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September 3, 2010

Collaborative User Interfaces →

A few days ago I was asking my social networks if there's a specific term for "user interfaces assisting human-to-human interaction — in a sense of eg. group learning, (cardboard) game play, reading books to kids, doctor vs. patient, salesperson vs. customer ..."? I was actually looking for a technical term a la GUI, TUI or NUI or such …

So far, I have no concrete indication for a field like that, already being explicitely labeled eg. CUI (Collaborative User Interfaces) – because a first thought was it must be something with "collaborative" (which was confirmed by my friend Sonja in my Facebook thread). The only thing I'm missing in this is that it is too generic, or too open-ended. In a way, things like Facebook are also collaborative user interfaces, though interaction between people is mostly virtual (although it might lead to real-world interaction, but in best case, Facebook in its current form then doesn't make an appearance anymore ;-).

I found one paper that talks about "synchronous collaborative user interfaces", which is indeed longer, but also more to the point. Although "synchronous" could still refer to Facebook – at least if you're online together with some friends, doing a lot of wall-to-wall posting or chatting – it still refers more to a group of 2 or more people, sharing the same real-world location at the same time.

If you're stumbling across something related or have some thoughts around the topic, please let me know. We're currently researching and developing in this field as we're confident that there's a lot of room and perspective for ideas with all these new mobile devices such as smartphones and mainly tablets (here are some thoughts on the iPad as a shared device). And of course there's plenty of open ground on the horizon if you think beyond today's devices and screens (huge immersive multi-touch screens are quite appealing, though ;-) – interaction involving tactile everyday objects, things that are becoming intelligent with added sensors and microchips. When computing is finally becoming ubiquitous, when digital is seamlessly woven into the real-world.

Think of interfaces that are actively assisting any form of collaboration between at least two people in a face to face constellation. Think of that interface not being too immersive to distract your counterpart away from you (or both altogether), but instead enhance your face to face interaction, help you fulfill the task you're currently into together.

Update: Moritz has pointed me to an academic field called computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) that is being researched since 1984. According to the Wikipedia entry, CSCW "addresses how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems" – which describes pretty well what I was looking for. I find the title a bit too cryptical and dated though, but really great to see there's a lot to read about. Now it's time to find – and work on some good examples.

On the Wikipedia page for CSCW there's a graphic called "CSCW Matrix". The aspects that I find most interesting about it are the ones in the upper left – face to face interactions, same place (colocated), same time (synchronous). When talking about a device such as the iPad for that purpose, that might be "single display groupware":

The CSCW Matrix from Wikipeda

Here are two academic papers I found touching the topic of "collaborative user interfaces" in the broadest sense:

Model-based development of synchronous collaborative user interfaces (PDF)

This paper undertakes with collaborative software development taking into account requirements emerged from recent progress in technologies relevant to networks and computing devices. Considering this technological breakthrough, especially under the light of the consequently sharply growing online virtual communities, we can deduce that a new substance is given to the software supporting collaborative practices for multiple environments. In such cases, one important aspect to consider is the user interfaces (UIs) design supporting group work appropriately. The results today offer a rich insight to the desired groupware functionality and the features devised to facilitate such functionality (i.e., replication models, object sharing, floor control, etc). On the other hand, very little is known about their capability to facilitate generation of multi-user interfaces to groupware applications. With the advent of model-based user interface engineering, which signifies a move towards transformation-based approaches to generating the user interface, one challenge is bridging across these two perspectives. The current work seeks to contribute to this goal by identifying the type of models needed to capture collaborative behavior in synchronous multiple user interface settings as well as generating the collaborative user interface by making use of suitable platform-oriented architectural models.

