The latest in touch screen technology for the visually impaired has emerged from Finland.
Finnish computer scientists have created a touch screen phone prototype that can simulate Braille characters. The Nokia 770 mobile internet tablet was used for the prototype as it already has haptic feedback built into the display. The scientists claim the 770 prototype was “relatively easy to develop and test.”
Instead of recreating the 2 x 3 matrix of raised spots that represents a Braille character, the new system just vibrates the screen using the transducers. As a reading finger is touched to the screen, its position is logged relative to the conventional text character beneath: The Braille is then emulated as a Morse code-like chain of intense and weak vibrations of the screen. A strong one relates to a Braille dot, and a weak one represents a Braille space. It is ridiculously simple!
Most importantly, volunteers involved in the research have been able to make the transition between conventional Braille and this new technique without too much difficulty, reading single characters in around 1.25 seconds.
This is the Modbook, a revolutionary slate-style tablet that enables users to draw, sketch and write directly on the screen of their MacBook or MacBook Pro.
Designed by Axiotron, to create a ModBook you need to simply send your existing MacBook to them. Axiotron have integrated its own hardware and software technologies with state-of-the-art Wacom Penabled digitizer and an Apple MacBook computers.
The downsides to this “mod” (except the price) is the fact that it is not touch sensitive to the finger; a digital pen has to be used. Also, having held the product, it does feel quite heavy, but as expected. Perhaps Axiotron will shed a few ounces on future versions, or indeed as the MacBook continues to get thinner and lighter, they may not have to.
Imagine a 17″ MacBook tablet that weighs the same as an iPhone.
This wonderful video makes the whole modification process look easy!
If I had a spare MacBook and £600 lying around, I would love to have one of these!
Introductions to new things, such as enhancements in technology, by chance, often deliver a more lasting memory or experience.
I get, what I can only call “realization” moments when I haphazardly stumble upon something new.
When I saw this image, I had one of those moments.
Wired have revealed a wonderful visual timeline showing the evolution of Apple products.
Although I am aware of Apple’s history and their legacy of products and services, this visualization made me realize not only how they have progressed over the past 25 years, but also how quickly.
This needn’t apply solely to Apple. This image is testament to a changing world.
Context and cohesion: How can timelines be used as a communication visualization? What can they show? Can a storyboard be defined as a form of storyboard?
Visualizations that represent the people and organizations most mentioned in New York Times articles from 1984-2009 have been created by Jer Thorp. The visualizations show connections between the people and therefore relationships between them all.
User interface designer Bryan Haggerty, programmer at LinkeIn, proposed to his girlfriend Jeannie Choe, former writer at Core77, with an iPhone application which he deigned himself.
It was last week that he popped the big question, but only after having his girlfriend guided through a route in San Francisco by the iPhone app.
The app, which Haggerty calls “Romantech”, displays a map containing location points throughout San Francisco. Each of the points in the map were tagged with a short video clip of Haggerty giving little clues of where Choe should travel to next.
After a while, both met in a Park where all the points on the map connected to form the shape of a <3>
(The <3 is a heart symbol for those of you who don’t know the lingo
Dead On Arrival is an interactive comic loosely based on the story of the old 1940s film noir.
Although I found this story rather dull, indolent and unexciting, the story was delivered clearly and the Flash interaction was well executed. This makes me think about communicating ideas to people through storyboards and story telling.
I discussed with my study advisor, Dr Shaleph O’Neil about how people may react to certain storyboards. There will be 3 different types of storyboard: 1. Hand drawn 2. Graphically illustrated and 3. Interactive.
The interactive storyboard will obviously be digital, however as Dead On Arrival shows, Flash animations can contain very “un-digital” and natural interactions. For example the turning of pages; this is done by clicking the top or bottom corners of a page and dragging them over, almost as you would do a book.
Computer interactions can be very natural. This reminds of the beauty of the interaction design of an iPhone or iPod Touch when zooming in and out of photos or web pages. Pinching your fore-finger and thumb together, a natural human gesture for describing the reduction in size of an object, is how to zoom out (i.e. to make smaller), and vice-versa.
How natural can I design interactions?
I don’t mean to compare an iPhone with a digital comic, however the principle of their interactions are comparable in terms of natural gesture. There is biological consideration into their design.
Click here to see the Dead on Arrival comic. An HTML version of the comic is also available, which I think is rather pointless. The whole beauty of the story is the interaction itself.
