[projectvrm] Colo floods

[Katherine Warman Kern < >]

Peter, aren't you in Boulder? 

Having been through Sandie just a year ago, my heart goes out to anyone on 
this list in the Colo area effected by the flood.

K-

On Sep 13, 2013, at 11:24 AM, Peter Cranstone 
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> Got to love those UI's :)
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> Peter
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> On 9/13/13 8:43 AM, "Dan Lyke" 
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>> Stupid GMail interface meant the first pass of this went straight to
>> Peter. Sorry.
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>> On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 4:08 PM, Peter Cranstone
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>>  wrote:
>>> Browserless Information should be glancable and require no
>>> navigation (I don't agree with this other than to display a
>>> picture. There has to be a menu somewhere).
>> 
>> A menu is a way to navigate a hierarchical tree. I think what many of
>> us desire in interfaces is flatter navigation, which is why the world
>> tends towards command-lines. And if you're one of those people who
>> says that we've settled on the GUI, I offer one observation: Search is
>> a command-line for the web.
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>> But really, I suspect that what T.Rob means by "ambient interface" is
>> one that takes already available information and acts on it. This
>> isn't the environment around me presenting me with a menu, this is it
>> engaging me in a conversation.
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>> It's a tricky space: When I flip a light switch, I want the light to
>> go on. I don't want the light thinking "what did he really mean?"
>> (Mostly [1]). But when I do switch on that light, I'm telling my
>> environment a lot more than "hey, I'd like some more light in here".
>> Likewise when I turn on my stove, or open a door, I'm engaging an
>> interface, but if those handles have notion of context, they can know
>> to do a lot more than light the burner or allow me access to the room.
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>> Okay, here's one: My bathroom light switch plate has 3 switches
>> (light, fan, heater) and a timer knob (heater). One of those switches
>> has 3 positions, light off, on low, and on. If I'm up in the middle of
>> the night, I want the default to be "on low". If the hall light is on,
>> I want the default to be "on". If something knew the state of the
>> other lights in the house, it could figure this out from how I
>> interacted with the switch right fast.
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>> No smart phone. No touch screen. In fact, probably the same physical
>> hardware. And, yes, I'd pay $50 to know that I was far less likely to
>> stumble into the bathroom in the middle of the night, want to find
>> something, and accidentally turn on the bright light and make myself
>> *wide* awake.
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>> This is why designing interfaces now, or starting with interfaces, for
>> the "Internet of Things" seem to me to be doomed to failure: I shed
>> gigabytes of intent just walking around my two bedroom house. I
>> already have buttons in the house that confuse visitors[2]. What I
>> need is not more buttons and menus, but fewer. Which brings us to:
>> 
>>> Calm Should be seamless with the environment
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>> One only has to look at the mocking of walking and texting to see that
>> phones aren't seamless with the environment.
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>>> Persistent connection Information must be current, and
>>> regularly updatable (this will eat your data plan and
>>> battery on mobile if not coded carefully)
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>> The interface must be responsive. This is different for different
>> applications. A tenth of a second is too much lag in some UI, in
>> others we're happy to have interfaces with latency of minutes
>> (although sometimes we'll but in a secondary effect to message the
>> user that something will happen: beeps when we press the crosswalk
>> button, feedback on thermostats).
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>>> Decision driven data Should be personalized and summarized
>>> to help users make decisions quickly and easily. "Should I
>>> bring an umbrella with me today?" (Context is key)
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>> Great example: If there's rain forecast, maybe my hat stand knows
>> about the weather and rotates to put my wool outback hat on the
>> accessible side, rather than the ballcap. Doesn't force the decision
>> on me, just makes a recommendation.
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>> The interface for the Internet of Things will be on a screen, and
>> especially on a touch screen, only if the Internet of Things has
>> failed horribly and utterly.
>> 
>> Dan
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>> [1] http://www.kosherswitch.com/
>> [2] Hot water recirculator. "Help, I was on the toilet, pushed that
>> button because I wanted to see what it did, and now there's a humming
>> that I can't turn off". When we stopped laughing... Of course now we
>> have a bidet seat, hopefully the Toto icons don't really give visitors
>> like that a shock...
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