The initial experience upon launch

The application framework, in its simplicity, doesn’t disappoint on first impressions – it’s far less confusing and seemingly hierarchical than the website. Upon launch, users are given instant richness through the Featured section of TV, full of beautiful imagery bursting out at every opportunity, creating something of a truer representation of the Beeb’s depth and bredth of content than on other device types. It’s an impressive opener to the app, and praise should be given for the dedicated focus towards almost pure content as navigation. I’m always a fan of a cliche, so here goes: “this is the sort of experience that iPad was designed for” [insert stubborn acceptance of the truth here].

Application breakdown

The application is broken down into the following key views: TV, Radio and Favourites. Both TV and Radio are broken down further into two core sub-sections: Home and Channels. Whereas Home is much more about content and imagery, Channels follows a more structured pattern akin to a traditional TV Guide, broken down by each channel and their broadcasts spread horizontally across nine days.

TV/Radio: Home

Ok, so lets dig a little deeper to understand the specifics of the structure a little more. Of the two sub-sections within each of TV and Radio (Home and Channels), Home looks to be immediately more popular, given a number of things:

• a focus on instant, plentiful, rich imagery and quick glanceability gives immediate reward and immersion
• its simplicity and flat structure will promote better discovery; and
• it benefits from a Featured filter, pushing constantly changing, interesting content up the stack

As well as Featured, there are two other filters. Though it’s of marginally less interest, Most Popular filter is still a helpful method to those who might be bamboozled by the sheer wealth of content on offer, or those who want quick access to Eastenders and Top Gear!

Thirdly, the For You filter appears to be a dynamic grid of content customised by ‘my’ consumption, though on experience, of the nine programmes pushed to me, only one seemed to mirror the type of content I was consuming (and even that programme, I’d already watched). I’d be interested to see how this view is populated, whether it learns over time etc.

TV/Radio: Channels

Though inherently less immersive, the more structured and conventional Channels view still has some value, offering users a reliable navigable backbone of time along which known content can be reaccessed. It seems to be more useful for those who already know the general order of play through ‘traditional’ BBC broadcasts, either through long term consumption (and resultant catch-up in recent years), or their general familiarity with a conventional TV Planner.

Only one gripe here: sometimes, the initial delay in showing content and lack of notification in something happening lead me to believe that on many occasions, there was simply nothing in this view, whereas there was, but only after a time.

Favourites

But regardless of how you happen to find content in the app, coming back to it later might appear daunting, given the sheer scale of what’s on offer. Naturally, the Favourites view, the third core component of the app, deals with this, allowing for easy access to all those programmes you know and love. And there are two beautiful additions to this feature…

The first is the ability to see other related programmes in that series, denoted by a simple stacking indicator behind the main programme image. Tapping on the image brings up a popover list of related content. This is great, with shallow encouragment of set completion and a more strict, truer sense of related content, not otherwise seen in other areas of the app.

The second is the ability to press & hold on a programme image from anywhere in the app and drag it up to a thin Favourites pane that appears temporarily. It’s an easy and fun way to add to and build up a set of one-offs or series for later consumption.

I do have some wishes though.

1 – I wish that in the Favourites view, the popover contained a little more detail about the other related content in that set. I wish it would contain the same thumbnail image that the the search / browse feature does, which I’ll describe in a bit.

2 – I wish that I could see what I’ve watched, both in my Favourites, but also in general. Coincidentally, in our new app, Just One More, we tried to promote the consumption of previously-unwatched content, in a subtle fashion. By slightly reducing the opacity of watched content, we inadvertantly promote all other unwatched content. It’s effectively a ‘nudge’ for the mobile video generation (See Thaler & Sunstein’s popular book on the subject). There’s also a game element layered on top, whereby the user aims to dim all the boxes and complete the set. I’d be great to see some of this in the iPlayer app, though perhaps toned down for its wider audience.

I’ve created a screen to show what I mean by these two points. Series content is displayed with more visual pertinence and distinction, watched programmes are signified, as well as the ability to show how many days the content will remain for. There could even be a view or filter just for ‘Finishing Soon…’ within the app.

Details view & Playing

So once you’re happy with your selection, a quick tap on it will bring up the details view, where viewing can commence. This view works really well, given the simplicity and desire to only show necessary information by default. As always, it’s the small things, like the flush left-alignment of the iPlayer title tag that make one’s heart sing. Tapping the ‘More Information’ element shows a nice transition to a more descriptive, image-free state, though even though for some programmes, there is no further information, yet the button is still shown and the resultant view appearing blank. A small thing, but hey…

Another point, a little larger, was the time taken to pre-cache, just prior to watching. It was markedly longer than that on the web, though the same connection speed was used in testing (Strict testing was done from my sofa, on my wifi, along with cup of standard, unbiased tea). Is this something to do with what Quicktime requires that Flash doesn’t? Not sure. Anyhows, once the buffer had been made, performance was generally very smooth.

This last point isn’t strictly a design issue, but it does affect the overall experience. Otherwise, things are very good in this important area.

Searching

The weakest area of the app. Reason? All content results are shown in a narrow popOver menu in the top right of the screen. It seems such a waste of space and a disappointment, given the thought put into the display of rich content in all other areas of the app. There’s such an expectation that this view is just the precursor to something more, but that never comes. Hopefully, this’ll be resolved in a future release. Relating back to a point in the Favourites view, this sort of component would be perfect when looking at all episodic content within a series, rather than just a list of text, as is the case now.

Other wishes

Local storage – given the increasing use of Core Data for rich media content on the iPad, it would’ve been great to store content locally for a given period of time, until its expiry, just like the Desktop Air app. Even though the context of use for iPad is aligned heavily to the home, there are certainly many cases where the opportunity to consume rich content away from a strong connection is clear (with travel a good one). The TED app does this well, though it’s appreciated that TED videos are roughly only 15-20 minutes in length, with BBC content generally having a much longer average running time.

Orientation – the two slightly differing browsing modes offered between the two orientations could be aligned;

Perceived off-screen content – there is no indication of any further offscreen content, though most of the time there is, though sometimes not (As in the For You filter). Probably the bigger point here is that there is no distinction between those that do and those that don’t.

Increased notification of content finishing soon – Even if subtle (sparklines etc), would be great to see content that only has a short viewing time remaining, as well as the text in the programme details screen.

Conclusion

The BBC iPlayer app for iPad was certainly hoped for, and for a long time too. Sure we had the iPad-optimised version of the existing website, but the experience given by the app is simply a world away. Sure there are some things that could be improved, but it’s an absolutely fantastic start. Allegedly, it took 8 months to make, and good things take time, so I’m glad they didn’t rush the process. It certainly feels this way.

Through iPad, there is no better canvas at present upon which to paint the rich content offered by the BBC. Combine this with the elegant, simple design and neat touches throughout, and you will see that the team have exploited the device effectively. It’ll be very interesting to see how the BBC make an equivalent mark in a world where iPad is not the only fruit on the tree. Also, how will the work done here help innovate the wider iPlayer offering, not only on web, but also on connected television? What about the relationship between iPad and traditionally-passive telly consumption?

