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Category Archives: User Interface

Augmented Reality and Metaio Creator

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What it is: Augmented reality is about viewing reality through a screen that displays additional information about what you’re looking at.

Apple recently acquired a company called Metaio, which focused on augmented reality. The clumsy way to use augmented reality is to force someone to wear a virtual reality headset to see altered versions of reality. The much simpler way to use augmented reality is to allow users to point a smartphone or tablet camera at an item and then see, on the screen, the augmented reality image. By removing the need to wear a virtual reality headset, smartphone and tablet augmented reality solutions allow the user to see augmented reality images when they want without the awkwardness of wearing a cumbersome virtual reality headset at all times.

One interesting product that Metaio used to offer was called Metaio Creator, which lets you create augmented reality images without any programming whatsoever. The idea is that you can drag and drop images, video, and audio over an image so it appears whenever a user views that particular item. In the YouTube video below, you can see how Ferrari used Metaio Creator to let users point at a Ferrari and change its color, view its internal workings, or change the wheel rims.

Such augmented reality tools can be particularly handy for stores. Imagine trying on clothes but seeing how that same outfit might look on you in different colors. Use augmented reality to go sight-seeing and point at an interesting landmark to see additional information about that item. Museums could use augmented reality to allow visitors to learn more about each exhibit. By making augmented reality easy to create, Metaio Creator brings the power of augmented reality to the masses.

Of course, you can’t get Mataio Creator any more since Apple bought the company and Metaio shut down their web site. However, this does show you what Apple will likely introduce sometime in the near future. By allowing anyone to easily create augmented reality images of their own, Apple will likely make augmented reality common for everyone to share. Augmented reality is coming to a smartphone and tablet soon. Just wait a few years and you’ll see it working right before your eyes.


About Metaio Creator.

Dethroning Lotus 1-2-3

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What it is: At one time, Lotus 1-2-3 was the standard spreadsheet that corporations relied on. Then Excel took the spreadsheet crown from Lotus 1-2-3. What happened?

Back in the early days of PCs, VisiCalc became the first killer app that people needed. Many people bought computers just to run VisiCalc because using a spreadsheet was far more efficient than relying on paper and pencil. VisiCalc retained its spreadsheet dominance during the reign of CP/M-80. When the world started to shift to MS-DOS, VisiCalc lost its dominance to a newcomer called Lotus 1-2-3.

Unlike VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3 was more than a spreadsheet. As its name implied, it was actually three products in one: a spreadsheet, a charting program, and a database. More importantly, it offered spreadsheet features that were unsurpassed at the time. If you wanted the best spreadsheet on the market, you had to buy an MS-DOS PC.

For years, Lotus 1-2-3 reigned supreme. Corporations standardized around Lotus 1-2-3 and people learned and trained with Lotus 1-2-3. If you had to work with numbers in any form in the corporate world, you had to use Lotus 1-2-3.

With so many people in business relying on Lotus 1-2-3, how did Lotus 1-2-3 lose its dominant position? It didn’t happen overnight, but how it did happen is a lesson for how leaders in any market can lose their lead. It happens gradually through a combination of ineptness on the part of Lotus Development, the publishers, of Lotus 1-2-3, and partly because of the competition.

The two strongest rivals to Lotus 1-2-3 were Microsoft Excel and Borland International’s Quattro Pro, a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet clone. Both products garnered rave reviews and were considered superior to Lotus 1-2-3. Yet people still stuck with Lotus 1-2-3 because they were used to it, they were trained on it, and it was still the corporate standard. Despite being an inferior product, Lotus 1-2-3 still remained the spreadsheet leader.

Here’s where Microsoft Excel got it right and Borland’s Quattro Pro got it wrong. Microsoft released Excel first for the Macintosh and then for Windows, their new graphical user interface that would eventually displace MS-DOS. Quattro Pro tried to succeed by being a better Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet than Lotus 1-2-3. Quattro Pro used the same commands so if you knew how to use Lotus 1-2-3, you could easily use Quattro Pro. As long as the world needed Lotus 1-2-3 compatibility, Quattro Pro was a safe choice.