Designing Collaborative User Interfaces for Ubiquitous Applications Using CIAM: The AULA Case Study (PDF)

Abstract: In this article we explain how we apply the CIAM methodology based on the CIAN notation in order to generate user interfaces in collaborative applications. CIAM has been applied successfully in the development of desktop applications, such as Domosim-TPC, demonstrating its effectiveness in the definition of user interfaces for collaborative applications where a shared context is required. We present the AULA system modeled by means of CIAM. The results in the application of this Methodology show the necessity to include those aspects closely related with context modeling and the synchronization of contents; that is why we make an outline of the way to take into account these characteristics as a future work.

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June 16, 2010

The Google TV User Interface →

As much as a product can be successful just because it has a great and easy-to-use user interface (the iPod way), it could also fail simply due to little engaging and boring user experience (the Apple TV way?). That was my first thought after watching the video above.

I'm not sure if it's the best way to design TV interaction mainly around a search box. For sure, that's what Google is all about. But also, no matter how simple and reduced the Google search website might be, you need to have an idea of what you want. The whole web is just waiting for you behind a tiny slot – but you have to feed it first. You have to take the initiative. That's also something we (Johannes and I) talked about quite often: we like Spotify, the cloud-based music service, its search works great and there's almost everything available. But as soon as you don't exactly know what you'd like to listen to, you're pretty lost.

When I'm watching TV, I'm mostly in lean back mode. Everything demanding for sophisticated interaction (if any) happens on another screen – communicating with friends during live events or gathering some information about what's currently running. On the TV screen, I want to focus on just one thing at the time. This could also be some simple interactive content or a game, but I mainly want to be quite passive and entertained – I want to be guided, I want to discover, I want serendipity and I want my TV to learn from my watching habits and behaviour so it can continuously improve. I think Boxee has some promising approaches – it pulls in video content from your social network friends and let's you send videos (via browser bookmarklet) you're stumbling upon during the day –while you might have no time to watch– to a queue, waiting to be watched on your TV, in your living room. I also referred to some ideas around aggregation-based TV curation in a previous posting.

My knowledge of the US television environment is too limited, but as much as I understand from that video, Google TV is going to be positioned in addition to cable providers, as an extension of what people are already using. Adapted to my personal TV experience, that's actually not what I need. I don't want another box and cables in my living room (some TV sets have it pre-installed), I don't want another, additional user interface. My problem with television isn't the way I interact with it, it's the content that's being provided. I'd gladly like to replace, not just complement it. I'd like to have a single, elegant entry point to my TV experience that let's me search, but also just channel-surf (or similar random-based scattering techniques). Where I can watch the news, live sports coverage, video clips as well as feature films and documentaries.

For sure, Google TV is more a platform (based on the open Android operating system) than a product and third party developers are going to create inspiring and helpful applications. But as an out of the box solution and as far as I can judge from watching an introduction video, I'm not convinced. I'm looking forward to checking out the real thing, will give it some time to evolve and then recapitulate on the topic.

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June 7, 2010

Kids and User Interfaces →

Some days ago, I attended a get-together, where there were several (heavy) internet users telling anecdotes from their everyday digital life: an online activist, a blogger, an ex-hardcore gamer, a start-up guy and a 61 years old retired man. The latter made an interesting point: he said he doesn't understand why there isn't a lot more technology and user interfaces optimized for old people, a huge and profitable audience. Of course there are very simple and no-frills cellphones for the wrinkly, he argued, but they mostly don't notice since they inherit discarded pieces of old technology from their children or grandchildren.

So what does this have to do with Kids and User Interfaces? I'd like to think about some ideas related to designing target-oriented user interfaces for specific groups of people. Although it's mostly very complicated (or even impossible) to lump together people to treat and communicate them as separable target audiences, I think it's quite possible to do so with elderly people and kids. Of course, there is a high level of diversity just within the boundaries of "seniors" or "kids", but it works in a more general, mainly cognitive manner. Kids aren't as handy, mature and experienced; an elderly person is more likely to be visually or motor impaired.

When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to watch TV until I was around 16 or 17. Which at that time made me very greedy for staring at a television or playing computer games when visiting friends. On the other hand, I today still feel awkward when in contact with a TV: I turn it on and watch whatever's currently running, for example. I'm not really able to channel-surf. In a positive sense, I have no television habits or addiction at all.

