The Future Of User Interfaces

[gr8ful]

Many of you may already be familiar with multi-touch displays, especially with the iPhone poised to launch in June '07.  But I did not know how far along this new technology has come until I stumbled across this site about the work of Jeff Han...simply amazing.

He has refined the technology and created a UI that is fast, intuitive, and looks to be very enjoyable to use.  Take a look at the various videos and see what you think.  

http://multi-touchscreen.com/

[Da_Blitz]

it has always seemed to me that while multitouch seems like a great idea, the single touch works great and apart from manipulating 3d objects on a 2d screen (ie rotation, games and such (virtual steering wheeel anyone) i dont see the benifit

anyone know of any apps that would greatly benifit from multitouch? ill throw some examples out there to get the ball rolling, word and excel perhaps?

bieng more serious, selection would be easier, for those who have tried to select several mail messages in outlook mobile on a pocket PC will know what i am talking about, is it a click, a multiselection or a tap and hold? but i belive that its mainly just poor coding after a bit of experimentation

one intresting thing i have seen is having 2 mouse pointers in X using 2 diffrent mice, apparentlly alot of programs cant handle it well at all, esp. things that track mouse moevment (xeyes was one example) should be on hackaday.com

[pelrun]

"How do I use this with the interfaces I already have?" is almost exactly the wrong question - It's just like asking "what good is this new-fangled mouse thing for my DOS apps?"

What's important is not the interfaces we currently have, but the interfaces which are now possible with the multitouch technology, and which may be far superior for _certain_ tasks than the ones we currently use.

The focus of Jeff Han's research has been on this new class of interfaces. The display he developed is purely an enabling technology for it.

[vputz]

Incidentally, I've been using a multitouch gesture-recognition pad (from the now-defunct Fingerworks) for a while and while it still functions as a single pointer, even the extra abilities from gesture recognition make it a really nice, intuitive tool (basics, like click, drag, scroll, etc, of course--but also things like cutting/pasting/zooming/lots of others are possible too).

But yes, it should be about NEW interfaces.  I'm STILL amazed that after years and years of mousing, no apps offer the possibilities of two mice, for example (really now--click your painting, then move the mouse over to the palette of buttons, then back... why not have two mice, one for buttons and one for action?  Same goes for real-time strategy games, for example).  So I'm pretty excited about new ideas as well, and the multitouch screen is a really neat idea.

[HoloVector]

Nice stuff!  I got to remember to pick up some stock when they have their IPO.  

Unfortunately, now I have "Who Am I?" from the Animatrix soundtrack rolling around in my head.  

[Da_Blitz]

thats a good point about the programs bieng broken, not teh tech. the most intresting thing that came out of the 2 mice experiment was that its hard to corntrol 2 mice at a time for anything  other than what this multi touch tech would be good for

i definattly think that its not a tech i need but i am sure some denisghners and CAD people/modeling poerple would find it handy

unless of coulse someone comes up with a multi touch cmd line app that works on the command line (xaos?)

[ralphrmartin]

Still does not beat a keyboard for entering text. I need a PDA where I can enter a lot of text - I use my PDA to carry a lot of data around with me which is constantly being updated.

So, multitouch may be great for some things, but not everything.

[desertrat]

But yes, it should be about NEW interfaces.  I'm STILL amazed that after years and years of mousing, no apps offer the possibilities of two mice,

I'm more worried about why no one has exploited the possibilities offered by two keyboards  

Seriously, it took Apple how many years to finally make a mouse with more than ONE button?

[HoloVector]

Oh man, guys.  Think outside of the box.  These screens are a paradigm shift.  These screens will revolutionize any work that requires manipulation.  The graphic artists and animators will love these things because that can directly manipulate their work.  This is as major for them as the first fine stroke pen tablet.  

These screens will eventually replace large control boards too (like you see in sound mixing studios).  Why?  Let's see because they are "peanut butter proof" and totally reconfigurable.  The military love that second concept too.  Imagine a battle damaged ship, with a few gestures you can bring up the controls for one of the damaged panels and reroute its function to another panel.

I can also see these being integrated into desk tops and kitchen tables down the road for everday use.

Da_blitz - the only killer app these screens will offer a command line junkie like you is ability to touch type on the screen of something like an N800.  