The big problem with copying a leading product is that when the environment changes that made the leading product the leader, then any copycats suffer at the same time the leader suffers, and that’s exactly what happened with Quattro Pro.

Microsoft Excel led the way to the future. Instead of mimicking Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft built a better spreadsheet that was easier to use because it relied on the graphical user interface of the Macintosh and Windows. As the world slowly shifted from MS-DOS to Windows, corporations realized that using Lotus 1-2-3 wasn’t an advantage any more. Graphical user interfaces made programs easier to use, so the corporate world started demanding Windows-based programs. Given the choice between the inertia of sticking with the past (MS-DOS and Lotus 1-2-3) or moving towards greater productivity, the corporate world finally saw the advantages of greater productivity with graphical user interfaces.

If graphical user interfaces only offered marginal improvements over command-line interfaces like MS-DOS, then corporations would likely have ignored Excel. However, Windows offered dramatic improvements over MS-DOS, so when the corporate world needed a Windows spreadsheet, the only choice was Excel.

Now Excel had long been a better spreadsheet than Lotus 1-2-3, but until the world shifted to Windows, few corporations wanted to shift from Lotus 1-2-3 to Excel. yet when they finally decided to shift to Windows and Excel, they left behind both Lotus 1-2-3 and Quattro Pro. Despite being a better spreadsheet than Lotus 1-2-3, Quattro Pro suffered by being an MS-DOS program. As people abandoned Lotus 1-2-3, they also abandoned Quattro Pro.

Excel succeeded partly because it was a better spreadsheet, but mostly because it was the best option for the new world of Windows. When the world shifted to Windows, Excel was waiting for them. By the time Lotus 1-2-3 and Quattro Pro offered Windows versions, it was too late. Everyone had already standardized around Microsoft Excel and that was the end of Lotus 1-2-3 (and Quattro Pro).

The lesson of Lotus 1-2-3 is clear. The leader in any field always risks losing its leadership. The way to compete against any leader is never to copy that leader like Quattro Pro because the conditions that will kill the leader will also kill any copycats. The real way to compete against a leader is to target a changing world where the leader doesn’t have a presence. In the spreadsheet world, that was by anticipating the change from MS-DOS to Windows. In the operating system world, this shift is from PCs to mobile devices.

Look at the current leaders in any market today. At one time, Windows was the PC standard and still is. There’s no way a rival can displace Windows on PCs. However, the fastest growing operating system is no longer Windows but Android on mobile devices. Android isn’t a better version of Windows. It’s just targeting the mobile market that Windows ignored for too long. Now Android is on top and Windows is struggling to catch up.

There are two ways you can always fail. One is by assuming the current leader will remain the leader forever. That never happens. A second way to fail is to assume the way to compete against a leader is to copy that leader. Even if you offer a better product like Quattro Pro was a better spreadsheet than Lotus 1-2-3, it never matters. Being better is never good enough. Being in a different market is really the key to eventual success.

In the spreadsheet world, that different market was Windows instead of MS-DOS. In the operating system world, that different market is mobile instead of PCs.

Eventually the leader in every market will fall. The question is will you be ready when it happens?

About the fall of Lotus 1-2-3.

 

One Reason Why Virtual Reality is a Niche Product

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What it is: Virtual reality products like Microsoft HoloLens requires wearing a virtual reality device strapped to your face, and that right there is the major limitation of virtual reality.

If you watch Microsoft’s concept video demonstrating the potential of their HoloLens virtual reality headset, you can see people walking around their home or office manipulating virtual objects in front of them to watch TV, chat with a colleague, or design images by manipulating them with your hands. While interesting, this concept video ignores one glaring flaw with virtual reality headsets: when would you wear one?

No matter when you wear it, you’ll be walking around with a virtual reality device strapped to your face, waving your hands around to manipulate objects only you can see. For specialized uses such as training, wearing a virtual reality headset won’t be a problem, but in the ordinary home or office, a virtual reality headset displays images only you can see. When you wave your hands around, you need a Kinect-like device to translate your hand gestures into commands. You likely aren’t going to wear a virtual reality headset all the time at home or at the office, so its use will likely be constrained for specialized purposes where you can store the virtual reality headset, such as in a conference room or a laboratory.