In an industry where innovation, excitement and progress are seemingly never-ending, it’s more important than ever to carry out the extra work required to distinguish what is Hype from what is Good and similarly, from what is truely Great.

To conclude, there’s no denying it’s been given a helping start by a Good dose of rich content, but the design of the app enables the whole experience to be something more… something you can comfortably call Great.

runs away

• Innovative approach
• Great product details view
• Very easy to ‘basket & checkout’
• Good, prioritised use of rich video content for products
• One-click, good email sharing & wishlists

Cons

• Grid view can be chaotic (too many products)
• Can be confusing to some, especially initially
• Inefficient use of space in places
• Some UI bugs hamper the experience

Before you read this review, do me a favour and watch this video

With that sorted, let’s dive right in to its namesake, the newly-launched Windowshop, by Amazon.

In a nutshell, the app allows shoppers to peruse the wealth of products available for purchase on Amazon’s site, though it seeks to offer a simpler, more visual method of shopping than seen in current web browsers or on its mobile apps.

It does this by throwing up a grid of products to the user, with columns representing the product categories, and the rows representing the respective products. Tapping on a product shows its details in a nicely-transitioned popup, along with basket options and other related products, but more on that later.

So, is it any good? In my opinion, it is, though perhaps not for the reasons one would expect. So first, a bit of bad…

I would argue that one of the core areas, the browsing grid, suffers. Here’s why:

It feels overwhelming

Just as one might feel that there’s too much choice in a supermarket, the user is constantly subject to exposure of many never-ending and potentially irrelevant products. So much is thrown at you all at once in a seemingly-infinite 360° grid. Upon first launch, I was given a bewildering 29 different columns of products to work through. It didn’t really feel as though the products on screen related to any category, perhaps due to the fact that there was nothing, even subtle, to denote a different category of product. Design edits on this point below.

It feels underwhelming too

Not enough thought has been placed into what happens at a deeper level of browsing. Many times, I had been browsing the store, and after a little scrolling, I all of a sudden found myself feeling very lonely. All those abundant products I had begun to seek comfort from had disappeared, and only a solitary column remained. The vast majority of the screen real estate had been left barren and bare. The app’s strict column system suddenly felt strange and underwhelming – I would have expected a greater emphasis on making the most of this space in a dynamic, adjustable way. It certainly didn’t seem to match up with the focus on better product browsing – that the image below lists 178 shaver products simply compounds this. That’s a lot of scrolling I shouldn’t have to do.

Diagonal scrolling has no benefit at all

To be able to scroll down the list at the same time as along doesn’t make any sense. By doing this, users are being asked to navigate along two information plains at the same time: other products, and other (unknown) categories. What is the benefit to users of scrolling to invisible products above or below the screen on categories to the left or right of the screen, when they don’t know what these products are? Below is a diagram showing the problem, with A as the currently-viewable area. If I do not know the off-screen categories represented in B, and the respective products within them, then why would I want to scroll to C? It leads to confusion and over-complexity.

In this case, it makes more sense to lock the scrolling to one of the two. Users won’t feel short-changed, and instead the app will feel more sturdy and helpful.

And now some goods…

An excellent product details view

Amazon Window Shopper benefits from the most sexy, innovative and delightfully-packaged product details view in town. In handling basic product information, photos (and videos too, where they exist, which are nicely-prioritised), reviews, related products and all the basket basics, it does everything here very very well.

I was also very impressed with the elegant way that the app handled product choices, such as colour and size, the combinations of which affect price and availability. Shown below is the way Amazon handles this in the app.

There were, of course, a few gripes: the ability to select the next and previous products but not knowing what those products were beforehand; the generic iOS popup confirming basketed products taking away from the immersion somewhat; and also that the moveable full-screen image popups came across as buggy and didn’t actually add to the experience. See Murakami book image below.

Checking out

I found this to be a smooth process, all handled within a single popup view. I would have to go through Payment info, delivery address and shipping speed before completing the order. Again, this process is smooth and allows the user to carry out the whole order review process quickly and with ease. Impressed.

Extras

Other than the basics, one-click ordering and wishlists are in there, as a nicely-done sharing of products via email. The reason I included it in this case was because the simple email is generated and sent from within the app, which felt cohesive and didn’t break the shopping experience, yet utilised the iPad’s core UI elements well.

Concluding remarks

Amazon have been bold in removing much of the noise that surrounds their conventional website. Offering customers a cleaner, simpler and more explorative retail experience is a refreshing change. The focus on the grid view, however, still needs work if it is going to be as easy-to-use as it is explorative. Other than that, the app flows well, and Amazon has their payment system sorted really well. I would even go as far as to say it was satisfying to complete.

Having said this, they’ve had many years to perfect their flow, and the iPad gives a really good platform to take their m-commerce design thinking to a new level. In many ways, the cleanliness and simplicity around these functional ‘sideshow’ elements of the app is what is at its heart, and why many may come back for more.

However, no matter how beautiful your shopping basket is, how smooth your trolley glides, or how efficient your till staff are, if customers are bewildered with seemingly-unsorted choice from the moment they enter your store, and no extra assistance when you know what you know roughly what you want, then they may well glide that empty trolley over to the exit sign.

Jerome

• Seasonal; felt very festive
• Helpful for last minute ideas
• Advent calendar a nice initial call to action / introducer of special content
• Some cooking tools helpful…
• Some non-branded videos a strong addition
• Other retailers are looking on in envy

Cons

• Some unresponsiveness and generally buggy. Crashed a number of times.
• Feels like it was a little rushed out, which feels un-Waitrose
• Hard to read text
• Feels like there’s too much in the app
• Featured recipe videos link to Waitrose infomercials, low on tips, high on gloss, brand and Delia.
• Short shelf life – plans post-Christmas?
• Some tools unhelpful

“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, Not a creature was stirring, apart from Mum, who was up late stressing out over plans for the Big Day…”

And so the new Waitrose Christmas iPhone and iPad app launched last week, which tries to help people like Mum, offering festive recipe suggestions and Planning Tools to make The Day go as smoothly as possible.

The app is split up into 4 key areas: Recipes, Tools & Planners, Ideas & Offers and Branches & Info, with each containing a number of sub-categories. Of these, both the Recipes and Tools are of most value.

An early gift?

Jumping straight in, users are initially treated to a date-specific advent calendar box which, upon tapping, peels away to reveal a ‘treat’ (or recipe). The treat in this case was a Roast Beef recipe image, but on tapping, nothing seemed to happen for about 10 seconds, until the recipe finally appeared on screen, along with ingredients, cooking instructions etc.

Part of me thought that Waitrose had tried to cram a little too much into some screens. Text was very small in some places and barely readable. This didn’t seem to match up with the real estate available on the iPad.

On the flipside, the array of Christmas-themed recipes did make me salivate, and there was something for everyone.

Videos

I was pleased to see Waitrose had taken the time to create videos for these featured recipes, but on tapping the video button, I found that this in-app youTube link was a Waitrose infomercial, low on tips, high on gloss, brand and Delia’s shining face. Moreover, the Roast Beef video told me nothing about Roast Beef, and instead gleefully informed me how to make a yorkshire pudding! However, other videos reaped better, more helpful rewards, and were warmly appreciated in the kitchen. They were roughly a minute in length, were concise, and cleanly edited.

