[IxDA Discuss] "Interface-Free" Interface

Mon Oct 30 10:09:07 PST 2006

Oh come on! you guys lost the point.

As Interaction Designers, we have a mission and that is not to worry about people's weight,
actually, if someone gets fat, then his or her problem is more related to a health diet, not on
usability, design...

I took Chrsitine's post more as a funny thing than serious. We humans make comparisons to help us
on explaining new concepts to people by using a concept that they already know, but that
comparison has to be close to the new concept and so do not mislead them, the shovel example is
just a bad comparison.

You guys can't be serious about this.

Maglez.

--- "Gomez, Marla A" <marla.a.gomez at intel.com> wrote:

> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted material.]
> 
> Hooray - you touched on a subject close to my heart...people move way too little nowadays and
> some of us find joy in the physical as well as some people's intelligence lies more in the
> physical realm...however, in today's company, the focus is on efficiency to cut costs so
> anything physical would still have to be efficient timewise...you bring up some very interesting
> points for discussion.
> 
> Marla Gómez
> User Experience Researcher
> Intel
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com
> [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Christine Boese
> Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 8:15 AM
> To: discuss at ixda.org
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] "Interface-Free" Interface
> 
> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted material.]
> 
> 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
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