Creating User Interfaces

Ideas and Trends.Work session

Homework: Be prepared to present VoiceXML project. Post questions for final.

TelepresenceVariety of problem domains• Surgery• Games• Conferences

– Video conference– Shared classroom [Blackboard]

• Monitoring activity– Vision system in computer classroom?

• Web cams– Monitoring without interaction (other than camera control)

• Social networking sites– Second Life

Telepresence features

• Avatars

• [real looking] whole bodies

• Holographic projection?

• Video of varying quality?– [speaker] needs some feedback: report on

talk to LA HTML5 users' group.

• hands

Study related to control for telepresence

• The hand is more easily fooled than the eye: users are more sensitive to visual interpenetration than to visual-proprioceptive discrepancyBurns E., Razzaque S., Panter A., Whitton M., McCallus M., Frederick P J.  Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 15(1): 1-15, 2006.

• Measured responses of subjects playing a game by controlling avatar’s hand– Primed and not primed– Calibrated individual response

Haptic devices

• Relating to sense of touch – Also strain, heaviness, etc. NOTE: for this especially,

signal may be amplified or transformed for better performance

• Devices providing users with feedback to help perform task– Blind– Missing limbs– Games– Surgeons– ?

Why?

• Some applications reminds me of phone companies focus on video phone at expense of work on data communications– Skepticism does not apply to haptic devices,

other….– We do have video phone now with Skype,

Google!

• Discussion?

Idea: way to view progress

• Technology driven– solution searching for problem– What is killer ap?

• Problem driven– problem searching for solution

• Interaction of two– technology to problem to re-direction of

technology

Trends

• Voice Speech Recognition– general: unrestricted, still coming?– dictation systems in use– dictation systems for text messages

• How is this different from dictating (formal) letters, articles?

– directed speech (VoiceXML) substantial use• phone: help desks, 800 information, pharmacy• car: directions• factory

– Case of actual problems re-directing research on technology

Trends

• Immersion / ubiquity (natural speech recognition + access to files & databases)– general: be anywhere (somewhere), ask question and

get answer synthesizing information from anywhere including own computer files

– search (google + competitors)• keywords only. Access to growing number of files (e.g.,

PowerPoint charts)– Dark web

– Semantic Web: still in development• new so-called semantic tags in HTML5 describe content

Keywords…

… enough in certain cases

• search (search + aggregated history)– google still ahead of others– Not yet integrated with individual history, at

least I don't think so…

• Ask artist: Jacques Lipchitz

Natural language … or not

• [false] assumption: best interface is people talking to computers

• Abdominal study– Technical questions and technical answers– PI said: please don't make me use English

Games

• Puzzles– new ideas (hexic not quite next tetris)

• Action– improved plots– improved integration 3D modeling and video: requires

improved performance• Peer to peer games

– improved networking– ideas and marketing– Trend to large communities playing game

• ??

Meta trend

• User-centered design– consumer rebellion against products

• buggy – released too soon?• overly complex (fat)

– My complaint: want the old Paint Shop Pro back: simple, cheap

• Open Source– distributed development

Maybe not diverse enough

Meta trend

• Outsourcing / off-shoring– Technical work done by remote group using

fixed specifications– Initial motivation costs, eventually skills

• My theory: IT (information technology professionals) did a poor job relating to actual users & rest of the company so that proximity was not valued.

Meta trend• Evaluation of technology

– Is it good enough to provide substantial value even if not [close to] perfect / ideal?• Phone directed speech / speech synthesis

– Many, many special cases in which the limited

– directed dialogs are good enough

• Language translation

• Google/yahoo/etc. directions/locations

Meta trend / issues

Concerns with

• Viruses

• Spam– Unwanted cell phone messages: audio or text

• Privacy (identity theft, insider crime). Is this an issue for most users?

Problem in search of technology solutions

Meta trend

• Globalization issues– ICANN remain with US Dept. of Commerce?

– Languages

– Localization

Meta trend

• Consumers accepting– Packaged interactions, e.g., Facebook– Constrained interactions, e.g., Twitter– ???

Web services

• Applications put together using building blocks– Example: google maps API– Example (maybe): paypal service

• XML frequently used as format for interface

• Other?

By the way:• XML versus Database

– For applications with large amounts of data, need to go to

• Regular [commercial] databases

– For really large amounts of data, need special techniques, including

• Linked lists• Hash tables• Other

– COMMERCIAL: consider taking Data Structures

Capability versus Productivity

• Capability– can it be done

• Productivity– do it better, faster, cheaper…

– Example: XML, etc. can be used to produce interfaces for multiple platforms from same content in more efficient, less error-prone way.

Grab bag

• Technology: wireless plus gps (add more functionality to cell phone/PDA)

• Technology: touch, gesture, eye-movement

• Problem: identification– individual: voice, non-invasive DNA, etc.– in mass: image recognition: issues of speed and accuracy

• Problem: understanding of complex data: visualization & techniques for combining data sources

Homework

• Post constructive comments on other proposals.

• Complete VoiceXML project. – Test with at least 2 people not in the class.– Prepare 1-pager– Present application (describe, show

significant coding, demonstrate) and– Present results from testing