There’s nothing wrong with that. It just means the concept video of how the HoloLens could work and the reality will likely be far different. Virtual reality will be excellent for training and for gaming, but probably not for general work and play. Watching a movie through a virtual reality headset might be interesting, but there’s little advantage of doing this at home when you could just turn on your TV instead. The times when virtual reality might be useful is when you’re in a confined area where you can’t normally watch a movie, such as riding as a passenger in a public bus or train. Then you could strap on a virtual reality headset and watch movies, but then you’ll look kind of odd with a virtual reality headset on in public. If you thought people targeted victims walking blissfully around with ear buds plugged into an iPod were easy prey, think of people paying attention to their virtual reality image and not realizing someone’s sneaking up behind them to bash them over the head and steal their virtual reality headset.

Because of this, virtual reality headsets likely won’t be used in public the same way people use smartphones or tablets in public. So that limits virtual reality headsets to specific places where you can store the virtual reality headset, and that means using it only for specialized purposes. That’s fine; it just clashes with the idea that virtual reality headsets can be a commonplace item for home and work, and that’s not likely to happen.

Niche markets will likely embrace virtual reality because it can save money. The military already uses training simulators to teach soldiers instead of risking them in actual airplanes or battlefield situations. For fun, virtual reality will be great for games. For training and education, virtual reality can save money while creating realistic training scenarios. For work and home? What advantage does virtual reality offer?

People who need to design objects, such as motorcycles as shown in Microsoft’s concept video, fall under the category of simulators, and that will save them time and money. To chat with a colleague using virtual reality? Do you want to strap a virtual reality headset to your face just to chat like using Skype through an ordinary computer screen? Probably not. Chatting will be useful in addition to the training uses, such as having an instructor guide you. Chatting won’t be a prime use for virtual reality because it offers few advantages over existing solutions.

For the average person who needs to read, type, and calculate results, a virtual reality headset isn’t going to replace a smartphone, tablet, or computer. Virtual reality is a niche product and a very good one, but it needs to conquer these niche markets in specialized fields (military training, pilot training, firefighter training, etc.) first before it can work its way to common, ordinary users. In Microsoft’s concept video, someone uses the HoloLens to fix their plumbing while someone else guides them. That may be perfect for long-distance medical procedures or other specialized uses where it’s not possible to have an expert physically actually at the location, such as an expert on Earth showing astronauts how to repair equipment on the Space Station. To fix plumbing? Do you really need a virtual reality headset for that? Probably not. That’s like using the webcam in a laptop to take pictures on your vacation. You could do that, but it’s much easier just to carry and use your smartphone’s camera instead.

Look beyond the technology and concept videos to see how a product can be used. The future is bright for virtual reality headsets. It’s just not going to dominate the consumer market when there are far more lucrative and necessary niche markets where virtual reality can be immediately useful today. Technology is more than just its capabilities, but how and why people might want to use those technical capabilities.

The general public already rejected the idea of walking around with Google Glass strapped to your face. Will the public accept virtual reality headsets strapped to people’s faces instead? Probably not, so expect to see virtual reality in limited areas and then we’ll see where it goes from there.

About Microsoft HoloLens.

The Transition Phase of Skeuomorphism

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What it is: Skeuomorphism is a way to make new technology more approachable by mimicking older technology.

When the iPhone and iPad first appeared, it used something called skeuomorphism, which is the idea of making user interfaces look like familiar, real-life objects. For example, the original iBooks app made e-book titles look as if they were books on an actual wooden shelf.

The problem with skeuomorphism is that it’s a crutch designed to ease people’s transition from the real world to the interface world of the computer. That’s why Apple dumped skeuomorphism with iOS 7 because if you’re constantly trying to mimic real objects, you’ll always be limited by those real objects.

That’s the reason why early TV shows and movies resembled stage plays because Hollywood wanted people to feel like they were seeing a different version of a stage play. Walk into any old movie theater and they more closely resemble concert halls with balconies and massive seating that used to rely on ushers to guide people to seats along with stopping halfway through a movie for an intermission, just like stage plays do. The 60’s were the heyday of Hollywood musicals because they took proven stage musicals and translated them on the screen.