Time to cook

A nice addition within the recipes was a Cooking Timer, which was pre-set to the time required for the particular selected recipe. I wasn’t so sure about the red overlay that came with the countdown, however. It felt a little distracting and gave panicky vibes. When the timer reached zero, the text went red, and the overlay didn’t disappear. However, I did get a nice bicycle-style ringing noise to let me know, which was great. I would, at this time, probably be more engaged in my cooking activities than in the state of the timer, so a noise of some kind was highly appreciated.

The app had good social integration (Facebook, Twitter & email) throughout, which was nice, making good use of the mirrored content on Waitrose’s website. I myself shared a white choc and & apricot Stollen recipe with my dinner club very easily via email. On some occasions, however, the buttons simply refuse to respond, and there were long pauses and errors using Facebook, each time I used it. Whether this was a fault of the app or Facebook remains to be seen. Facebook, deflecting responsibility, blamed the app.

Tools too cool for school?

Beyond the simple Recipe Timer, it was pleasing to see that Waitrose offered a number of other helpful kitchen assistants to aid the busy festive chef. For a given weight, the Turkey Timer would let you know how long the bird needed to sit in the oven.

And though there was a ‘Veg Planner’ and an oh-so-middle-class ‘Canape Calculator’, the Big Day planner was possibly the most important of the lot, offering the chance to guide you through the day’s culinary activities with ease.

The proposition was strong, and my hopes were high. All you needed to do was set the time you wanted to serve up. What could be simpler? Well, this was exactly the problem. The ‘Traditional Christmas Day Menu for 8′, along with its clementine cranberry sauce, paprika-spiced crab pâté and braised cabbage with apple, was unchangeable. These set courses, indeed, were what you would have to work with, and not a noise more! There was no ability to remove or add dishes as necessary. It would have been far more helpful to allow for this, than to have to work around the fact that my cranberries will this year be proudly supplied by Ocean Spray, with the corresponding 30min wait in the cooking timeline that would then ensue.

That said, if you did wish to fully conform to Waitrose’s idea of what Christmas Day cooking ought to involve, then the process is a rather simple tickbox affair; they even leave 20 minutes for you to take a break, 5 minutes to warm those plates, and another 20 to pour yourself a bubbly whilst madly setting the table. How nice!

But my other problem with the set of tools was that I wanted to use the Turkey Timer, set in accordance with my bird’s weight, whilst also using the Day Planner. A common sense approach, given the occasion. However, I couldn’t do this. The two features were mutually exclusive, leaving me to my own devices with the bird weight / cooking calculation, though offering that particular functionality just a tap away. The either / or approach was a disappointment.

Other stuff

The Ideas and Offers section was a chance for Waitrose to flog some extra prezzies and ready-prepared meals to users. This area felt a little strange, given the fact that such products merely consisted of a name, price and small blurry image. Not a call-to-action in sight here, which felt a little like tumbleweed bumbling along long-barren tundra, given the presence of Ocado’s iPad app.

Branches and Info was a fairly standard affair. Locations, legals and all the unnecessary excess that Christmas brings with it went in here.

Concluding remarks

Fair play to Waitrose for getting an iPad and iPhone Christmas experience out there. It’s clearly put other retailers to shame, and Waitrose will be sure to sweep up a nice bunch of publicity around the app.

And it is helpful, don’t get me wrong. The recipes are plentiful, the tools can be of use, especially the Recipe Timer and Vegetable Calculator (telling users how much of a certain sprout or parsnip is needed given a set number of guests) and the videos, sans the glazed face of Delia, were of help.

However, there were a number of things that didn’t quite match up about the app. The UI felt squeezed in places, some tools were too restrictive, and half the app felt too salesy, with little call-to-action substance.

It would have been better to simplify the offering somewhat, to offer less, and design it better, in a way that users perceive the Waitrose brand. As it stands, the app feels more like pleasant red jelly, and less like Clementine Cranberry Sauce. Still, better a jelly than an empty plate…

Jerome

There was a good mix of attendees, with o2 employees, sponsors and third party companies each sharing the presence. Looking back at only a year ago, the same event was restricted to internal o2 employees and we have Sandy Hammer of Conference-Art to thank for the progress made in the last 12 months.

I was half-expecting a day of back-patting and marketing spiel, but was actually very pleasantly surprised by the level of the panel discussions and general conversations. Also, importantly for us, key senior people from o2 were available and more than happy to chat with us about our experience with o2 Litmus and the opportunities for the application we were exhibiting – little spender.

Overall, a very positive and exciting day and it’s great to hear an operator talking openly about the state of the industry and the future direction. We’re looking forward to all the follow-up discussions.

Antony Ribot @ Mobile Design UK – 23/02/2009 from Bryan Rieger on Vimeo.

Dave Williamson of bittube.com fame has done a great job in writing one of the early reviews of the event. All videos are now available on Mobile Design UK vimeo group.

I bare all (or as much as I can in 15 minutes) from spending the last 5 years as a designer/developer and now entrepreneur in the mobile sector:

Adam Cohen-Rose of Kizoom has done a great job providing an in-depth review of the day on his blog.

The central issue related to the advertised speed when browsing the internet and the Maps application on the device, which Apple itself referred to as “really fast”.

It said the advert was likely to lead viewers to believe that the device actually operated at or near to the speeds shown in the advert.

With the watchdog stating: “Because we understood that it did not, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead”, what kind of reminders does this have for the rest of us in the industry?

Some may say it’s just an advert, but the banning of these widely-shown broadcasts, of such a tightly-run, squeaky-clean ship such as Apple somehow puts into question the real quality of its mobile user experience.

But, to suggest that Apple needs to fake the experience in some way need not be all bad. Furthermore, it teaches us a few things:

1. Believe it or not, we’ve still a long way to go. It’s a helpful nod to the divergence between perception and reality; between efficiency and latency.
2. Gives us all (including Apple) something specific and exciting to work towards – if a demonstration of the UI alone can be used as an advert with real public wow factor, then…
3. Reminds us that the iPhone, though arguably the best mobile user experience out there right now, clearly isn’t perfect. There is, believe it or not, room for improvement here. Browser latency aside, the 3G iPhone experience, on the whole, is a lot slower than its predecessor, for instance. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iydS0f65o2I&feature=related
4. To be honest, it brings Apple off its high horse a little. Its mobile arm will definitely take a knock from this, so competitors may feel compelled to capitalise on the situation, though they must act quickly. Nokia…show us your speedy, stripped-down UI please.
5. Heightened publicity / debate regarding the issue and importance of mobile user experience, which is always a good thing.

To summarise, this whole debacle can only be good for us mobile designers and developers. To embrace the ruling and understand that, though there is much we can all learn from the iPhone’s successes, there is perhaps more value in taking on board and capitalising from this recent failure than we first think.

