Color affects us all the time - from a red traffic light to the placebo effect of a pill (yellow chalk pills are the most effective antidepressants it seems). And we all know that the meaning of color varies based on where you are in the world, or in what sort of society or religion. The recently created ”Colours in Cultures” chart brings this to life (click on the image to view the original)
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Posted in Psychology, UI, Usability
Just recently I forecast the death of text in reading, but until that comes to pass, I’ll vent the current state-of-the art: ebook readers. I’m excluding the iPad for the moment given I haven’t seen one, and it’s not strictly an ebook (and arguably uncomfortable to read for long periods of time).
Problem #1
This is the deal-breaker for me: the screen refresh. Each page-change means watching a page that’s supposed to be a paper analog flash “black” and then “white” again. Every time. Flash. Flash. That process takes anywhere from 1 second to about 4 on the readers I’ve seen.
Problem #2
Future versions of eInk will support colour. I can probably wait.
Problem #3
Not all books are available as ebooks. So, take both? Seems heavy.
Problem #4
The “uncanny valley” describes the revulsion effect when robots get very close to being alike to humans. Actually something that is intentionally less accurate is more likely to be perceived as human-like. Hence Avatar’s colors.
This same “uncanny valley” applies to ebook readers. They are getting close to paper, and therefore the differences (like the screen flash) stand out even more, as we jolt back to the reality that we’re not holding paper.
Problem #5
Ebook readers don’t like it when you drop them in the bath.
Problem #6
See Problem #1. If it weren’t for that, I’d have bought an eReader a long time ago. I’ll probably buy an iPad, but not for book reading…
Posted in UI, Uncategorized, Usability
In the field of realtime, one of the most exciting areas is augmented reality on the mobile. Part of that is of course recognising what the phone is looking at. That can be done by the G1/ iPhone 3GS in the sense that they can combine GPS location with compass and accelerometers to know pretty much where the phone is. But by adding object recognition into the camera feed, they can complete the picture. A pretty impressive demo below:
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Posted in Mobile Phones, Technology, UI
Why am I thinking 3D? I just tried out BMW’s Z4 “3D” app, which uses your webcam to do some clever augmented reality. If you haven’t tried it, and have 5 minutes and printer handy, try it now, go on, you won’t regret it.
The buzz on screen tech is as follows: it’s going 3D. James Cameron a few years ago (not long after Titanic) stated that EVERY film he made from them on would be shot to be 3D-ready, he believed in it so heartily. Back then we thought “yeah, right, hold the coloured plastic glasses, we can do without it”.
But now it seems like all things digital are going to jump out of the screen at you.
So, firstly, how? Capturing is a bit more technical, but the real question is, will viewing it work for us? 3D is still generally delivered in two ways:
Nausea aside, the “blinking” glasses win at the moment as screen technology is still far too expensive: in fact 3D giant Nvidia is selling the glasses right now for $199, and by all accounts it kind of works, as long as you have a decent screen. I’ve tried something similar to Nvidia’s product, and yes, it kind of works. But only kind of.
So what’s missing? The real issue is that this is not 3D. This is 3D within a screen. That’s not how 3D works for our brains. The real 3D is all around us, and if we reach out, we can touch it.
And getting that sort of 3D means only one thing: plugging into our brains. The tipping point with user interface technology is this: once we can plug into brains, we can do away with everything else. We can chuck mice, keyboards, 3D glasses away. We simply won’t need them – because it will all be there, on demand, in our brains.
Pretty Girls Make Graves Good Health mp3 album
Until then, this tech site alongside videophones on the “keep trying” list - although the BMW Z4 example is pretty great example of augmented reality.
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Posted in UI
Every so often (i.e. not very often), the web springs a pleasant and unexpected surprise. Like when I clicked on the “enter site” link on Searcy’s guide to the 30 St Mary Axe, London (the “Gherkin”).
I won’t spoil it, give it a go!
My thoughts about targeting, psychology and data - all things that drive my company, Cognitive Match.
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