Eventually as people got comfortable with movies, they relied less and less on the familiarity of stage plays to the point where we can now watch a full-length movie on an iPhone or iPad without going to a theater at all. Notice that movie theaters no longer resemble concert halls with balconies any more, but appear more customized for the movie-going experience?

In the world of user interfaces, skeuomorphism handicaps your interface because you’re hampered by the limitations of the real-life objects. Even worse, the graphics needed to make user interfaces look like real objects are largely wasted in much the same way that ushers and intermission in movie theaters are a relic of the past. By dumping skeuomorphism, user interfaces can truly adapt the unique features of computers.

Today’s generation of kids have never lived in a world where computers didn’t exist. They don’t know what it’s like to use a rotary phone, or share a single phone line in a house without making a call outside of the home unless they can find a pay phone. For that generation that has rarely seen a record player or browsed through a book store, skeuomorphism makes little sense. That would be like Ford and Honda trying to make cars still look like horse-drawn carriages.

So if you’re wondering why today’s user interfaces look less like real world objects, that’s the reason why. Skeuomorphism is dead as the world moves towards seeing user interfaces as objects in themselves rather than as pale imitations of real life items. Expect this trend to continue to the point where tomorrow’s user interfaces won’t resemble anything close to what we’re using today.

The big question is what will tomorrow’s user interface look like? As a general rule, if it takes an entire book or class to teach someone how to use it, it’s too complicated. The touchscreen interface of iOS is easy for even toddlers to understand. You point and tap at something on the screen. To do more complicated tasks, you have to learn gestures such as the pinch-and-zoom gesture that enlarges or shrinks an image on the screen, but learning the basic tap gesture is natural and easy to understand.

Most likely tomorrow’s user interface will rely more on direct manipulation of items. In today’s world, you have to point at something with a mouse and then point at a command to do something such as move or color that selected item. That means the user interface acts as an intermediary between the user and the desired result.

Eliminate this middle step and go straight to manipulating the object itself. Instead of a two-step process of selecting and then doing something, the trend is towards a simpler one-step process. You can see this process in the way maps work on a smartphone.

In the old days, a map would appear and you would have to find a slider control to shrink or enlarge the map. Nowadays you can just pinch on the map to enlarge or shrink it, which is much faster and more intuitive than finding and dragging a slider on the screen.

That’s the future of tomorrow’s user interfaces to make tasks simpler, not harder and more complicated with multiple steps needed to accomplish what you could previously do in fewer steps. Any user interface that makes tasks harder to complete with more steps is simply a bad design. Until people start recognizing and avoiding awful user interfaces, they’ll continue settling for convoluted software that frustrates everyone.

The next time you use a computer program that proves frustrating and confusing, chances are good it’s not your fault; it’s the fault of the designers who made the poorly designed user interface. If they rely on skeuomorphism, they could make tasks a bit easier, but they really should think about simplifying the user interface altogether. From now on, look for bad software user interfaces and avoid them. You’ll be much happier as a result, especially when you realize it’s the fault of the designers that make user interfaces so difficult to use, not any fault of your own for not understanding a poorly designed interface in the first place.

About skeuomorphism.

 

The Apple TV Remote

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What it is: The Apple TV Remote offers a much simpler interface for controlling the TV than existing remote controls.

Apple is rarely the first company in any market. The iPod wasn’t the first MP3 digital player, the iPad wasn’t the first tablet, the iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone, and the Apple Watch wasn’t the first wearable computer. What Apple does is look at an existing market and then decide what’s wrong and how to make it simpler. The next major disruption coming this summer will be the Apple TV.

Not only will the Apple TV offer new ways for access TV channels, but it will offer its own app store so you’ll be able to play Apple TV games, which will essentially make dedicated video game consoles obsolete. (Goodbye Xbox, Playstation, and Wii). More importantly, the Apple TV should dramatically simplify the idea of a remote control for the TV.

