[IxDA Discuss] "Interface-Free" Interface

Mon Oct 30 08:15:01 PST 2006

Hey y'all,

What an interesting discussion thread! I have nothing of substance to add to
the excellent points raised, esp. by Alan's memory of the document in his
file cabinet (terrific RAM call-up there!).

But while reading one point below, I was struck by a silly idea, and I
wondered to myself how it would play out in a discussion among interface
designers.

The item that set my mind spinng were several of the Fatigue Sources Alan
remembered, below:

Fatigue sources included:
- necesity for operators to hold their arms up
- requirement to reach and retract arm on each completed interaction
- positioning of the screen for touch required operators to change
their head/body positions

I got to thinking to myself about... oh, the obesity epidemic we hear about
all the time.

I got to thinking about the interface design of a shovel. You know, say for
digging a ditch to put down your Directv satellite cable to the place in the
yard where the dish has to be? Just a little ditch. This isn't like tilling
a garden by hand or anything.

So I'm guessing there will be some fatigue sources for the interface design
of the shovel. Some of those things are minimized, because it is a lever (as
is a broom), and we know that with a lever big enough, we can lift the
world. But your basic shovel functions as a lever because one hand chokes up
on the handle, forming the fulcrum, while the other holds on closer to the
end.

So besides the function of the lever, there are a couple of other Fatigue
Sources, like perhaps the need to bend at the waist, and the force needed to
dig the shovel into the ground, usually be stepping down hard on the top of
the blade. But the blade edge on the ground can form another lever as well,
to help turn hard-packed earth.

Clearly these fatigue sources pose a problem for this interface. Should we
propose all shovels be eliminated because of poor interface design, in favor
of the far superior backhoe or rototiller?

But those interfaces burn fossil fuels, while a shovel burns human calories.
There is that obesity epidemic, after all, and this is just a little ditch,
to bury that Directv cable.

Some people may HAVE to dig ditches all day by hand, and if fossil fuels run
out one day, we all may have to do it at sometime, at the very least to bury
our own waste. There can be terrible ergonomic problems for the back and
neck too, with a risk of repetitive stress injuries, bursitis, and so on.
Shovels all over the world will be spawning lawsuits, unless interface
designers can address these issues.

I know, I'm just being silly, but I wanted to step back and think about
things in these terms for a second. Since when does a physical movement
factor automatically count as a strike against an interface design calculus,
you know, physical movement=bad?

Would ALL IDEAL interfaces ultimately move toward telepathic control and
utterly inert human users, like Stephen Hawking's eye-controller thingie?
Should we really be designing interfaces so as to make the physical body
obsolete?

Yes, I know accessiblity issues mandate certain interface features so as not
to restrict differently abled people from using them. And that's part of the
reason we have both right- and left-handed scissors. I'm not arguing for
discarding those standards. I like inclusiveness in design very much.

But what PHILOSOPHIES, what unexamined assumptions sit behind the idea
(perhaps going back to Taylorism, factory assembly line efficiency studies)
that minimizing physical movement is an ultimate good?

And could we not say the politics of those deep structure interfaces are
part of what helped create the obesity epidemic? (along with high fructose
corn syrup and MSG, of course).

Indulge me one more second, and then I'll shut up. Consider an alternative
universe where inert bodies are not an unintended consequence of interface
design assumptions. All of these assumptions are socially-constructed
anyway, so imagine a culture that values all movement, considers kinetics,
all kinetics, as a form of dance and joy, from working a shovel to
snowboarding to chopping wood to making love. Bodies in motion.

Such a culture would not be able to sit still long enough to learn to love
our inert body interfaces. Their feet would get twitchy. Their knees would
bounce up and down. Maybe they'd compulsively pick at their pimples or twirl
and chew on their hair. Maybe they'd start chain smoking, or get another
oral fixation and fill their need for movement with food.

Their asses might spread a bit, if they really HAD to be married to our
inert body interfaces. Maybe they'd buy their children interfaces that used
their feet on something like a twister mat, so the kids wouldn't be lured
away by the attractive idea of creative and unstructured play in the
physical interface called "outside."

Think of it. Some of these people, forced into these inert positions for
long periods of time, not conscious that their bodies were craving movement,
might just sort of automatically find themselves at porn sites, maybe daily,
maybe more often than daily, watching the kinds of movement that people who
still live in a world of movement get to do...

I'm just speculating...

Chris

On 10/30/06, Alan Wexelblat <awexelblat at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted
> material.]
>
> I can't find the references at this moment (they're on this ancient
> paper medium somewhere in my home office filing cabinet) but back in
> the late 80s the military went through a fad of touchscreen
> interfaces.  They were found to be highly error-prone and fatiguing.
>
> Error sources include:
> - size of the pointing device (fingertip vs cursor)
> - selection with the finger obscures the thing you're trying to select
> - uncertainty on feedback.  The combination of physical feedback (does
> the screen flex in response to pressure?  If so how much and how does
> the user correlate that feedback with visual changes?) proved
> difficult for some users.
> - dirt and oils from human hands tended to introduce errors and
> obscure displays after extended use.
>
> Fatigue sources included:
> - necesity for operators to hold their arms up
> - requirement to reach and retract arm on each completed interaction
> - positioning of the screen for touch required operators to change
> their head/body positions
> - operators tended to crane their necks sideways to try and confirm a
> touch that was full or partially blocked by their fingertips.
>
> The tasks used were very similar to the original "Put That There"
> gestural interface, which is why I got interested in the research (I
> did my MS on gesture). The military operators used the touch screens
> in 1, 2, 4 and 8 hour shifts that matched their normal work schedules.
> Even a one-hour shift was perceived as fatiguing.  This leads me to
> believe that touch interfaces are fine for casual interaction over
> short periods, but not really suitable for extended work.
>
> On 10/29/06, Dan Saffer <dan at odannyboy.com> wrote:
> > "Jeff Han demonstrates—for the first time publicly—his intuitive,
> > "interface-free," touch-driven computer screen, which can be
> > manipulated intuitively with the fingertips, and responds to varying
> > levels of pressure."
> >
> > http://ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=j_han&flashEnabled=1
> >
> > Just because an interface is [arguably] easy to use, doesn't mean
> > it's interface free. While I think this is a really need use of the Z-
> > axis and a gestural interface, I'm wondering about its limitations
> > for daily use. Could I type on a touch-screen keypad all day, for
> > instance? How would MS Office for instance (not to mention Adobe
> > products) get translated into this mouse-less OS?
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-- 
christine boese
www.serendipit-e.com