In the short, medium and perhaps, dare I say it, long term, we may not be able to rid ourselves of the scourge of network latency, but we should learn that while it is ugly to wait, if you hold a person’s hand throughout the process, as long as it isn’t for too long, they will thank you for it when they arrive at their destination, both happy and reassured.

Overview

The Storm is a rough diamond. Lovely industrial design, but let down substantially not by the lack of Wi-Fi, which has had all the press, but instead by the quality of the touch-operating system. Touted as an iPhone killer, I can confidently confirm that the Storm is unfortunately only half an iPhone. Confusing interactions, hard-to-click buttons and an unpolished UI result in an irritating performance. BlackBerry OS 4.7 is clearly a platform that hasn’t been fully designed for finger interaction, which is a huge shame. That said, the Storm will get better with age, with over the air (OTA) software updates, through which most of these issues will be ironed out. The Storm (or its successors) will in time contend with the likes of the iPhone.

Lets all touch and click

The main difference between the touch interface of the iPhone and the Storm is that the screen on the Storm allows you to cast you finger across it, highlighting the UI elements, but nothing is actioned until you press into the screen. Pushing your finger into the screen actually indents the screen into the device and this is what is defined as a “click” in the interface. It takes a moment to figure out (especially for those of us who are used to the iPhone way of life). It’s different, but it actually works. I’m curious as to what the engineers have devised beneath the screen. Is it time to take a screwdriver to the Storm?

Not for the traveller/talker/photo taker

Battery life seems to be worryingly low (is this perhaps why Vodafone chose to remove a Wi-Fi option?) Since receiving the device, I’ve charged it from empty 4 times (in four days). Yes, I’ve been testing it, but I wouldn’t class my actual usage as heavy. Today, after a full charge, 12 hours later I have 60% battery left. My usage for the last 12 hours included a 20 minute phone call, 5 emails received and a combination of 20 sms’ received/sent. Bluetooth is off. No browser, camera or games usage.

Previous tests with the camera left me with unsatisfactory results every time. I would, without doubt, always opt for shooting with my N95 (if I had it handy). The Storm picture quality is quite desaturated, blurry and noisy. The auto-focus is extremely slow and irritating and I’ve had one crash where I’ve had to remove the battery to start the device again. After taking 5-6 pictures, the battery depleted by some 12% – I’ve not had a chance to test out video, but I’ll keep my expectations low.

Don’t make me wait!

If I had one request for RIM, it would be to improve the speed of the interface. Compared to other devices, it’s not the slowest but it’s certainly far far slower than the iPhone and, once you’ve used an Android G1, you could be forgiven for thinking that the “slow-motion” setting had been turned permanently on. Switching between landscape and portrait modes takes too long and the immediate feedback that one requires from a touch-screen device isn’t quite there yet (numerous people have also mentioned sticky accelerometer issues, getting stuck in portrait mode). That said, future updates will hopefully start to correct these issues and we could have a pleasurable experience.

Landscape text entry is a delightful experience

My favourite experience when it comes to my Storm is when I have to write messages, memos or emails. I start a new email, turn the Storm onto its side (landscape view), after a short delay, the keyboard swaps to landscape and I start to type using my two thumbs. I’ve only used the Storm for four days but I’m already addicted to entering text on this small screen device. It’s just a joy to use and once I’ve learnt the keyboard layout, I’ll be extremely efficient and happy.

On the subject of input, one of the other lovely interaction elements that took me by surprise was the glow technique. When you touch a key on the keyboard, a blue glow eminates from beneath your thumb. Its radius is quite large (covering up to half of each of the button’s neighours). The glow acts as a feedback helping to indicate that you’ve highlighted/pressed the right button.

Storm text entry with glowing indicators

The “app store” experience

Two days after receiving the phone, the software self-registered itself and the “app-store” became available as an option from the menu panel. In total, 11 applications were currently available for download. Most of them designed and developed by RIM. The experience here was mixed; server errors (Null Pointer Exceptions), apps that didn’t allow you to download them (apparently due to session issues), apps that sounded impressive, but ended up failing to live up to expectations (is it just me, or would you expect a flickr app to do more than just upload your pictures?).

I’ve not had any success installing the Facebook app (which I’ve heard great things about), but I was very impressed by the speed and simplicity of the Google Map app (although I wish the icons had text labels above them when you touch them) – great use of cached data and simple gestural swipe actions to navigate.

My finger isn’t the size of a stylus pen!

The help pages are, at best, irritating. You are presented with a list-driven interface and this is where the major problem both begins and ends. This list has clearly been lifted off classic non-touch BlackBerrys and hasn’t been optimised for finger-selection. Selectable areas of items are only as wide as their text, so to click on a list item titled “Maps” is actually quite a feat, requiring a degree of care, attention and patience (something which, on the iPhone, is painless). Replace with a simple list, where active item areas span the width of the device. Introduce some top/bottom padding to each item to make them finger compatible and hey presto, an altogether nicer help page.

Missing polish

Where’s the “bounce” feedback when you get to the end of a list of photos? Why use two different types of scroll bar (one of which doesn’t have an indicator for how far you’ve got to scroll until you get to the end)? Why isn’t there any momentum in the gestural interface? Why don’t all action buttons have text labels that helpfully float above your finger? Why the lag between finger action and interface response?

Boot-up time

I count a total of about 3-5 seconds from the press of the on button to a fully lit and active home screen. Very impressive, but I hope it’s something I won’t be doing too often.

Lets not end here…

Although the Storm hasn’t lived up to my expectations, I’ll be carrying it around with me over the next 12 months (as my primary phone) and will hopefully be reporting of the improvements with successive updates to the software. Stay tuned and I’d be interested in hearing other peoples’ experiences, both good and bad.

Seeing the opportunity to generate some brand recognition, and have a little fun in the process, we wondered how we could make this beer special? How could we get the ribot brand out there?

There was a veritable flood of ideas but time was a major mitigating factor. We only had a couple of days to design, produce and implement any concept we decided to run with…and there was no time to start another if the first didn’t work!

Customising the beer bottles in some way seemed the way to go. Ideas ranged from the simple:

• Tagging each beer with a ribot business card;
• Hanging an info-graphic leaflet from the beer depicting our team, concepts and processes…

…to the more complex:

• Attaching DIY origami to the bottles so that each attendee could build their own paper-craft, ribot branded, creature or plane;

…to the downright crazy:

• creating a weathered-terrain look on the beer bottle surface with tacked-on modeling moss and mini trees sourced from model railway component manufacturers.

But finally, the proverbial lightbulb lit above Jerome’s head and the idea to completely re-brand the beer was born. This seemed like a simple idea at the time; all we would need to do is produce a few ribot-branded (ri-branded?) labels and stick them to the bottles. As time went on, we slowly realised that this would require a lot more work than we had imagined, but by then it was too late to turn back!

With haste, Jerome and Jonathan started researching current beer brands: What exactly was there on your standard beer label? Was there anything we had to legally include, even on a project of this scale?

We decided on three main label elements for our re-branded beer: a front label, a back label (containing a description of each part of the ribot process) and, if there was time, a label for the neck of the beer. Jerome quickly got to formalising some of the ideas we had.

