Grooveshark

Since taking an interface design class I find myself paying closer attention to the interface designs I frequently encounter. One such layout is Grooveshark's play queue. Like Pandora, upcoming songs are listed in boxes, with the currently playing song on the left and upcoming songs stacked to the right. Each contains the name of the song (full title available on hover), album, and a picture of the album. Clicking the square causes the song to start playing (or pause if it was already playing). There are also buttons to remove the song from the queue or add it to one of your existing playlists. But best of all, rearranging the songs in the queue is as easy as dragging and dropping the squares as desired.

It seems to be part of the Grooveshark style to have multiple ways to do the same thing. Adding a song to a playlist can be done by clicking the down arrow on the song's square box, or by simply dragging the song onto the playlist's name. In this case I think the multiple ways does not cause confusion but just makes things more intuitive. I find myself just trying to doing things (mostly by drag and dropping) and things work. It's wonderful.

Wii, Move and Kinect

Thanks to our System Interface class, we've been able to play around with the Wii, Playstation Move, and Kinect. I wanted to offer my reflections on my experience.

With the Wii I was able to use one arm to interact with the game. I could wave my hand around to direct things, swing a racket, whatever. With additional equipment I could include other parts of my body. We had a balance board in the lab which meant I could interact by shifting my weight.

With the playstation move I could use multiple controllers at once (this may be possible with the wii, I'm not sure). In effect my whole upper body could be involved with the game. I could hold a sword in one hand and a shield in another. But to move my avatar left or right I needed buttons (and the playstation buttons were more user friendly than the Wii's).

But with the Kinect every part of me was involved with the game. I started playing a dodgeball sor to f game. I was fun knocking the balls around with my arms. But then someone told me to use my legs. I was blown away. What?! I can use my whole body? (I was aware of this fact on some level). My experience with the Wii and PlayStation Move had had my legs planted. But I immediately began kicking and shuffling. I found myself testing the sensitivity of the avatar by dancing between levels.

In short, I was quite surprised at how well the Kinect worked. The whole thing felt very different from a traditional video game. For one thing it was pretty social. There were 4 of us in the lab and we were all participating to different degrees. And since there was no controllers or buttons it seemed much more like a fun indoor game than anything else.

Now granted, I have a hard time imagining playing halo on the Kinect. A certain amount of precision and complexity is granted a user with buttons. But in terms of fully interactive games, the Kinect beat the competition.

Elevator Interface

(Post for the week of 11/08/10)

This last week I was able to go to New York City for a job interview. In the building of the business I was interviewing at I was struck by a new (to me) way to interact with elevators. On the ground floor there was a metal post sticking out of the ground. The post was a little thinner than a phone line pole. It had 4 faces. One one face there was a screen and a set of buttons (exactly like a pay phone, the digits 1 through 9 in a 3x3 grid with 0 centered at the bottom). As I looked at it, a man in a suit walked up and punched in a floor number 43 on the keypad. After about a second the letter F flashed on the screen and he headed off. This drew my attention to the actual elevators. There were 4 elevators on each side of the hall, each with a letter of the alphabet above it. Perhaps not surprisingly the well dressed man was now in front of the one labeled L. Getting the gist I entered my floor number and headed to the appropriate elevator. There was no up down buttons next to the elevator. When the door opened I could see a panel on the inside with the numbers of the floors it was shortly departing to.

Reflecting on this, I think this system was pretty easy to learn. I watched one person and could figure it out. I reckon this system helps improve elevator efficiency. It required a bit more thinking on each user's part (remember which alphabet letter to go to). But there was no need for any buttons inside the elevators.

Smart Meters

In a recent forum event at Notre Dame (video available here) a panel composed of Notre Dame faculty discussed the impact of technology on the common good. A recurring theme was the green movement and the pushes to monitor energy consumption better. One of the panelists ,the Dean of Engineering Peter Kilpatrick, described his experience with learning more about his personal energy consumption. He explained that he had never been much interested in his gas mileage. But once he got a car that had a display showing his current mpg, he found he kept track and it interested him. Similarly he moved into a home with a smart meter and found he know keeps track of how much energy he uses at home.

I was intrigued by the idea that the mere presence of information (not necessarily even requested or desired) could lead people to change their behavior. This also s

eems like an area where a helpful user interface could really help. Compare the difference between these two new sma

rt meters. Both could contain the same info, but the display helps greatly.