I'm thinking alot about what's the best way to handle these things for Tilda, my 3,5 year old daughter. And today, there are even more points of potential seduction – screens and digital media are pretty much everywhere, we're surrounded by more and more interaction and distraction and we need to adapt carefully. So no matter if you're having a lot of devices in your household or not, you have to develop a strategy. And I think the best way to go is a playful but very deliberate exposure to technology. There's some risks and a lot of great things, so you need to find a good balance for and together with your kids.

Of course Tilda was very curious when she first saw the iPad. Although she was already quite experienced with touch screens due to the iPhone (she managed to intuitively unlock it when she was around 2), this bigger and glossy apparatus fascinated her even more. I think it's in a way about the scale of the device, which compares much better to the real thing: people in movies appear a lot bigger, and the canvas of drawing apps feels quite similar to standard paper sizes. So when Tilda first picked a color to draw with, she had a look at her fingertip to make sure the screen didn't loose color.

But what I think would be a great field for kids usage of the iPad is not the passive consumption of films, radio play or music. It's rather things that stimulate creativity and invention. For smaller kids it starts with puzzles, simple cause and effect games, color and shape association. A next step could be drawing (do you remember your Magic Sketcher?), step by step leading to more advanced educational games and applications (reading, writing, making music, editing video, programming …).

Mobile or portable devices such as smartphones and tablet computers also show a great potential for a more social use of technology (who would take a laptop to a crib?). Where some parents stopped reading lullaby stories to their kids long time ago, just placing them in front of a screen, new forms of shared multimedia storytelling could arise, where parents read some bits, then there's some sounds and music, interactive elements and short movie clips. And why not even combining these new digital gadgets with classic material – e.g. an iPhone with a book?

Although there are plenty of iPad apps for kids in the education or games section of the iTunes store, I haven't found anything that truly convinced me yet (any kind of tip highly appreciated!). At this point, I'd like to share three observations I made during checking out some of these apps together with Tilda. They are less about the actual intention or purpose of these applications, but rather about more general kids interaction issues that popped up quite quickly.

Alice for the iPad Lite*: accidental page turns
Alice for the iPad has gotten a lot of attention from the press. It's basically a very well designed classic book, enhanced with some playful interactive features that engage you with the story by moving things around with your fingers or by tilting the device. But the problem is – at least that's what happened when Tilda was playing around with it: to go to the next/previous page, you have to swipe right/left. So there's a conflict with moving objects around the screen and a lot of accidental page turns – leading to regular frustration. I think in this case it would make much more sense to only use the arrow icons on the bottom for navigation (as shown in this movie – it seems they added the swiping in a later update).

* we only used the free light version, since it wouldn't make much sense to read the English version

Drawing Pad: no easy sharing option
After Tilda had finished her first masterpiece with Drawing Pad (the name of the app should be quite self-explanatory), she felt the urge to share it with her aunt and her grandparents. There are several options to export drawings: they can be saved or shared by Email, Facebook or Twitter. But all these things involve text and writing capabilities, so I was thinking: why isn't there a way for me to setup like 3-5 pictures of relevant family members, and whenever Tilda's finished with a new piece she can easily share it by just tapping on a face she knows?

General issue: irrelevant settings pages
We encountered this problem with Drawing App as well, but I think it's a general issue. Within many apps, settings pages that are not really relevant for a kid's usage, are mixed into their interaction flow. They open them by accident, don't know how to get rid again (an "X" icon is not learned in this case) and get lost or frustrated. I think this could be solved quite easily: it's not about hiding these buttons or icons, we (the parents) still need them for configuration purposes. But why not using multitouch gestures such as tapping with two or three fingers simultaneously? Hints would be easy to give, but if kids don't need them (or just cannot read), they won't really get in their way. I think this works quite well in the Atomic Web Browser for the iPad, where a 3-fingers-tap toggles between normal and fullscreen mode.