The central concept was to show our process, which we split into three main parts, portrayed by the style of the beer label. These were the results:

Step 1: The concept and ideas phase (Quick sketches and rough mock-ups):

Step 2: The formal wireframe phase:

…and Step 3: The finalised design:

So, with final designs done and our ribot process implemented, we started treading forth into new territory. We had to get the label elements printed, cut and affixed to the side of 80 bottles. As simple as this may initially sound, there were several problems we faced. The main one was a limitation of time available. We had just over 1 day to get this done and having a professional printer rush the job through would cost us over double what the beer cost; following a round of phone calls, printers also needed a lot longer to get things finished. We also wouldn’t have been able to test the printed results until the very last minute, so if there were any problems it would’ve been goodnight Vienna!

And so we decided to put our A3 Deskjet printer to the test. The results were, thankfully, great. Initially we planned to use three types of paper, one for each stage of the design process, increasing in quality:

+ Plain paper for the sketches;

++ Matt photo-paper for the wireframes;

+++ High Quality gloss paper for the final design;

So we got in some samples and quickly tested them. The plain paper was far too see-through when taped to the bottle – even the super thick stuff!

The matt photo-paper, however, worked great and provided excellent results so we decided to use it for stage one as well!

With a secure method of adhesion and a way to protect the labels from condensation still eluding us, Jonathan proposed to laminate the labels and simply use double-sided sticky tape to keep them down. With less than a day to go we decided to quickly test the idea out, and it seemed to work! Woo!

With that all done, the 80 bottles of beer needed to be purchased and individually labelled, and so for a trip to Sainsbury’s…

After a torrential downpour during the journey back to ribot Towers, a soggy Antony, Jerome and girlfriend RoxyBird began the long task of drying out, cutting out, applying tape and attaching all the labels to the bottles (in that order). Finally, after working into the oui-hours of the morning, ribot beer was born and ready to take its first steps in the world. Fast-forwarding to the next day, the beers were very well received at the event, and were a great talking point for all.

Overall, it was a great mini-project, during which we took ourselves, for the majority of the project, away from the computer, and towards the scissors and glue. For a day and a bit, ribot totally changed into a industrial setup; everything became physical, real, and subject to different constraints, like moisture, stickiness, and process hyper-optimisation.

Though the main aim of the project was to showcase our design process, it was incredibly interesting to extend and augment this process away from conventional user interfaces, and to see how we work when faced with a more physical, industrial process. Needless to say, the project was a great success and we had a lot of fun doing it.

To conclude, here’s a few things that we found out from the beer label-making process:

1. Of course, it’s not only user interfaces that need designing for interaction: 1 We had to redesign our neck tops so they wouldn’t fall off during drinking. 2 People would be holding the bottle for prolonged periods so, what with the condensation, we had to make sure the print for the final concept stayed on the label and not transfer to peoples’ hands. 3 Also that ‘keen’ fingers wouldn’t be able to easily pick our labels off (This was documented during the evening: attempts were made but fingers proved thankfully futile).
2. We could really speed up production after optimising our process:
   1. Everyone had their role in the production line; we spent a bit of time dividing up the tasks into roles that would allow for most effective handover between people
   2. We turned the desks into a production line, where the label elements in their various stages would be passed down the line
   3. Having more people work on the line helped improve morale:
      1. We had a massive stack of uncut label sheets and a load of unlabeled beers on the table, so for each worker to be able to visually see a noticeable reduction in the remaining amount of effort needed as time went on certainly acted as a motivator
      2. With greater numbers of workers, it was noticeable that song-singing became more prevalent, helping boost efforts and reduce fatigue.
3. Testing became incredibly important if we were to find issues early and finish on time:
   1. Good testing of materials at the start meant we had less problematic variables to consider as the process went on.
      1. We found that after testing a labeled bottle by putting it in the fridge for a few hours, and then taking it out, a few hours later the beer label, even with all its double-sided tape glory, started to unpeel quite dramatically due to the condensation. Following this test, we built in an extra bit of focus for the taping bit of the process.

To conclude, a job well done! So chieres for the bieres!

1. Direct Manipulation

• Users generally respond better if they can control something tangible.
• Users will better understand the results of their actions if they can directly manipulate what they can see

Make sure that:

• Objects on the screen are visible while the user performs actions on them
• The result of their actions are immediately viewable

2. See and Point

• Present list-based choices to the user. Can be scanned quickly and are intuitive
• Reduce text-based input as much as possible. (more time efficient. reduces error checking)

3. Feedback

Users need to see:

• Immediate feedback when they operate controls (list items should highlight after selecting)
• Status updates during longer operations

• Audible feedback can be used, but shouldn’t be the primary/sole form of feedback
• Show activity indicator for non-instantanious operations
• Show progress bar for operations lasting more than a few seconds
• Provide textual explanation to the user of what is happening, if applicable…

4. User Control

• Let users control actions
• Keep actions simple so users can understand and remember them
• Use standard controls and actions as much as possible
• Allow users the option to cancel an action before it begins, degrading gracefully;
• Allow user to confirm potentially-destructive operations. Don’t over-use confirmations though – This will ruin any fluidity you have built up.

5. Aesthetic Integrity

• Level of aesthetic depth depends upon type of app
• Productive apps – keep aesthetic subtle and in the background – give prominence to the task – use standard controls
• Immersive apps – bring aesthetic to the fore – users expect a beautiful, fun experience

6. Build in Simplicity and Ease of Use

• Make it obvious – Minimise controls; label controls
• Put frequently-used, high-importance information at the top of the screen
• Minimise text input – Provide as much functionality for each piece of info given by the user; – If possible, use a picker – it’s easier to choose from list than to enter words
• Express yourself succinctly – Make UI text short and sweet. make it quick and easy to absorb. think like a newspaper headline editor
• Provide finger-tip-sized area for all tappable areas (40-45px minimum), and provide ample space between tappable elements (20px min or so)

7. Focus on the Primary Task

• Stay focused on your product definition statement, and make sure each function in the app supports it.
• Query what’s most important in each context. ask yourself whether each bit of information being shown is critical at this stage. if not, is it critical at another stage, or at all?

8. Let the user always know where they are

Throughout the application hierarchy, always make sure you use the page header properly to inform the user where they are in. For example, this may be by informing them which image they’re browsing, or that they’re about to ‘Add a bookmark’. If applicable, support/repace this large header text with smaller text to describe what’ the page is for, in a simple human fashion.

Remember that by default, the iphone has no visible scrollbar – it only becomes visible when users begin to scroll, so make sure that it’s clear to the user that there’s more content below that can be scrolled to.

1. Semi-translucent soft-key menu button

As we all know, screen space is precious on mobile apps and with this slight alteration, a little bit extra of the map can now been seen. Arguably, an alternative option would be to hide most of the soft key label after a period of inactivity by the user, presenting the user with a more or less full view of the map in question.

2. Faster start-up time

Primarily due to the use of native Symbian code rather than Java, the application now lets the user get to their map view far quicker. Hopefully future Java VM’s will be optimised to the point where we’ll find it hard to detect differences in initial load time (between native and java apps).

