this approach and they are an energizer.  What if everyone could energize each other in this way?  A smart colleague pointed this out today and it really struck home with me – having those energizing people around raises the game of your team tenfold.

Looking at other fields where one learns a craft, the tools and techniques, there is a form of apprenticeship.  Why not have this for UX?  You can learn it at university, but what about when you get into the workplace?  As far as I can see you’re either lucky enough to land with a person or people who will rub off well on you – or you are on your own. I predict that the great UX companies of tomorrow are the ones who are actively mentoring their people as apprentices today and for the future.

Filed under: creative delivery , apprentice, apprenticeships, energizing, interactive, learning, mentor, mentoring, method, skills, training, UX

Prototypes Are Essential for Web Projects

The long standing ‘page’ paradigm of websites is on its way out, and the complexity and functionality of an individual page is becoming more on a par with a software UI.   Before, it was quite reasonable to map out your user experience with static page designs and do some user testing to iron out any issues.  Now, the only way to be sure how the interactive functionality within each page will work is to build and a prototype. 

Forrester recently put up an article pointing out (and they’re not the first) that with the power of AJAX, Flash and other web 2.0 techonologies comes responsibility.  The complexity of these features is unpredictable as a customer experience.  The experience and knowledge of how to successfully implement these things hasn’t yet grown much in the web community either.  

Prototypes are the best way to cut through these issues.  You’ll see the UI in action and immediately spot interaction flaws that weren’t apparent on the static designs.  You can put it in front of customers and identify areas that need better usability – ideally several times, so you can chip away until the solution is 90% good.

Prototypes offer value beyond developing a good user experience too: They’re a great sales tool for showing clients or internal stakeholders your vision, for getting that all important buy-in.  They’re also a great way of pulling your team out of a linear, waterfall process and having everyone actively engaged at the same time on developing the solution.

A final thought: The best scenario of all is that you can actually develop your site in place of the prototype and iteratively test and refine the site itself.   If you’re in a position to do that, you can take the same approach but with your actual site build.  We don’t all have that luxury though.

PS. There’s a good rounded article about the value of prototyping on A List Apart

Filed under: creative delivery , AJAX, buy-in, Flex, prototypes, prototyping, user testing, UX, wireframes

Wireframes are for evolution not revolution?

I’ve been a part of some very interested conversations recently about a user experience we’ve been developing and whether they making evolutionary improvements to a website or revolutionary change.  In the course of these discussions we’ve developed some concept sketches of revolutionary user experiences that we are contemplating.  The interesting thing about the concept sketch is that it is a hybrid between a boxes-and-arrows wireframe and a visual sketch.  

I’ve written before about the fallacy of wireframes being independent of design, however I’m very interested in the thought that wireframes are not a one-size-fits-all approach, but in fact come in different flavours with different levels of specificity.  Wireframes typically exist at a level of detail where content and functionality is already defined and their task is to optimise which elements are on which page and when.  The inherent assumptions of this type of wireframe regarding the interface layout make it extremely unlikely to revolutionise the user experience.  However, the artefact that you need to create when starting on a revolutionary concept is decidedly not a piece of graphic design, it’s a content/functionality sketch… which to my mind is a form of wireframe.  

Filed under: creative delivery, folly, information architecture, method, style, user interface , design, evolution, IA, revolution, user experience, UX, wireframes