by Amar
Introducing UIScape
When the computer mouse first successfully made it onto people’s desktops in the early ’80s, it was already a twenty-year-old invention. When Steve Jobs showed off the iPhone’s multi-touch interface in early 2007, he was presenting a technique researchers had been experimenting with for twenty-five years.
Why do new models of interaction that have the potential to truly revolutionise the way we use technology take so long to make it into our lives? In many cases, it’s because the technology required to make them feasible and affordable is not available for years after their invention. There is also a certain inertia in the market that makes consumers shy away from radically new ways of doing things, because of questions about compatibility, because of the need to relearn and because of the subtle rules of our social framework.
However, we believe that there is another factor that contributes to these ideas not being picked up. Those who work in the field of human–computer interaction (HCI) research are eager to get their work noticed and to make a difference to people’s lives. However, the primary way for them to publicise their ideas is through conferences and journals, which are generally not accessible to (or at least not accessed by) those not working in research labs or academia. As a result, researchers seem to be communicating their ideas mainly to each other, not the other people to whom their work is highly relevant: the designers, engineers, marketers and users of technology.
UIScape is our humble attempt at bridging this divide between the research world and the rest of the world. We’ll be keeping up with the latest interaction-related research, picking out the bits we think you will find interesting and presenting them here in an easy-to-digest format. There is also plenty of older work which deserves more attention, so expect some ventures into history.
HCI is an insanely broad field, drawing from psychology, ergonomics, design theory, computer science, sociology and anthropology. HCI research can involve studying users, modelling human behaviour, designing and building solutions, and experiments to test hypotheses and designs. This breadth not only makes it hard to define what HCI is, but also to predict what you will find on this site. However, what all the work has in common is that it is relevant in some way to how humans interact with technology, and therefore potentially interesting to anyone involved with this aspect of design. Whether you are an interaction designer, software developer, product designer, architect or simply a design and technology enthusiast, we’re sure there’ll be plenty of interesting stuff for you in there.
- Categories: uiscape, introspection
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19:19
Posting on a blog isn’t much better than publishing a journal article or presenting at a conference. If you want to get your innovation noticed, ship it in a product. Preferably a mass-market consumer product.
21:06
John,
Of course it would be splendid if the ideas were implemented and marketed straightaway, but as I mentioned, this is often not achieved. For corporate research, the market or the technology are often not ready for the design. In academic research, it’s not about making products anyway.
However, my hope is that by simply letting more people know about the ideas, they can at least inspire other designers and thus drive the industry forward.
10:01
Great idea for a blog.
All the best and I look forward to reading about many strange and wonderful new methods of interaction.
John: This is FAR more accessible than a journal. If there’s something cool posted here, I’d expect it to be linked to all over the net. That means people will see it.