3. Basic auto-location (without the need for GPS)

So, more devices are now coming out with one form of GPS or another (e.g assisted GPS). But lets face it, most consumer devices don’t have any form of GPS chip in them. Personally, I tend to use GPS features sparingly on my mobile devices due to the battery-sapping nature of them. This, I feel is one of the reasons why GPS at least at this stage is not ready to take off, as users fundamentally want to know that they have enough battery to make that all-important emergency call. Even though you can use the GPS functionality of your device when using the Google Maps app, you don’t have to – you can instead rely on the not-so-accurate, “triangulation of cell towers” method.

So where am I going with this conversation? The inclusion of this triangulation method (or simple GPS as I like to call it) has a dramatic effect upon the user experience: by simply pressing the ‘0’ key, the application will home in to your location (which will obviously be more accurate when using GPS than triangulation). Either way, with a single key press and a little bit of a wait to load in the viewable map, you’re ready to explore your local area. Compare this user experience with that of the prior version of Google maps, where the user had to go to the following to get to the “explore stage”:

• Key press 1: “Options” Left soft key hit
• Key press 2-4: Traverse up to the “Search” option
• Key press 5: Select the “search” menu item
• Key press 6-11: Minimum key presses required to enter your postcode*
• Key press 12: “Search” actioned

• I realise that it is, in fact, possible to search for shorter place names/postcodes e.g. w4, but I wanted to perform a search with a little more precision and usefulness.

A single or double digit keypress pathway? You choose. I know which one we prefer.

So well done Google on improving what was already quite a nice little app, turning it into something very nice indeed. I urge you to check it out, either for inspiration or for very helpful location-based assistance on the go, GPS or no GPS.

Nokia

To be honest, I wasn’t impressed by the latest release of devices. Nearly all the devices have that current “boring” Nokia look. Yes, there are specific “style” ranges, but even these didn’t amaze me. Maybe this is due to the thought at the back of my mind that they all run either S60 or S40, both of which aren’t very pleasant to use due to terrible response times, general overcrowding and mish-mashing of interface elements and there’s also nothing new.

However, what I was impressed by was how much time Nokia had put into developing their software app teams, with the stand showcasing many new releases. Of particular interest was the new version of Nokia Maps 2.0 Beta (http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/maps). General look and feel was refreshing. I didn’t get a chance to have a play for very long, so I’ll be reviewing the app in-depth when we get our little package of new phones next week.

Nokia S60 touchscreen unfortunately wasn’t very impressive – the device on display looked like an early prototype, using a very unresponsive version of the S60 interface (although I’m hoping this is due to the prototype nature of the product). It also didn’t feature haptic feedback which is something that I’d been wanting to test out for some time. techype goes into a lot more background detail regarding the potential pitfalls of the S60 touchscreen device.

Nvidia

The graphics-chipset company announced a new low-power graphics chip designed especially for mobile devices. They showcased the power and graphics capabilities on a prototype device built internally, allowing them to demonstrate future possibilities of small-screen user interfaces. The device ran on the Windows Mobile platform (6.1), supported OpenGL ES 2.0 and could potentially play a HDMI video for a full 10 hours!

taptu

A new form of mobile search. I’d heard the name being bounced around the London mobile scene in the previous few months but hadn’t had time to check out the details of the product. The CEO previously headed up a usability company and brings with him this experience; Taptu have hired two full time usability experts and it’s great to see the user being given prominence in the design of an interface. Anyway, they’ve just launched version 1.0 of their product, go check it out at http://taptu.com and see what you think. I’m still only a few days into using it, but it generally feels a lot cleaner and makes much more of use of the context than other services providing mobile search.

Flixwagon

The lovely Xen of MyFrame Inc handed me an N95 and unlimited data SIM on my first night in dearest Barcelona. Their product, Flixwagon allows you to take video on your mobile which is then broadcast live onto the web. I’d heard of a similar service provided by a competitor – Qik (which i’ve not yet used) and, as an avid twitter user, video was the next natural step in recording my thoughts, memories and stories, so I quickly felt at home.

Modu

Quite an interesting concept: marketed as the world’s smallest phone, that can jump into “jackets” of various forms, enabling a variety of interactions. Scheduled to launch in 6 months time, this will be an exciting product to keep an eye on.

SpinVox

These guys and gals had one of the best stands in the whole conference, hoisting up what looked like 1000 of their ‘mobsters’ onto a rig to display the latest MWC SpinVox messages. Quite a magical service too – their voicemail to text systems can even detect spoken words like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! I’m thinking this will be very handy for meetings when I need to check voicemails without actually making a call.

Google

Google had a very low-key presence at the conference and left it up to the hardware manufacturers like Texas Instruments and ARM to showcase Android-based prototypes. During the conference the new Android SDK was released which featured a very early version of a totally-new UI look and feel, but only the old UI was seen on the conference floor (I didn’t smuggle myself into the Google meeting room, where maybe I could have got a peak at it – there’s lots of screen shots on the web of it now anyway).

Networking events

Swedish beers was the best mobile networking night of the week, where I got to meet a great selection of mobilists and mobilistas from across the globe over a few glasses of Trapist Belgian beer. Thanks once again to Helen and friends for organising the night and for the sponsors providing the free-flowing beer.

All in all, though a somewhat overwhelmingly-large conference, MWC had many interesting little nuggets scattered about, which I’ll be sure to keep a close eye on over the next year or so.

With your delicious gambas, soft sea breezes and delightful side-streets, I’m sure I’ll be back.

Until next year, goodbye Barcelona. Thank you for having me.

Sorry? Forgetful interface??

Well, if we are to make better sense of the present, the past must be better managed in the future.

For, with ever-increasing amounts of information being created over time, relevancy is key; systems that allow for ‘purposeful forgetfulness’ will have to be given greater attention.

But what do I mean by a ‘forgetful interface’? Surely not a system that actually forgets my personal, treasured information?

Well, no. In my own forgetful interface, there would be no automatic purging of any data. It would remain stored unless explicitly removed by the user.

The internet in its present form is a relatively young beast. Though its many users have been creating, tagging, archiving, sharing and managing data across an ever-widening range of applications for a while now, this is only just the beginning. Ten, twenty, fifty years from now, even if the notion of the web changes radically (which it is certain to), it’ll play host to an incredible amount of data, in need of new depths of information management.

The key here is relevancy – getting the information to the user that is most applicable to them at the current time. To help take some of these ideas a little further, I’ll use a simple example.

Geoff’s size problem

The year is 2015. Though its form and the company that maintains it has greatly changed, Geoff, a 54-year-old, self-employed business consultant, still uses Gmail: an email web application popular with many users across the world. He was a relatively-early adopter of the free service, signing up in late 2004. He’s a heavy user, using this email account as his primary point of contact. Gmail holds over ten-years-worth of his emails. Despite this, it remains incredibly responsive, due to the nationwide fibre-optic rollout policy adopted by the new Government some 5 years ago.

