navimation

3,5 års arbeid på 6 minutt og 40 sekund

Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 | Events, General, Navimation examples | No Comments

(In Norwegian only. English version underway)

For nokre veker sidan oppsummerte eg doktorgradsprosjektet mitt på 6 minutt og 40 sekund. Her ser du resultatet:

Denne presentasjonen vart laga for Pecha Kucha Night Oslo, som arrangerast med jamne mellomrom på DogA. Pecha Kucha skal vere ein inspirasjonskveld med lynforedrag om arkitektur, design og kunst. Kvar talar får ta med 20 bilete som kvart blir vist i 20 sekund, til saman 6 minutt og 40 sekund. Heldigvis fekk eg lov å bytte ut nokre av bileta med video – noko som var essensielt for å formidle arbeidet mitt.

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New video: Kinetic Interface Design

Friday, September 10th, 2010 | Design and research, General, Navimation examples | 1 Comment

In order to make my research more accessible I have created a video that shows a number of kinetic interfaces. Kinetic interfaces are here understood as screen-based interfaces that are characterized by movement.

Kinetic Interface Design from JonO on Vimeo.

In addition to the interface examples, a number of descriptive and analytical terms are presented. These terms have been developed through analysis of kinetic interfaces in academic publications. The kinetic interfaces presented in the video are:

The Apple OSX login box

NAVIMATION
The Iconist #1 (iPad)
www.leoburnett.ca
Disney Movies (iPad)

SOCIAL NAVIMATION
www.taggraph.com
Flipboard (iPad)

MOTIONAL TRANSFORMATION
www.jonathanyuen.com
www.well-formed-data.net/experiments/elastic_lists

SPATIAL MANIPULATION
For All Seasons (iPhone)
www.tryggtrafikk.no/Sykkelhjelm2010
www.ecodazoo.com

TEMPORAL NAVIGATION
Cooliris (iPhone)
www.wrangler-europe.com/bluebell/ss10/#/collection
www.flashloaded.com/flashcomponents/3dwall

INDEXICAL COMPOSITING
www.sectionseven.com/index2.html
www.homeinvest.no

VIRTUAL KINETICS
www.thewhalehunt.org
www.thibaud.be

Music: ‘Rieth’ from Gesamtlaufzeit by Marko Fürstenberg. (Used with permission.)

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ABB Interactive Collaboration Table (2006)

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 | General, Navimation examples | No Comments

This was a student project I did with ABB R&D in 2006, in which I designed a multi-user interactive collaboration table for use in control rooms. Now, 4 years later, I’m allowed to show it!

 

What you see is a SmartBoard, and projected onto it some semi-interactive compositions created in Adobe Flash. Yes, it’s all ‘fake’…
 
Credits: Widget development: Tove Helene Hovd. Voice-over: Johannes Zachrisson. Mentor: Siri Breen.

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First journal article published

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 | General, Theory | No Comments

Finally! My first journal article, which is co-written with Andrew Morrison, has now been published by the International Journal of Design. This is an open-access journal, so the article is free for everyone to download as a PDF. The article is entitled ‘Navimation: exploring time, space & motion in the design of screen-based interfaces’. Here is the abstract:

Screen-based user interfaces now include dynamic and moving elements that transform the screen space and relations of mediated content. These changes place new demands on design as well as on our reading and use of such multimodal texts. Assuming a socio-cultural perspective on design, we discuss in this article the use of animation and visual motion in interface navigation as navimation. After presenting our Communication Design framework, we refer to relevant literature on navigation and motion. Three core concepts are introduced for the purpose of analysing selected interface examples using multimodal textual analysis informed by social semiotics. The analysis draws on concepts from multiple fields, including animation studies, ‘new’ media, interaction design, and human-computer interaction. Relations between time, space and motion are discussed and linked to wider debates concerning interface design.

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Sketching with time: student projects

Saturday, October 10th, 2009 | Design process, General, Navimation examples | 1 Comment

Some time ago the interaction design students at AHO did a short project in which they experimented with stop motion for prototyping a photo album interface. Before giving the task to the students I tested the technique myself using the free Mac software FrameByFrame (see earlier blogpost). This is the first time we have instructed students to use stop motion, so the project was partly an experiment in itself. In addition we wanted to find out more about the potentials and challenges of using stop motion for prototyping navimation.

Let’s look at some of the videos.

Synne Frydenberg

This idea shows quite directly how the properties of paper can be used in motion sketching, in this case by folding the paper.

Natasha Ruivo:

Natasha makes use of what I call virtual kinetics, by giving the sensation of gravity and mass as the images fall down.

(UPDATE: this video stopped working, and has therefore been removed)

This video shows nicely how stop motion can be used to show how a specific task or action in the interface can be accomplished. This would be much harder to sketch and present without such a video.

Fanny Monier

Fanny shows how stop motion can be used to create a sensation of transformation and three-dimensional space by simply substituting one drawing with another. This technique seems highly effective.

Another way to create the sensation of a three-dimensional space is of course to physically set it up in three dimensions. This efficiently takes us away from the page metaphor and allow us to rather conceptualise the interface as a stage or a theatre.

Svein Inge Bjørkhaug

(UPDATE: this video stopped working, and has therefore been removed)

The idea behind this video is to make a way of sorting images as they are imported from a digital camera to a computer. I think the motion sketch communicates quite well how this idea could be realised, by showing how the user actions are linked to what happens on the screen.

Ivan Milanovic

Ivan was the only student working with a real device, the iPhone. It must have been quite hard to work with such small elements and the small screen space. The first part of the video is a bit too rough, but the last part of the video shows nicely how a tilting gesture can be used to move between images.

Theo Tveterås

A simple but nice idea: touch the surface, and images appear underneath each finger.

As Theo argued, the principle that is sketched out here could be used in a screen interface by using other ways of controlling the navigation. I also think it could be a fun way of navigating a device with screens on both sides!

A playful way of engaging with photos: a memory game!

What did we learn?

Stop motion prototyping obviously has its advantages and disadvantages. These are the main advantages:

  • quite easy and quick to prototype visual elements that move, especially in three dimensions.
  • easy to show how user action and screen presentation may be related over time
  • the rough style of stop motion is suited for rough sketching
  • physical space and physical elements (such as paper) may inspire and induce new ideas. Great potential for experimentation.
  • effective for communicating and presenting ideas

The challenges:

  • requires some equipment and software tools (camera, tripod, light, PC, software)
  • it may take some time to prepare the visual elements (i.g. paper pieces)
  • there are limits for what you can easily do in front of a camera. Some things are more easy to do on a computer
  • it is hard and time consuming to produce subtle and sophisticated movement by using stop motion

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