[projectvrm] Re: Colo floods

[Peter Cranstone < >]

I'm south of Denver in Parker, but Liz is in Boulder and experiencing
mother nature's flood. Although yesterday we got 4.5" of rain in less than
an hour and the results we're pretty amazing.


Peter



On 9/15/13 6:12 AM, "Katherine Warman Kern" 
<
 >
wrote:

>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
><
 >
> wrote:
>
>> Got to love those UI's :)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Peter
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 9/13/13 8:43 AM, "Dan Lyke" 
>> <
 >
>>  wrote:
>> 
>>> Stupid GMail interface meant the first pass of this went straight to
>>> Peter. Sorry.
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 4:08 PM, Peter Cranstone
>>> <
 >
>>>  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.
>>> 
>>> 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.
>>> 
>>> 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.
>>> 
>>> 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.
>>> 
>>> 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.
>>> 
>>> 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
>>> 
>>> One only has to look at the mocking of walking and texting to see that
>>> phones aren't seamless with the environment.
>>> 
>>>> Persistent connection Information must be current, and
>>>> regularly updatable (this will eat your data plan and
>>>> battery on mobile if not coded carefully)
>>> 
>>> 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).
>>> 
>>>> 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)
>>> 
>>> 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.
>>> 
>>> 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
>>> 
>>> [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...
>> 
>>