However, the problem has shifted from one of reliability, to one of relevancy. Even though the tagging system used heavily by Geoff has been refined and developed by Google over the years, he now has tens of thousands of email conversations stored under the numerous labels he’s created.

Geoff regularly searches for emails relating to meetings with his current clients. He has a good reputation, and many of his clients have been so for years. A search for a keyword relating to one of these clients brings back 1000s of results, and every time Geoff wishes to search, he has to set the dates within which the search should take place to be the last 6 weeks or 6 months. He’s frustrated by this – although he greatly values their importance and in no way wants to get rid of them, his emails from 8 or 9 years ago hold little relevance to his operations and requirements today. “If only there was some way that Gmail would take these really old emails somewhere else, a safe place, away from my what I see every day, it would realy help me out – there’s tens of thousands now. I don’t want to delete them, but they’re just not relevant to me anymore”, he ponders. If only the system could ‘forget’, and keep the information shown to him relevant, it would greatly simplify his experience for many years into the future.

Deep archiving

Unbeknown to Geoff, Google had been thinking about this issue for a while now, and is currently undergoing internal user testing of a new service, code-named ‘aMail’, short for archived mail. aMail would be a subsidary service offered to gmail users whereby older mail (at what point the mail becomes old being determined by the user), auto-tagged by time in years (2004, 2005 etc), would be available for aMailing; that is, it is sent to another place: a mail archive, stored at a deeper level of the Gmail system hierarchy.

Though Google sees this service as free, it too will be ad-funded, by a new, more intelligent system that gives user-specific advertising based on more long-term analysis of email content – as opposed to the previous keyword-based system, it can now read content as a narrative – giving the ads a far more personal, deeper focus on Geoff’s long-term requirements and desires.

9 months later, aMail, now known in the industry as ‘deep archiving’, is silently released as an option within Gmail’s existing archiving ability. Geoff is notified of this update, and tries out the new feature. He chooses to deep-archive all emails but those from the last two years. Now manageable on a larger scale, the myriad unnecessary information clogging up his everyday interface is greatly reduced. Performing searches is now a more simplified experience, and far less time is spent browsing through pages of results.

This service allows the interface to safely ‘forget’ old and unnecessary information, keeping the data relevant to the present-day needs of the user.

Monetization through added value & meta-social management

Other companies soon copy and further monetize this system. For example, a social networking site specializing in the sharing of hi-definition video content since 2009 offers a deep-archiving service as part of its ‘Enterprise’ account – where users can safely ‘deepen’ an unlimited amount (well, not unlimited, but a lot) of now-not-so-relevant content, keeping users’ content as fresh for both themselves and all others who view it, as they need it to be (a lot can change in a decade).

We can also take this a step further; a service could be developed that aggregates the user’s deep-archived content from across their numerous now-open social platforms, spread across a wide variety of mediums (e.g. your photo albums from Facebook, your blog articles from Blogger, Twitter posts, youTube videos), and packages them all together, as a life narrative tool of all your memories down the years in digital form. You can view it as a spin-off concept of Google’s upcoming Open Social platform, but more content-specific, and focused more on the past as opposed to the future.

Regardless, though this is very much a fictitious, simple example of a forgetful interface, and one can see how aspects covered here regarding the gathering of information over time raises some interesting questions about how best we can look to manage it.

To conclude, though the notion of archiving already exists across many web application systems, how it will deal with the ever-increasing amount of data some many years down the line is something important and not yet fully defined. That the interface will ‘forget’, does not mean that the system will necessarily do the same – very much the opposite, in fact. The key point is that the user’s experience is simplified, and given greater relevancy to the events and requirements of the present day. That this can be monetised through its perception as an added-value service for the organised, heavy or sentimental users among us can only further catalyse its inclusion within future interfaces.

Overview of mobile space

• 1.3bn net users, 3.2bn mobile users
• Every second in china, four babies born, 25 new subscribers
• Mobile content far more profitable (you pay for everything) – otoh web content generally assumed free
• Higher value perception on mobile – people are comfortable with this.
• Web and mobile – two very different worlds – software build and ad structure different

iPhone

• New paradigm shift from carriers to web companies
• Carriers have no choice – $150bn spent on EU 3G licences, $70bn rollout costs. And now 4G investment…
• Built on the premise of rich content to 100s of millions. But on iPhone, carrier doesn’t see bulk of transaction (iTunes) – just the start…

Qik

• Stream video live from mobile to web – multicasting (many peeps communicating to many others)
• Users can participate / add to questions pool ‘during the interview’ – a remarkable facility!

GPS / Assisted GPS

Location-enabled systems will change the way we communicate – will be the killer app of the future (Nokia says this also – has invested $6bn in mapping company navTeq)

Mass-market mobile monetization…

• iPhone, qik not mass-market
• 2.3bn sms sent this year. The figure is growing, and won’t be replaced by email just yet.

…through innovative Mobile Advertising / payment systems

• Faceparty – text service for users to advertise their profile on the front page for few mins for £1.50 – highly successful.
• TheCloud – zero-pain transactions – wi-fi access time now sold via sms. Much quicker than physically getting credit card or money out of wallet.

ZONG

• Open mobile development platform, reduces barriers to entry
• Spawned out of age-old opinion on mobile software: “we can’t do this…it’s too complex…too many variables (handsets, sizes, platforms, carriers etc)”
• Still expanding the API but looking to have 1bn mobile content subscribers by EOY 08.

All day, every day, games are played. Though most start and finish without ever being fully acknowledged by their participants, when we actively or unconsciously participate, there is normally some form of interface. This can be something tangible, and/or perhaps a set of rules, known to all trusted game players.

Focusing down a bit more on the physically-interactive side, conventionally, when we think of games being played in a modern setting, we may think of some kind of external peripheral, such as a baseball bat, or a pressable button, that is used to interact with a central device, such as being swung to hit a ball, or being pressed to trigger an event on a machine display.

I’ve just finished watching a vodcast that focused upon addressing cognitive dissonances through play; basically, using innovative User Interface (UI) systems to ‘improve’ human beings.

As part of the Stanford University lectures on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Berkeley-based Joe Mackaay and Greg Niemeyer were shown demonstrating a number of interfaces developed to better understand human behaviour through both gameplay and art. In particular, I’ll be focusing on three of them here, with one you’ll see released by a major entertainment manufacturer and publisher later in 2008.

Watching users discover, and thus engage in new behavior through these systems, at first, tends to envoke an unfamiliar feeling; something difficult to master or perhaps feels ‘wrong’ in some way. However, over a short period of playing time, intuition quickly pulls through, trust from the user is gained and this negative feeling subsides – the user is able to enjoy and benefit from this new and enriching experience.

The first game revolves around the idea of colour as an interface.

The game involves two players in a room, standing next to each other behind a pulpit-like control area, containing a set of simple levers (like a mixing desk) for each player.

In front of them is a large screen, split up into horizontal thirds, defined by a particular colour. The player on the left has control of the left block of colour (vice versa with the right player), with the block in the centre of the screen being the target colour.

As mentioned before, each player has three levers, each controlling either red, green or blue – the resultant colour-mix combination chosen by the players’ movement of the levers being displayed on the screen.

