Nikhil Kothari's Weblog : Inspiration for Next Generation UX

Every once in a while, a really compelling vision video comes around. One that was passed around internally for a number of UX discussions in the Silverlight/WPF teams, is now public... this one is coming from the Office Labs group. You just have to watch it in its entirety to see all the interesting interaction including touch and speech, the form factors, and the fluid UI, combined with a great sound track for the added touch and emotion.

When you dream, dream big! It is after all a vision for a decade ... and it might just happen!

What do folks think? Is this possible in a decade? Or will it take more? What were your compelling wow moments? I had a few. In particular, the phone and the electronic paper.

The other was the striking use of subtle animations everywhere - everything just flows, naturally, and nothing is abrupt. I wonder if some of that can be done with Silverlight today. I sure would love to partner up with a designer on some ideas. I want apps to be like that…

[ Tags: inspiration | ux | silverlight ]

Posted on Tuesday, 3/3/2009 @ 10:26 AM | #Silverlight

Comments

Matthijs Krempel

Posted on 3/3/2009 @ 11:09 AM

Clicking a mouse seems less complicated to me ;)

Waving your hands in the air all the time seems tiresome!

All these daft animations drive me nuts, let me just do my job.
A computer should not be pretty flashy gradient animating thing; it should do the tasks I dont want to do and get the hell out of my way :)

Just my 2 coppers ;)

Nikhil Kothari

Posted on 3/3/2009 @ 11:49 AM

Animations - if you step back and look at where things are going on the screen, and even on the hand-held... they're starting to use animated flows to indicate whats changing from one state to another state... its like getting a bit of the TV experience in your applications. People don't complain about TV.

Good and appropriate animations don't get in the way. If you're excessive (and that is often the case today, as people are just starting to experiment with new tools) its annoying. Having none results in boring and abrupt UX. The role of the designer is to find the exact balance that works for the particular app and user interaction, and that is the trick.

mike

Posted on 3/3/2009 @ 2:10 PM

Not really one thing particular (except maybe when the guy in the airport points his 'phone' to the floor and it projects an arrow to guide him on his way).

The key here is that the technology is mostly seamless. Not always, in some parts there is like a hot spot for touch on a desk, but mostly stuff can be transferred from here to there and any object can be interacted with (even a bording pass!)

20 years at least, and some of this stuff will only be possible if the 'old' goes out: DRM is not compatible with transferring data to other devices. Look at the Zune to see how it fails to take us forward to this future for example, because of the DRM in it. Also, can this be built on open standards? What good is my virtual paper if it can only load papers bought from Amazon?

BonGeek

Posted on 3/3/2009 @ 2:34 PM

Hello Nikhil,

I tweet about it today (pasted your blog URL).

By the way what do you mean by "I sure would love to partner up with a designer on some ideas." ?

I am working on a coolest device using Silverlight Technology and my team is helping me to write the software. So shoot me an email, if you are interested.

Thanks,

BonGeek

Parag Mehta

Posted on 3/3/2009 @ 8:55 PM

Hi Nikhil,

Video looks really interesting. However there must be something done to uptake Silverlight. Just look at above you yourself are using Flash. MSN Videos is using Flash! Tells me Flash is going to be dominant in foreseeable future, unless something is done about consuming FLV Streams in Silverlight.

Parag Mehta

Posted on 3/3/2009 @ 8:55 PM

Hardik Joshi

Posted on 3/3/2009 @ 11:32 PM

Hi Nikhil,

It makes perfectly clear that whether it is Iphone from apple or Surface from Microsoft, Multitouch applications are the next generation technology and future.
Thanks for sharing video, it really gives so many ideas to implement even in current environment. i personally liked and curious about the newspaper one :)

Thomas Williams

Posted on 3/5/2009 @ 1:50 PM

Great video, agree about the fluid animations and high level of interoperability (man flicks notes onto whiteboard, on and off screen).

But, white and green color scheme, lots of green circle-y buttons...from the video, I think it's XBox that's the vision of the future here, not Silverlight :-)

David

Posted on 3/10/2009 @ 8:02 AM

[Richard] - Wow, we're back to lamenting the demise of buggy whip makers... even on a tech blog. You're great-grandfather found another, better, job... get over it. The reason a lot of this technology will progress slowly is the prevalence of attitudes like that.

Very interesting video... but I think I'd miss the tactile feedback (assuming it's not somehow integrated into the glass surfaces). I really miss having buttons for dialing on my phone.

Clint

Posted on 3/25/2009 @ 11:05 AM

If Apple ruled the world. It's very entertaining science fiction. Great story that takes elements that are just within reach in today’s technology and then exaggerating them. Not in 200 years will this happen; the direction and implementation is usually always different from the forcast. Just look at history's pridictions of the future. Doesn't matter if I'm wrong; won't matter to me then anyway ;)

Sam Rabeeh

Posted on 6/28/2009 @ 5:49 PM

This UX design is brilliant.

3M is currently working on clear, foldable electronic paper just like seen in this video. there are actually many companies working on various technologies that could make this possible, in fact, this WILL HAPPEN.

From a developers perspective, this is sheer bliss.

Matt

Posted on 2/10/2010 @ 1:55 PM

I always laugh how the average persons idea of the future is just a more complicated version of what we already have today.

If the authors did their homework, they would know that BCI is the new emerging technology. Why would I want to wave my hands around all day, when I can just think?

Inspiration for Next Generation UX

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