Look at existing TV remote controls and you’ll see a variety of buttons that serve one function only, much like early mobile phones offered keyboards that flipped open, slid open, or simply gobbled up space at the bottom of the smartphone face. Those early smartphones were dramatically complicated with so many buttons everywhere just like today’s remote controls for TV are way too complicated with dedicated buttons for everyone. Do TV remote controls really need so many separate keys that are barely used? The user interface of TVs and their remote controls are nothing short of bizarre so they’re ripe for simplification, but how will Apple do it?

With the Apple Watch, Apple cleverly used the Digital Crown as a way to interact with the device along with Force Touch. instead of trying to create a unified user interface across multiple devices (like Microsoft is trying to do with Windows 10), Apple tries to optimize the user interface for each particular device. Notice the Apple Watch has a slightly different user interface than the iPhone? That’s because the Apple Watch is smaller so it needs its own unique user interface, not a transplanted user interface that’s not appropriate for the device.

So when looking at Apple’s current remote control, you can see that its click wheel closely resembles early iPods. Since the click wheel interface is less than intuitive and kind of clumsy despite its simplicity, it’s likely that tomorrow’s Apple TV remote control will look less like an iPod and more like an iPhone with a virtual user interface that can adapt to the task at hand.

Today’s remote control devices have to offer a multitude of buttons because it can’t modify itself based on your current actions with the TV. Thus it needs to provide all possible options for all possible types of interactions with your TV.

In comparison, a well-designed remote control with a virtual screen interface can adapt to the task at hand, simplifying the interface and optimizing the interface for that specific task. Apple already has plenty of experience working with touch screen interfaces so it’s not a stretch of the imagination to see how they could apply their expertise to a remote control for the Apple TV as well.

Perhaps you could also pair up an iPhone or iPad to control an Apple TV too. That way you can get the larger screen of an iPad for displaying more controls, which can be particularly useful for game playing on the Apple TV.

What’s certain not to happen is that Apple will introduce an overly complicated remote control with a multitude of single-purpose buttons. Watch for Apple’s announcement of the Apple TV the first week of June. When you see Apple’s design for a remote control, you’ll realized how remote controls should have been designed all along.

About the Apple TV remote control.

“The Design of Everyday Things”

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What it is: “The Design of Everyday Things” explains how the design of objects can hinder or help people use that object.

In 1942, a fire broke out in a nightclub called the Cocoanut Grove, killing close to 500 people. The problem wasn’t the fire itself because when the fire started, people simply ran for the exits. The problem occurred because the doors were designed to be pulled inward to open, and in their panic, people pushed against the doors, trapping themselves and everyone behind them. That’s the reason why doors in public buildings always open outwards and can be opened by pushing them. The design of exit doors in public buildings is designed to maximize the chances that users will get it right without thinking.

The problem with many objects is that they’re designed to force users to think, and if users don’t think the way the designers think, they can’t understand how to use the object. Back in the old days of MS-DOS and CP/M-80, people had to control computers by typing commands, so these early operating systems were called command-line interfaces. The problem with command-line interfaces was that if you typed one letter or punctuation mark wrong, the computer would reject your command. This meant typing long commands carefully and slowly, which made it difficult for novices to do if they accidentally omitted a character or added an extra space. The end result was massive confusion and frustration from novices who thought they typed everything correctly, but didn’t with no feedback on what they did wrong or how to correct it.

That’s why graphical user interfaces appeared like Mac OS and Windows. The goal behind graphical user interfaces was to let users point to a command and click on it with no typing required. Yet when Microsoft released Windows 8 with its confusing tile interface, many people found navigating the tiles to find a program was too confusing and difficult. What was the solution tech-savvy users gave them? Simply type in the name of the program you wanted and Windows 8 would find it for you.

That so-called solution essentially defeated the purpose of a graphical user interface. Novices didn’t want to type in anything. They wanted the ease of pointing and clicking on a command to control the computer. Is it any wonder why so many people shunned Windows 8?

Microsoft’s latest folly was to try to create the same user interface on all types of devices from smartphones and tablets to PCs. They tried this once before with Windows Mobile, which took the desktop metaphor of Windows to mobile devices. When that didn’t work, they took the mobile interface of Windows Phone and bolted it on to Windows 8, thereby confusing PC users. When that didn’t work, they promise Windows 10 will allow software to run on different devices seamlessly.

