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"Tell the chef, the beer is on me."
This is part of an ongoing series related to Peter Meyers' project "Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience." We'll be featuring additional material in the weeks ahead. (Note: This post originally appeared on A New Kind of Book. It's republished with permission.)
Next week, I'm speaking at the Books in Browsers conference on "the infinite canvas." When I started chewing on this topic, my thoughts centered on a very literal vision: a super-ginormous sheet for authors to compose on. And while I think there's some great creative territory to explore in this notion of space spanning endlessly up, down, left, and right, I also think there are a bunch of other ways to define what an infinite canvas is. Not simply a huge piece of virtual paper, but instead, an elastic space that does things no print surface could do, no matter how big it is. So, herewith, a quick stab at some non-literal takes on the topic. My version, if you will, of six different ways of thinking about the infinite canvas.
The idea here is simple: refreshable rather than static content. The actual dimensions of the page aren't what's elastic; instead, it's what's being presented that's continuously changing. In some ways, the home page of a newspaper's website serves as a good example here. Visit The Boston Globe half a dozen times over the course of a week and each time you'll see a new serving of news. (Haven't seen that paper's recent online makeover yet? Definitely worth checking out, and make sure to do so using a few different screen sizes — laptop, big monitor, mobile phone ... each showcases a different version of its morphing, on-the-fly design.)
Ever seen that great short video, "The Power of Ten"? It's where the shot begins just above two picnickers on a blanket and then proceeds to zoom out so that you see the same picnic blanket, but now from 100 feet up, and then 1,000 feet, and on and on until you've got a view from outer space. (After the zoom out, the process reverses, and you end up getting increasingly microscopic glimpses of the blanket, its fabric, the individual strands of cotton, and so on.) Here's a presentational canvas that adds new levels of meaning at different magnifications. So, the viewer doesn't simply move closer or further away, as you might in a room when looking at, say, a person. As you get closer, you see progressively deeper into the body. Microsoft calls this "semantic zooming" (as part of its forthcoming touchscreen-friendly Metro interface). Bible software maker Glo offers some interesting content zooming tools that implement this feature for readers looking to flip between birds-eye and page views.
A printed page is a 2-D rectangle of fixed dimensions. On the infinite canvas, the possibilities vary widely, deeply, and as Will Ferrell's character in "Old School" might say, "in ways we've never even heard of." Some possible shapes here: a 3-D cube with content on each side, or pyramid-shaped ebooks (Robert Darnton wrote about those in The New Age of the Book, where he proposes a multi-layered structure for academics with excess material that would bust the bindings of a printed book).
I just got a wonderful print book the other day called "Finish This Book." It contains a collection of fill-in-the-blank and finish-this-thought creative exercises. It reminded me that one thing digital books haven't yet explored much is leaving space for readers to compose their reactions. Sure, every ebook reader today lets you take notes, but as I've written before, these systems are pale replicas of the rich, reader-friendly note taking experiences we get in print books. Job No. 1 is solving those shortcomings, but then imagine the possibilities if digital books are designed to allow readers to compose extensive thoughts and reactions.
Print book lovers (I'm one of 'em) wax on about their beloved format's special talents: the smell, the feel, its nap-friendly weight. But touchscreen fans can play that game, too. Recall, for starters, the first time you tapped an iPhone or similarly modern touchscreen. Admit it: the way it felt to pinch, swipe, flick, and spread ... those gestures introduce a whole new pleasure palette. Reading and books have heretofore primarily been a visual medium: you look and ponder what's inside. Now, as we enter the age of touchscreen documents, content becomes a feast for our fingers as much as our eyes. Authors, publishers, and designers are just beginning to appreciate this opportunity, making good examples hard to point to. I do think that Erik Loyer is among the most interesting innovators with his Strange Rain app, a kind of mashup between short fiction and those particle visualizers like Uzu. It's not civilian-friendly yet, I don't think, but it points the way for artists interested in incorporating touch into their creations.
