Google Labs partnered with the New York Times and the Washington Post to produce a new way of experiencing news. Their prototype is pretty interesting. A few of my professors have long talked about a similar method of representing news content. I suspect this will be a growing research area.
This is a cool project. There is a very strong grid that looks like a table and it almost feels as if you’re looking at a sleek newspaper (perhaps one designed for a tablet?). There is a good balance between the list structure and the news items. I’m a little torn about the navigation appearing on the right hand side of the page. It seems like a hold over from the current site, which has a massive left hand navigation. I really like the overall approach taken here.
This is awesome! A very clever use of stop-animation and an effective voice over. Great job.
Paper prototype animation – with voice-over from chrisneale on Vimeo.
A motion sensor enabled water fountain.
While walking through LaGuardia Airport I came across a special water fountain. With a parched throat, I approached the water fountain on the right and, well, I didn’t quite know how to use it.
This was due to the very poor and confusing affordances presented to the thirsty user. Initially I thought, “Wow, the button on this fountain is missing, it must be broken. What are those two holes for?” At that point the motion sensor detected my proximity to the fountain began serving water.
I was intrigued. This apparently “smart” water fountain must have been deployed to minimize ones exposure to certain alphanumeric viruses. As an HCI person, though, I realized there were serious problems with how this fountain was being presented. To get a better understanding of the problems, I observed two interactions with the “smart” fountain.
A man walked to the “smart” fountain, looked at it, seemed confused and then used the second, lower water fountain. He was probably beyond the range of the sensor, which is why nothing happened.
Next, a young woman walked to the “smart” fountain and put her finger on the water dispensing part of the fountain. The sensor then realized she was there and began with the water works. However, her finger was blocking the hole where the water was supposed to be dispensed from and, well, it got a little messy.
To practically improve this design, I would suggest add a sign or sticker to orient users. That way, you can manage and mitigate their past expectations with this new and, for me anyway, awkward experience.
At this point, it is not clear if this is intended for Apple’s rumored tablet device. What is clear, however, is the rich user experience a tablet device can provide. The more technologies move away from the formal desktop, the better. This is pretty neat.