The problem with this promise is that each device requires different features and user interfaces. On a PC, you have plenty of screen space and processing power, so you may want the most advanced features possible. On a smartphone, screen space is limited and processing power isn’t quite as powerful as a PC. Even worse, smartphone apps are often used for minutes at a time while PC programs are typically used for hours at a time.

Imagine a simple stock tracking app on a smartphone running on a PC. It’s relatively pointless since it simply displays stock prices and that’s it. A PC stock tracking program is more sophisticated by providing real-time updates and interactive charts that let you set buying and selling targets. That’s way too much information for a smartphone app when all you want to know is the price of your favorite stocks. Because each device serves different purposes, unifying them with the same code base is a technical achievement, but not a user experience achievement.

Imagine a supercomputer running a smartphone app that lets you check stock prices. It would work, but it wastes the processing power of the supercomputer. Now imagine cramming a supercomputer data analysis program on a smartphone. It might work, but besides being slower, it would be harder to use and not likely something you’d do on the road while waiting for an airplane in an airport.

Basically, devices don’t need the same user interface any more than a microwave oven needs to share the same user interface as a telephone, a radio, or a lawnmower. Each device needs its own user interface that makes it intuitive for the user and provides corrective feedback when the user makes a mistake.

Going back to the fire doors of most public buildings, they’re designed to be shoved open by people who are panicking and unable to think. When they hit the door, a long bar stretched horizontally across the door lets them unlatch the door and open it.

Now imagine a sliding door. People would smash against it and push, not realizing that they really need to slide it. Now the question is which way do they slide it, left or right? By forcing people to stop and think, sliding doors fail as exit doors simply because of the design itself.

Designers of objects and software often defend their creations by claiming people would know how to use it properly if they would just read the manual. That right there is an admission that they didn’t design the object or software properly in the first place. Ideally, the design of an object should be easy to understand. A door that you push open should have a rectangular area that makes it clear you push on that area to open the door. Yet how many times have you run across doors with handles that look like you need to pull them, only to find out that you need to push them to open the door? That’s poor design.

Think back to the way most computers work. They display confusing options to the novice and when the novice tries something and it doesn’t work, there’s no feedback on what the user did wrong and no clue what the user can do to do it right. The end result is frustration, helplessness, and even anger. The typical technological product is way too complicated for most people to use. Just look at the remote control of most television sets that have rows of buttons that are hardly ever used. To figure out how to use them, you have to read the manual, but even then the manual is confusing and the user interface for the remote control is intimidating.

Many people judge products based on technical specifications with the idea that more must be better. However more is useless if you can’t use it. A better criteria is to judge a product on how easy it is to use regardless of its technical features. It’s easy for most people to ride a bicycle. It’s not easy for most people to pilot a 747. That’s because flying a 747 is a harder task and requires specialized controls that a bicycle doesn’t need. Yet it’s incorrect to claim that a 747 is superior to a bicycle. If you wanted to get from your home to a supermarket three blocks away, a bicycle is the better solution than a 747 despite all the features the 747 offers. Technical specifications ultimately mean nothing if they fail to help the user achieve their goal.

That’s where so many computers fail. Instead of focusing on making the user’s life easier, companies focus on layering on more specifications to “prove” their product is superior without explaining how this can be a benefit to the user. Samsung once touted how two Samsung phones could share data by just bumping them together. While interesting, it only worked with certain Samsung phones, which limited its practicality to a small subset of Samsung smartphone users who happen to have the correct Samsung models. It’s an interesting feature, just not a widespread or practical one for most people who really need to share data with people who use all types of phones from other manufacturers.

Ultimately the design of an object greatly affects people’s perception of that object. If it’s easy and fun to use, people enjoy using it. If it’s frustrating and confusing to use, people won’t enjoy using it nor use it to its full capacity, which makes all its advanced technical specifications wasted.

It’s never about advanced features. It’s always about the user experience. Make the user feel in control and give them powers they didn’t have before, and that’s the hallmark of a good design. When you look at different programs and computers on the market, you can see which ones fail at this task and which ones succeed.

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