A movable viewport lets your audience pan across massive content panoramas. Some of the possibilities here are photographic (Photosynth, Virtual History ROMA). Others have begun to explore massively wide content landscapes, such as timelines (History of Jazz). One new example I just learned about yesterday: London Unfurled for iPad, a hand-illustrated pair of 37-foot long drawings of every building on the River Thames between Hammersmith Bridge and Millennium Dome, complete with tappable backstories on most of the architecture that's on display.
These are just a few of the possibilities that I've spotted. What comes to mind when you think about the infinite canvas?
Photo: masterpiece by 416style, on Flickr
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The moment that sealed the future of human-computer interaction (HCI) for me happened just a few months ago. I was driving my car, carrying a few friends and their children. One child, an 8-year old, pointed to the small LCD screen on the dashboard and asked me whether the settings were controlled by touching the screen. They were not. The settings were controlled by a rotary button nowhere near the screen. It was placed conveniently between the driver and passenger seats. An obvious location in a car built at the tail-end of an era when humans most frequently interacted with technology through physical switches and levers.
The screen could certainly have been one controlled by touch, and it is likely a safe bet that a newer model of my car has that very feature. However, what was more noteworthy was the fact that this child was assuming the settings could be changed simply by passing a finger over an icon on the screen. My epiphany: for this child's generation, a rotary button was simply old school.
This child is growing up in an environment where people are increasingly interacting with devices by touching screens. Smartphones and tablets are certainly significant innovations in areas such as mobility and convenience. But these devices are also ushering in an era that shifts everyone's expectations of how we engage in the use of technology. Children raised in a world where technology will be pervasive will touch surfaces, make gestures, or simply show up in order for systems to respond to their needs.
This means we must rethink how we build software, implement hardware, and design interfaces. If you are in any of the professions or businesses related to these activities, there are significant opportunities, challenges and retooling needs ahead.
It also means the days of the mouse are probably numbered. Long live the mouse.
Probably like most of you, I have never formally learned to type, but I have been typing since I was very young, and I can pound out quite a few words per minute. I started on an electric typewriter that belonged to my dad. When my oldest brother brought home our first computer, a Commodore VIC-20, my transition was seamless. Within weeks, I was impressing relatives by writing small software programs that did little more than change the color of the screen or make a sound when the spacebar was pressed.
Later, my brother brought home the first Apple Macintosh. This blew me away. For the first time I could create pictures using a mouse and icons. I thought it was magical that I could click on an icon and then click on the canvas, hold the mouse button down, and pull downward and to the right to create a box shape.
Imagine my disappointment when I arrived in college and we began to learn a spreadsheet program using complex keyboard combinations.
Fortunately, when I joined the workforce, Microsoft Windows 3.1 was beginning to roll out in earnest.
The prospect of the demise of the mouse may be disturbing to many, not least of whom is me. To this day, even with my laptop, if I want to be the most productive, I will plug in a wireless mouse. It is how I work best. Or at least, it is currently the most effective way for me.
For most of us, we have grown up using a mouse and a keyboard to interact with computers. It has been this way for a long time, and we have probably assumed it would continue to be that way. However, while the keyboard probably has considerable life left in it, the mouse is likely dead.
Fortunately, while the trend suggests mouse extinction, we can momentarily relax, as it is not imminent.
From science fiction to futurist projections, it has always been assumed that the future of human-computer interaction would largely be driven by using our voices. Movies over decades have reinforced this image, and it has seemed quite plausible. We were more likely to see a door open via voice rather than a wave. After all, it appears to be the most intuitive and requires the least amount of effort.
Today, voice recognition software has come a long way. For example, accuracy and performance when dictating to a computer is quite remarkable. If you have broken your arms, this can be a highly efficient way to get things done on a computer. But despite having some success and filling important niches, broad-based voice interaction has simply not prospered.
It may be that a world in which we control and communicate with technology via voice is yet to come, but my guess is that it will likely complement other forms of interaction instead of being the dominant method.
There are other ways we may interact, too, such as via eye-control and direct brain interaction, but these technologies remain largely in the lab, niche-based, or currently out of reach for general use.