The aim is to match the target colour quicker than the other player.

All simple so far, but with each progressive round, the levels become more optically-challenging, with angled and animating elements, resulting in a very difficult task for the player.

Mackaay tells of how addictive users found the experience, much to his amazement – ‘they would stay and play in the lab for between one and two hours, go for a night out out, get drunk etc, and come back to the lab to play the game some more’.

Fundamentally, the game provides a zone of decision-making relating to its tasks, but when you get to the further levels, it takes you to an area outside your zone of perception; a challenging area, where you know you’re in control, but where you no longer get sensory feedback for the decisions you make. This a very important mental condition in which we still persevere, but tend to, in the process, hit the target almost randomly…

Games such as this allow us to move outside our sensory zone of comfort, without the risks normally associated with doing so.

The second game, Organum, focussed on proposing alternative ways of being and interacting in the world, using sound as a platform for these new behavioral possibilities;

Here, using their voices, musicians / players were asked to navigate through a system of tunnel-like organs of a human body, shown on the screen in front of them.

Each player would navigate by singing, speaking or generally making experimental noises into one of three microphones, which control either the x, y or z element of movement. Organum would respond to changes in both tone and volume, allowing the player to become confortable producing a series of personal sounds, allowing them to navigate through the tunnel systems in their own way.

The most interesting element of this game was in the bringing-together of multiple people to play as the different axes of direction; a beatbox mc, a classically-trained singer with an incredibly wide vocal range, and a Tuvan throat singer. The game worked on a number of different levels: game, team and audience. Game: a series of tasks had to be completed (players had to work together to successfully control the thing and navigate through pathogens / hoops using movement). Team: a social performance between three players, developing their own unique dialogues and systems of communication. Performance: a live musical composition to an audience.

Niemeyer stated the importance that the game had self-extracting rules that people get engaged in and would gradually discover over time, thus slowly unearthing the meaning of the game. In the end, there were no instructions to this game; just 5 microphones in a room with a screen. So, as well as this, people would also develop their own set of rules on the fly, implied through the type of sounds they and their fellow players would make, naturally cohabiting the soundspace and finding a way to progress.

To conclude this game, Niemeyer gives a great story of how three young sisters come and play with Organum one day, having a great time, though later returning home. The next day, the parents of the children call up saying how upset their daughters are; they’d been singing to their television set all morning but were extremely disappointed with the lack of sensory feedback they were receiving! A great showcase of how important it is to children for the media to acknowledge your presence and respond to your wishes.

Moving back to the colour game, creator Joe Mackaay, through having played the game intensely, became really rather good at it, touring round the country and offering to set it up for free if only to give himself the opportunity to play it again.

However, he gave the analogy of completing a video game – upon its completion, he always came away with the sense that he should have spent his time more effectively; spending the equivalent amount of time playing the piano would’ve resulted in his being able to better play the piano, instead of forking out another £35 to learn and perfect a totally new system of control.

Therefore, he came to the conclusion that this game, as good as it was, and as good as he had become in mastering it, had given him a very specific new skill, and he thought it unfair that it might only ever be utilised within the confines of this particular iteration of the game system. Hence, he set out to create a new, more advanced game, based on the existing base UI, that sought to utilise the skills he had already mastered previously.

While out biking in the foothills of Berkeley, Mackaay became astounded with the colour and variability of the sunset. This seemed to him the perfect basis for leveraging his existing ability and, in a way, set the basis for creating the ‘final level’ of the game, if you will.

Using the same hardware, he took it out of the room and projected it onto the side of a white barn in the hills. Now, instead of solid block colours, he had three colour gradient fields, which he would mix live with the ever-changing sunset backdrop. He could not only set the colours of the fields, but also the y positions of where they met, allowing for much greater control. However, the background wasn’t just a simple sunset. It also featured simple manmade features, such as a telephone line, and a silhouette hillscape, so sprites were added to the projection for added authenticity – stars were also added slowly as night fell.

The recorded 35 minute performance starts with a little too much ambient light, but as darkness sets in, the illusion begins to take place, and it really feels like the projection is part of the actual sunset backdrop.

He ‘intervened’ (he calls this game an intervention, not a performance, as it wasn’t advertised – he could just ‘show up’) on five occasions, becoming better at the game with each iteration, going back to the studio to rewrite the code so he could do more interesting things, such as adding particular effects and functionality.

The third and final user interface system that I’ll have a look at here physically connects the body with the central device. The sense in question regards that of balance – when people get older, they tend not to exercise their sense of balance too much, leaving them at greater risk of falling over, and thus increased risk of injury. The game was thus developed to help improve and perfect peoples’ sense of balance.

Interestingly, the idea, though soon to see the light of day in the commercial world as a manufactured product of Nintendo, was originally targeted by Sony, but something must’ve happened for them not to take the idea further.

Regardless, the game is set up so: player stands on square brown board about half a metre wide, in front of a large screen. The screen shows a top-down view of the same brown board (3D board) in the centre of a simple 3D space, surrounded by four differently-coloured rings, one at each of N, S, W and E. As soon as the player stands on the board, the board on the screen instantly reacts according to the weight distribution placed across the player’s board, angling itself in an analogue direction relating to the player’s current weight distribution. Seconds later, a ball drops from above the board, down onto it. The colour of the ball determines which of the four hoops the player should aim to bounce the ball into, hence in what direction he/she should target the ball and therefore where on the board the player should place greatest weight.

Though very intuitive, each player shown took their time to get used to this new user interface – some got frustrated, while others took their shoes and socks off, and persevered quietly in front of the audience. As the player got used to the system and completed the ‘simple’ first round, the tasks became increasingly more challenging, with the hoops beginning to rotate around the board, and moving closer to and further away from the centre.

This was a fun, challenging and innovative use of a natural unconscious body process, that, if used regularly, would surely help the balancing ability of people of all ages. Nintendo certainly seem to think this way…

Here we’ve seen a number of games with innovative user interface systems that give people an environment in which they’re able to explore outside of their normal sensory boundaries. Whether all these games will explicitly ‘improve’ those who use them is perhaps a difficult question to answer. But regardless, for each new player, a new environment was experienced, in which trust was given, and a new game-specific skill would thus develop – whether or not it should be the primary aim to leverage this skill for more practical use is worth questioning, but the fact remains that for each new experiential environment created, an innovative source of fun and enjoyment is also made. If nothing else, such experiences can only help to highlight and give focus to the natural game-playing nature of human beings and animals alike.

Well, in a way, what with the ribot site itself being launched last month, this is more of a second meeting – a familiar friend, if you like…

This blog area of the ribot site, tucked away to a degree that, though it’ll keep the same layout and format of the exisiting site, will be distnguishable by its darker, more laboratory-esque hues.

We intend to cover a variety of topics in this space, from UI tidbits, things we find inspiring and refer to when in need, interesting new developments in the mobile space and beyond, to reviews and breakdowns of events we’ve been to, and other such things that will make themselves apparent with time.

Fundamentally, if nothing else, this area will become a central repository for all the things that make us tick – a place to which we too will come to seek reference and stimulation.