[gr8ful]

I see multi-touch as a significant enhancement to the way we can interact with data and not a replacement of all previous methods for doing so.  Here is an excerpt from an article about one of Jeff Han's presentations and the writer makes a very good comment:

"Mind you, this doesn't mean touch screens will completely replace the computer mouse, QWERTY keyboard, or traditional graphic user interface (or GUI) any more than cinema made live theater disappear or television supplanted radio. Each continues to do what it does best. Your iPod or cell phone may be fine for short music videos, but you probably wouldn't want to watch a two-hour movie on it. "These media fall into their appropriate niche and are displaced in areas where they are not the best," Buxton says."

Link to article ---> http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/112/op...ttouchthis.html

For some, multi-touch will be little more than a novelty because you mainly work with text and the keyboard and mouse work exceptionally well for this.  For others who manipulate graphics and the like, multi-touch may well revolutionize the way you work and significantly increase your productivity.

What I love to see are the leaps in innovation that hide the technology and allow you to focus on the problem or task in front of you.  To watch Jeff manipulate graphics as quickly and easily as he did without having to remember a set of cryptic commands or drill down through several levels in a drop-down menu, to me, is revolutionary.

[HoloVector]

I see multi-touch as a significant enhancement to the way we can interact with data and not a replacement of all previous methods for doing so.  Here is an excerpt from an article about one of Jeff Han's presentations and the writer makes a very good comment:

"Mind you, this doesn't mean touch screens will completely replace the computer mouse, QWERTY keyboard, or traditional graphic user interface (or GUI) any more than cinema made live theater disappear or television supplanted radio. Each continues to do what it does best. Your iPod or cell phone may be fine for short music videos, but you probably wouldn't want to watch a two-hour movie on it. "These media fall into their appropriate niche and are displaced in areas where they are not the best," Buxton says."

Link to article ---> http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/112/op...ttouchthis.html

For some, multi-touch will be little more than a novelty because you mainly work with text and the keyboard and mouse work exceptionally well for this.  For others who manipulate graphics and the like, multi-touch may well revolutionize the way you work and significantly increase your productivity.

What I love to see are the leaps in innovation that hide the technology and allow you to focus on the problem or task in front of you.  To watch Jeff manipulate graphics as quickly and easily as he did without having to remember a set of cryptic commands or drill down through several levels in a drop-down menu, to me, is revolutionary.
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Nicely put gr8ful.

[Drake01]

I can also see these being integrated into desk tops and kitchen tables down the road for everday use.
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This would really rock for D&D!  Right now, we've got the GM half-seriously considering getting a projector, but that would have to be top-down projection and we haven't figured out the best way to position a projector over the kitchen table.  (Well, not in a way that will allow him to stay married, at any rate. )

[desertrat]

What I love to see are the leaps in innovation that hide the technology and allow you to focus on the problem or task in front of you.  To watch Jeff manipulate graphics as quickly and easily as he did without having to remember a set of cryptic commands or drill down through several levels in a drop-down menu, to me, is revolutionary.

Granted the demos look impressive but notice how they're all performing essentially the same task? IE selecting an object, moving it about, zooming in and out, and rotating it. In fact all these operations can already be performed using a mouse WITHOUT having to use any menus, eg play around with Blender (http://www.blender.org/).

How do you perform other operations? You would either be using voice recognition, OR sooner or later you'll need to bring up a menu.

I find the scenario where an office full of people speaking voice commands to their computer somewhat weird. For one thing, if you stop speaking then people will know you've stopped working  

Which brings us back to menus. I cannot imagine a UI without menus, and hence menus will stay - at least until we can reliably control the UI using thought.

[adf]

Ah.. you've missed the point completely. Multi touch will bring a new 2-point stylus model that will resemble chopsticks.  A , er,perceptive writer will recognize the resemblance to the asian eating utensils--make the connection to "high technology" and realise that the chinese civilization was clearly inspired by aliens from outer space who had mastered multi-touch technology long before we had discovered agriculture, and that eating with chopsticks was a sort of vestigial cargo-cult/imitative eating ritual left from the first days of alien inspired agriculture.  I'm not sure how he'll work in rosslyn chapel, though...

[Meanie]

Ah.. you've missed the point completely. Multi touch will bring a new 2-point stylus model that will resemble chopsticks.  A , er,perceptive writer will recognize the resemblance to the asian eating utensils--make the connection to "high technology" and realise that the chinese civilization was clearly inspired by aliens from outer space who had mastered multi-touch technology long before we had discovered agriculture, and that eating with chopsticks was a sort of vestigial cargo-cult/imitative eating ritual left from the first days of alien inspired agriculture.  I'm not sure how he'll work in rosslyn chapel, though...
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hahaha, well put