It is a joy to watch how people use their touch-enabled devices. Flicking through emails and songs seems so natural, as does expanding pictures by using an outward pinching gesture. Ever seen how quickly someone — particularly a child — intuitively gets the interface the first time they use touch? I have yet to meet someone who says they hate touch. Moreover, we are more likely to hear people say just how much they enjoy the ease of use. Touch (and multi-touch) has unleashed innovation and enabled completely new use cases for applications, utilities and gaming.
While not yet as pervasive, gesture-based computing (in the sense of computers interpreting body movements or emotions) is beginning to emerge in the mainstream. Anyone who has ever used Microsoft Kinect will be able to vouch for how compelling an experience it is. The technology responds adequately when we jump or duck. It recognizes us. It appears to have eyes, and gestures matter.
And let us not forget, too, that this is version 1.0.
The movie "Minority Report" teased us about a possible gesture-based future: the ability to manipulate images of objects in mid air, to pile documents in a virtual heap, and to cast aside less useful information. Today many of us can experience its early potential. Now imagine that technology embedded in the world around us.
My bet is that in a world of increasingly pervasive technology, humans will interact with devices via touch and gestures — whether they are in your home or car, the supermarket, your workplace, the gym, a cockpit, or carried on your person. When we see a screen with options, we will expect to control those options by touch. Where it makes sense, we will use a specific gesture to elicit a response from some device, such as (dare I say it) a robot! And, yes, at times we may even use voice. However, to me, voice in combination with other behaviors is more obvious than voice alone.
But this is not some vision of a distant future. In my view, the touch and gesture era is right ahead of us.
Many programmers and designers are responding to the unique needs of touch-enabled devices. They know, for example, that a paradigm of drop-down menus and double-clicks is probably the wrong set of conventions to use in this new world of swipes and pinches. After all, millions of people are already downloading millions of applications for their haptic-ready smartphones and tablets (and as the drumbeat of consumerization continues, they will also want their enterprise applications to work this way, too). But viewing the future through too narrow a lens would be an error. Touch and gesture-based computing forces us to rethink interactivity and technology design on a whole new scale.
How might you design a solution if you knew your users would exclusively interact with it via touch and gesture, and that it might also need to be accessed in a variety of contexts and on a multitude of form factors?
At a minimum, it will bring software developers even closer to graphical interface designers and vice versa. Sometimes the skillsets will blur, and often they will be one and the same.
If you are an IT leader, your mobile strategy will need to include how your applications must change to accommodate the new ways your users will interact with devices. You will also need to consider new talent to take on these new needs.
The need for great interface design will increase, and there will likely be job growth in this area. In addition, as our world becomes increasingly run by and dependent upon software, technology architects and engineers will remain in high demand.
Touch and gesture-based computing are yet more ways in which innovation does not let us rest. It keeps the pace of change, already on an accelerated trajectory, even more relentless. But the promise is the reward. New ways to engage with technology enables novel ways to use it to enhance our lives. Simplifying the interface opens up technology so it becomes even more accessible, lowering the complexity level and allowing more people to participate and benefit from its value.
Those who read my blog know my view that I believe we are in a golden age of technology and innovation. It is only going to get more interesting in the months and years ahead.
Are you ready? I know there's a whole new generation that certainly is!
Photo (top): Mouse Macro by orangeacid, on Flickr
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This is part of an ongoing series related to Peter Meyers' project "Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience." We'll be featuring additional material in the weeks ahead. (Note: This post originally appeared on A New Kind of Book. It's republished with permission.)
Microsoft deserves most of the design criticism it gets, but let's give them credit when they move in the right direction. What they've previewed in Windows 8 — especially the Metro touchscreen interface — is really lovely. It's humane, efficient, and innovative. In fact, I think there's plenty in it for digital book designers to think about emulating. I whipped out my notepad while watching one of their Build presentations — "8 traits of great Metro style apps" — and jotted down some key takeaways. (Also included are approximate timestamps so you don't have to sit through the whole 90 minutes.) The best part? Whether or not Microsoft actually ships something that matches their demo, you can benefit from the great thinking they've done.
