[IxDA Discuss] Leopard & Core animation ... Wired says it will change the desktop forever

[Alexander Baxevanis]

I wouldn't take "ambient" so far, but the potential for some ambient
interactions is certainly there.

Take a look at this screenshot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/futureshape/536286900/

Although most of the application window is obscured, the smoke around
it can give you an "ambient progress indication" that CD burning is
still going on (not sure if the designers actually had this in mind,
but it didn't take me long to think of this example).

Humans are accustomed to looking for such subtle hints in their
environment: the steam coming out from the pot on the hob can tell us
that the food is still cooking, we can understand from the sound that
different domestic machines are working, the shade of light in the
corridor can tell us that we forgot to switch of the light in the next
room. All this happens subconsciously, without our brain consciously
monitoring all these variables.

In short we don't need to look at a progress bar or a status indicator
for many things around us -- why not simplify a few computer tasks by
offering ambient animations?

On 6/8/07, Dan Saffer <dan at odannyboy.com> wrote:
>
> On Jun 8, 2007, at 8:41 AM, pauric wrote:
>
> >> From the wired article: "Disco is software for burning disks that
> > illustrates a new approach to interfaces: It smokes while it burns.
> > If you blow into your computer's microphone, the smoke blows across
> > your desktop."
> >
> > Is there such a thing as 'Experience creep'?
>
> But imagine the ambient possibilities. What is the smoke blew and
> changed not if the user has to do something (blow) but from just the
> ambient noise in the room? One can imagine a lot of subtle touches
> like these. Our computers are all mostly equipped with microphones
> and cameras now and can presumably see and hear a little. Why do we
> continue treating them as blind and deaf?
>
> Dan
>
>
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