Your reading comprehension is low and your understanding of the situation is lower. I'm delighted that your friend is a designer with a thesis. I started to get a degree in design and then noticed that no real math was required. Then I transferred and got a degree in engineering with - wait for it - post-graduate studies in biomechanics and human factors engineering. The entire premise of Mr. Minority Report is "don't bother touching anything." The entire premise of Mr. Interface Under Glass sucks is "without touch what's the point." These are entirely separate positions, diametrically opposed, at complete odds to each other. The fact that you can read both and decide they're saying the same thing indicates that you missed the point entirely. Your Bioastronautics Databook, for example, was not created by designers. It was created by ENGINEERS. There's a reason NASA doesn't use touch screens. Ever tried touch-typing on an iPad? How'd that go for you? In fact, ever tried doing anything with a touchscreen when you aren't looking at it? THAT was the point of the article I linked. There's no feedback from touch screens of any kind and the primary way we interact with our hands is through feedback. So you say this: ...which indicates that you didn't understand what you read. And then you say this: Having linked to a video wall designed by the guy who brought us the UI from Minority Report. Look - this is a Motorola Startac. How long would it take you to figure out how to make a call? More importantly, could you make a call while, say, riding your bike? Or watching a sunset? Now compare: Granted - the Startac does one thing while the S4 does everything. But that one thing that the Startac does, it does hella better than the S4. That's the point. The argument I linked to is exactly this: interface design is being driven by available technology, rather than having design drive that technology. This is the fight that kept the Kindle off shelves for two years: Jeff Bezos wanted a cross between a Blackberry and a book. It needed to have a keyboard. The first design team refused to give him a keyboard because they couldn't make it look cool. And not a one of those cues is even vaguely a part of the design of the objects we use to interface with technology. Not. A One. THAT is the point. Now - read this sentence again: So. Given the subject under discussion, and given the broader point being made, do you think I was saying "nobody really uses" "Google docs?" Or was I saying "Nobody really uses" the "realtime collaboration" of Google Docs?Which, of course, is the crux of the gestural UI approach.
And the best design is so seamless we take it for granted, barely notice it
Open your fridge, pull out the milk, pour it into a glass, drink it, rinse the glass, put it in the dishwasher. You've just used like a dozen items that were designed for the most fluid interaction- from the fridge to the carton that the milk came in- and they've become so pervasive in your natural experience that you don't even get excited about them.
Google Docs allows all sorts of realtime collaboration, and nobody really uses it. It isn't necessary. It's distracting, in fact.
No, my reading comprehension is fine. Quite good, actually. For instance, I noticed right off the bat that you abandoned your design degree- at a bachelors level?- for engineering. Because design didn't utilize enough math (admission- my reading comprehension isn't good enough to parse what that has to do with the price of apples). And that's awesome, engineering is an impressive field, good job, buddy! But you abandoned design. So how can you confidently say that design doesn't make use of biomechanics? Especially when I'm telling you straight up that I know designers who have devoted their studies and careers to the application of biomechanics to design? And getting back to Mr. Victor's blog post and my understanding of the same- no, I get it, I get it, I get it. For the most part, he's talking about making more intuitive UI through the utilization of one of our most prevalent and delicate senses- touch. And the point that I didn't feel like I had to belabor before was: here's a link to a designer talking about how we might more successfully integrate UI into our everyday lives for a more fluid, natural and human experience. It's a neat link! Unfortunately, it's a link you supplied to buttress your original points: that there "has never been anything that we want integrated into our natural experience," and that "nobody involved in these... UI's has much experience with biomechanics." I mean, do you recognize the irony of making those assertions and then backing them up with a blog post from a designer talking about how to better use biomechanics to create a more intuitive, natural UI? Instead, I focused on the little tidbit at the end where he talked about how neat gestural UI could be (read the "one more step" section at the bottom... but of course, you already have, right?), and how we shouldn't limit ourselves to touch screens, but adapt UI to encompass the full range and expressiveness of human motion. I mentioned it because it's a point that actually works pretty well alongside my initial submission. But you want to focus on touch screens, and apply their clunk to my larger point about human/machine interaction. And that's fine, I see a peripheral relevance. Here's the thing. Designers have acknowledged that, and they're working on it. Read an article what, a couple years ago now, about a design for a touch screen that touches back, essentially addressing that concern about lack of responsiveness. Presumably, they're still working out the kinks. In the meantime, I'll keep having to type out my responses on the iPad, which, believe it or not, I'm doing right now and have done in almost all of my Hubski interactions for the better part of the last two years. Now, I want to make a couple more points re. your whole Samsung schpiel and your point about milk-drinking cues and lack of application to tech interface. But I'm gonna make them quicker and more off the cuff, because I'm getting bored. Sorry. 1) re. Samsung Galaxy- it's telling that you chose that as your example rather than the Galaxy's true precursor (as upheld in various legal battles)- the iPhone. In fact, in all three of your last posts, I've seen a studious avoidance of the iPhone as an example. I can only assume that's because the iPhone is so... goddamn... intuitive that you don't want to draw attention to it. You know what my three year old daughter couldn't figure out how to correctly use? The Startac. Oh, she could ape the movements she's seen from my phone interactions, but that's about it. You know what had my daughter surfing youtube within minutes of picking it up for the first time? You guessed it- iPhone. There's a lesson there (beyond a lesson in questionable parenting). Okay, so that. And skipping to 2)- all of those cues you and I talked about are part of design we use to interface with tech. Because a fridge is tech. As is a sink. As is the microwave, the oven, hell, even the milk carton. Not new tech, but tech all the same. Yes, I said it. A milk carton is a kind of user interface. For the effective transportation and bio processing of milk. But if you want to apply my examples more narrowly to digital interfaces- we're still approaching that. What about Nest? Household item become extension of user interface. And there are prototypes for smart refrigerators, smart cars, smart alarms, smart watches. Probably smart sinks. All of them designed to meld your everyday experience, that which is driven by natural, intuitive product interaction, with the way you store and process information digitally. So there's that. Listen, if you have a good point, make a good point. I don't care about flash, and your snarkier comments are boring. I read your posts time and time again for the smart stuff- despite the boorish rhetoric, not because of it. I interact with you time and time again because you have great points, and often something to teach. And that's why I'm responding now, because maybe you have something to add besides "you're wrong, and an idiot." But I'm not interested in a dick-waving competition. So. If you have a point beyond rhetorical jujitsu, have at it. If you're just going to respond with some classic KB zinger, don't bother. I don't care about your zingers, I care about good discussion.