Microsoft did loads of research, hoping to identify how tablet users sat and where they placed their hands when holding these devices. The results are probably intuitive for anyone who's spent time with a tablet, but the conclusions are nevertheless helpful. Most people use both hands to hold a tablet, and the most frequent touch zones are on the edges. The lesson? "To design for comfort, you need to position [key controls] near the edge" (19:23). And: "It takes a posture change to reach comfortably into the center of the screen (in any orientation)." In other words, it's not that users can't reach things in the middle of the screen, but it does require they change how they're sitting. So, "put frequently used interaction surfaces near the edge," and "locate key controls to be comfortable to use while holding on to the edges of a device."
The first phrase is Microsoft's (it's how they claim Windows 8 will perform; by the looks of the demo, they're pretty far along). The second phrase is mine, but in the demo it's clear that's what they want developers to stop doing. How? By using Microsoft-supplied transitional effects — for example, animating the way picture icons arrive on screen as users add them to a list. This might sound like frivolous eye candy, but the demo makes the point convincingly: these little points of polish make users feel a closer connection to the content and less like there's an engineer standing between them and what they want to do.
Specifically, what Microsoft is encouraging developers to do is use Windows 8's "Animation Library" to implement these effects and take advantage of things like hardware acceleration. This, they argue, saves programmers from having to master animation flourishes or learn After Effects; the ready-to-use animations take care of the design work. I mention all this because a sluggish reading experience — even one that's half a second too slow — can cause readers to bail.
This reminds me of a conversation I had last winter with Theo Gray, author of "The Elements for iPad" and one of the principals behind Touch Press. He was previewing an in-progress app for me and stopped the demo mid-way through. One of the gems onscreen that was supposed to spin was lagging a tiny bit. If you're even off by a little, he said, users will notice. Sweating the details like this may be one reason the Touch Press apps are so successful.
The point Microsoft makes in this part of the presentation is, if you're making a touchscreen app, don't have fingers and touch gestures replicate what a mouse does. Multitouch screens can and should be controlled differently than our regular computers. And Microsoft makes this case by poking fun at the cumbersome steps an iOS user has to go through to drag an app icon from one home screen to another that's far away: "it's like driving a car from one side of the ocean to another." Anyone who's got more than a few screen's worth of apps knows what they're talking about. What Apple has currently designed is really the equivalent of how you'd scroll horizontally with a mouse (except in iOS there are no quick scrollbar shortcuts).
The solution that Microsoft demos is neat (28:48): you hold the app icon you want to move in place with one finger and then, with your other hand, you pan under it, swiping the screens quickly to get to the new placement spot where you want to drop the icon. It's very slick, and it's a reminder of the benefits of designing explicitly for a touchscreen.
By now we're all used to tapping touchscreens to zoom in closer on an image or bump up the font size of an article. Microsoft has introduced a twist: zooming gestures now frequently deliver more and different kinds of info as users view content at different magnification levels. For example, when viewed up close, a group of neighboring app icons on the home screen might look like this:
But when the user zooms out to a bird's-eye view, that same group acquires a label, delivering an extra helping of information to help browsers decide where to go next or to rearrange groups into a different order.
The same kinds of semantic additions at different zoom levels could be helpful for digital book designers looking to provide different views (book-wide, chapter-level, and so on) for readers browsing through different levels of detail. A few months ago I wrote about Glo Bible and something similar they've done with their outline zooming tool.
In Metro, two apps can co-exist side by side on the main screen. One sits center stage, and the other gets tucked in this so-called "snap" state: a compressed rectangular view that apps occupy when they cede the main part of the window to another app.
"A great snapped state," presenter Jensen Harris says, "invites users to keep an app on screen longer." These truncated views are fully functional. One fun example that gets a mention: imagine a piano app in snap state, a drum app on the main screen, and the user playing both of them at the same time. In other words, true multitasking and a world in which users are encouraged to make their apps interact with each other. It's a compelling reminder of something many serious readers (and writers) do all the time in the real world: keep multiple documents open simultaneously.
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