In reference to the concept of hypertext fiction, where narrative is non-linear and non-hierarchical, hypercomics are a variation of comics that has truly embraced its digital medium, allowing multiple changeable paths within a fractured rhizomatic (wiki) environment.
A great example of hypercomics is a piece by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey entitled PoCom-UK-001. It was originally a massive collaborative hypercomic, however this web adaptation marked the debut of Daniel’s “Tarquin Engine”, a flash-based interactive canvas, which allows other authors to easily explore the concept of hypercomics.
Having spoken to my study advisor, Dr Shaleph O’Neil, about using Flash to animate storyboards, I instantly and naturally created an image in my head of how this animation/interaction would look. Having seen this, however, I now realize the true potential for variation interactive visualizations can possess.
I had an interesting conversation with Richard Banks today over lunch.
Richard has been looking at what it means to design digital artifacts with longer time spans in mind, and taking heredity of objects into account. He explained his interest in the design of a form of technology which he refers to as technology heirlooms.
In my understanding, a technology heirloom is a technological product/object that is designed with the intention that it might live longer than its owner and therefore be “handed down” embodying an impression or sense of its owner. (Richard, please correct me if I am wrong!)
Digital objects are normally thought of in the short term. But Richard is now asking what happens when we consider these objects in the long term that may have unpredictable and unexpected value to our children and families.
I find this notion of digital objects being un-obsolete (have I just made up a new word?) fascinating. If I were to pass my iPod down to one of my grandchildren, how will they perceive it? Will they keep it in a shoe box under the bed as they feel obliged to keep it but not to use it? Will my (varied) music collection be loved or hated? Will my iPod still be “cool”?
What will “retro” designed object look like in 2109?
Death is something we all experience whether it be through bereavement or through the approach of death itself; it is part of life. Considering digital products may outlive their owners introduces a whole new principle in the way we design objects themselves; design for the dead?
Which leads me to think: Who will I pass my Facebook profile onto?
I identified the problem of communication of ideas in the design process to users (I don’t like using this word as it suggests a stereotype of certain people).
Communicating and prototyping ideas of interactions or, more complexly, of ubiquitous computing can be difficult and very time consuming.
But what is the value of prototyping? Is this immeasurable?
Richard Banks mentioned at his talk to IPD in November that a mistake would be to “get precious” about your prototyping. Rather than spending time on a final, well-finished product, it is often more rewarding and efficient to work through ideas quickly and communicating them as unfinished ideas as opposed to finished ones. Besides, most people are more interested in the process of a design rather than the outcome.
With Fable, I spent a lot of time neglecting people and working on making it work. Surely it should be the opposite?
However I did find it extremely difficult to communicate the ideas of ubiquitous computing to people during the project. When you tell someone a mug can be an input device to a smart-surface table, the immediate questions are always: why and how!
My initial aim, as discussed with Richard in August, was to develop tools and techniques to help designers communicate complex ideas within the interaction/ubiquitous computing design paradigm. Yet after some preliminary research, I have become clear that this is not necessary.
There already exists tools in which can be used to communicate and visualise ideas, such as storyboarding and paper-prototyping. I mean whatever happened to good old-fashioned drawing? Then there are animation software’s such as Flash which can be used to bring drawings and storyboards to life by applying movements, changes and communicating cause and effect.
“Faking” is also an unwritten method. A wonderful example being the Sketch-a-Move video by Anib Jane where she communicates the idea of controlling the behaviour of a toy car by drawing a path on its roof. No fancy electronics or computer programs, just smoke and mirrors (well, in this case a few magnets).
So I aim to put these traditional tools to the test and use them in new ways.
This happens to blend in nicely with another project I’m working on at the moment; the T3 project.
T3 (Transferability 3) is a joint research project between Deutsche Telekom Laboratories (t-labs), Berlin and the School of Design University of Dundee, exploring case transfer as a method to develop new designs for information communication products and services for older people.
Although only 2 weeks old, the project overlaps with some of the work I am doing in that it is very people-centered yet probably more demographically focused. “Older people” are seen to be 60 and over (still a huge demographic; there are more “older people” than ever before and this trend continues to rise).
An interesting way to approach visual communication of a process. Still framing could be used to communicate interaction design concepts? No fancy/expensive equipment needed; cheap tripod, digital stills camera. No script or thorough planning required.
Most importantly, volunteers involved in the research have been able to make the transition between conventional Braille and this new technique without too much difficulty, reading single characters in around 1.25 seconds.
