[IxDA Discuss] Bumptop

[pauric]

Thanks Dave, very enlightening.  I have some questions, partially rhetorical
but would value your corrections.

1) If this is a tablet/pen focused design, and given its an OS interface not
app.  Are there issues having a set of -fundamental- interactions that
become limited once a user moves to a desktop machine?  Lets take a field
engineer how sorts his notes as per the demo, then docks back at the office,
starts to use a keyboard/mouse.  No pressure sensitivity, weak gesturing.
Granted tablet apps work on the platform and dont have to translate to the
desktop, but given this is OS level I feel consistency between platforms is
a big issue.

2) "they specific speak of "pen" as the primary I/O device, so I think dost
might be extrapolating a bit too much."
What is the functional difference between a wacom pen and a human finger?
Lets skip forward 5 years and view this demo with fingers on a screen, is
that a good evolutionary development or is the tablet/pen a better design?

I genuinely think this design is platform independent and the pen is a
constraint which can be fixed. Exemplified by Simon's trick of tucking his
pen under a finger with current tablet interactions. Nice workaround but
surely thats not in the manual.

Re: What is Designing?  I got the deeper meaning.  I like pushing envelopes
(you should try it with inexperienced engineers - the results can be very
surprising) however I really dont think we ever diverge ourselves from our
experiences, our innate knowledge of what is possible, achievable and simply
fanciful.  Even if this is at a subconscious level.

Yes, take time out to brainstorm the bigger picture in a Sagan/Einstein
fashion far away from limitations.  However stray too far from the
gravitational pull of constraints and your designs will never make the
transition from concept back to reality.

The trick is knowing the delta between the edge of the envelop and the
available resources, the hard constraints and easily doable. I understand
we're both in agreement on this but I think its an important point to note
we never really leave our experience behind, including the baggage that
comes with it.