Colm Brophy's Blog

6 Tips for Building a Great Surface App

2008-10-30T21:35:00Z

I posted this in my blog, but felt it was of sufficient value internally to merit a cross post here...

So since Microsoft have released the Surface SDK at their Professional Developers Conference. At Conchango where I work we’ve got some developer units in the U.S. and have had the SDK for a while now. I thought I should offer some advice for building surface applications having looked at quite a few recently.

It’s not just multi-touch it’s multi-user too. The surface is something that you get people together standing around. With traditional computing you detach from the world around you and immerse yourself in the terminal. The surface is part of the world, so think about the fact that even when one person is using the device there are probably going to be other people watching them (the surface has a gravitational pull that draws people in to watch). The best applications consider and even take advantage of that social element and the possibilities for collaboration as many people interact at the same time.
Drop the dropdowns. There is a subtle shift going on at the moment. It’s probably not unfair to say the iPhone was the butterfly flapping its wings that initiated it (albeit that the iPhone launch was a pretty huge butterfly). This is the change from the GUI (Graphical User Interface) to what is being dubbed by some the NUI (Natural User Interface). This has the potential to be a change on the scale as the change from punch cards to the command line or from the command line to the GUI. This means we need to think beyond the traditional componants we used to make up our interfaces. Where we might have classified an item into a group before by using a drop down control or a radio button, now we’re moving the item (or some representation of that item) into a space which represents the group.
Go beyond the interface. I said before that the surface is part of the world in a way that a computer screen, mouse and keyboard is not. The great thing about surface is that you can really take advantage of that. By using domino tags (these are stickers which you can put on an object to let the surface identify it, like a barcode but smaller and looking slightly like a domino) the surface can identify objects that are placed on it. This could be you’re work ID card which you pop on the table so the surface knows that it’s “you” who’s using it. Maybe it then switches to your personal settings or knows where to save the output of your session. Or you could put them on the bottom of your salt and pepper shakers and your ketchup bottle to record those football tactics you came up with over dinner come to life.
Come at it from every direction. At a monitor there is a very definite up, down, left and right. Some phones and laptops do some clever things with accelerometers but they always need to know which way they are facing. The surface doesn’t need to know which way it’s facing cause it’s facing in every way (that said I don’t recommend putting a surface in the ceiling even if you want to spice up your love life). People should not have to be stand on a certain side of the surface to use your app. The best applications use the surface technology to work out where people are and if there is text or controls it spins the text, images or video to face them.
Make it feel right. This is one of the most important aspects and at the same time one of the hardest to explain in words. But you know it when you see it or interact with it. Some things feel good to use (Donald Norman calls it the visceral aspect of design); it could be the satisfying click of a marker pen when you put the lid on, or how the shape, weight and handle on your favourite mug feel just right. Nature tends to be really good at this. What makes up good visceral design? The harmonious combination of interaction and feedback. When I hit the bottom of the menu on my iPod Touch it bounces softly. If I flick the menu so it’s moving faster when it hits the bottom it bounces higher than if i slowly scroll down. It feels right.
Think BIG. This is a paradigm shift and there are no rules. My tips here are observations from seeing what’s been done so far and looking at what works and what doesn’t. But this is something genuinely novel to most people so you have the opportunity to create something really great and ground-breaking that’s never been done before. Take that opportunity.

If you like what you've read (you've gotten to the bottom of the post at least) give it a digg.

Moving House

2008-07-13T21:12:00Z

My blog hasn't been updated in a while since I've been sorting out a blog of my very own, which is now up and running. So henceforth my rambling thoughts, and magpie-like link gathering shall be confined to a corner of the internet (yea I got one of the corner offices) that I can call my own.

Namely the originally titled colmbrophy.com

For those of you of an RSSey disposition you can subscribe to my feed

Nice blogging with ya, hope you keep reading.

Colm

Daily Links - 15th February 2008

2008-02-15T13:17:00Z

Apparently today is "annoy busy people" Friday an interesting follow to Valentines which saw along with the traditional google altered logo, and altered colour scheme for google docs (to a particularly eyebleeding shade of neon pink), and an altered logo for youtube.

My friend Rob Scoble is getting emotional about something new coming out of Microsoft soon leading to quite a bit of speculation about what it might be.

Also make sure you breathe while you email.

The obligatory Microsoft Yahoo Newscorp stuff:

Henry Blodget over at Silicon alley insider has been writing alot about this. He wrote about why Microsoft is the best deal; The alternatives to Microsoft for Yahoo; How the newscorp deal may simply be a smokescreen to push up the Microsoft offer; And now the Yahoo board appears to be splitting into two camps.
Yahoo shareholders have launched lawsuits against the company. Jerry Yang wrote a letter in response.

With the news that googles ad revenue is slowing, they are trying something new and testing video ads on search results pages. Also there's a comscore report telling us that 6% of ad clicks are generated by 6% of surfers. The average heavy clicker spends lots of time (but not lots of money) online frequenting gambling sites auctions and job boards.

The WSJ has it from Nielsen Online that women watch more TV on the web, where as men prefer web clips.

Plaxo is rumoured to have been bought by comcast.

You can add stuff to MySpace with the new "Post to MySpace" button, which may start turning up beside the digg and del.icio.us buttons you see around the place.

Loic Le Meur, the entrepreneur and founder of the hugely successful Le Web 3 conference, has wrote a blog about how his company seesmic just raised $6 million in VC funding.

So while the Wii is still winning the console race, the Sony PS3 is expected to start outselling it in 2008. The increasing strength of Sony's Blu-Ray format will likely boost the populatiry of the PS3. The BBC has a piece about how the PS3 plans to take on slingbox. That extra computing power seems to be slowly coming good.

Chris Kohler at wired also has a piece about why the forthcoming game Spore will be huge. Given the man behind the project is Will Wright, creator of the SIMs, got a phenomenal reception when he announced the game concept at the GDC, I'm inclined to agree.

My spam have been upgraded to links.

Daily Spam - 13th February 2008

2008-02-13T17:16:00Z

Following on from yesterdays news that Google desktop is hijacking your 404 pages, it's been clarified by Matt Cutt of Google that it applies to pages with less than 512 bytes.

So in the ongoing Yahoo, Microsoft bid, Silicon Alley Insider nicely summed it up predicting a $35 per share completion by Microsoft (up from the original offer of $31). Now it looks like Newscorp might be trying hard to get in on the act by offfering up MySpace and it Fox Interactive Media Properties (which include IGN, Scout Media, Photobucket, Fox Sports, AmericanIdol.com, Flektor, Ksolo plus investments in Hulu, Simply Hired and Snocap). These combined are worth circa $6 billion which might be combined with $9 billion in cash to make $15 billion which would give them a third of the company - unlike the Microsoft offer of a complete buyout.

Social network Bebo is rumoured to be in acquisition talks with Google perhaps for as much as $1 billion. Bebo is currently part of the Open Social platform and might make a good combined offering with Google's own network Orkut.

Firefox 3 Beta 3 has been released and is happily running on my machine. Note: The beta will overwrite any existing versions of firefox and add-ons which work on current versions may not work on the new one.

Yahoo oneConnect was announced. It is part of the Yahoo Go 3.0 mobile platform of services and widgets which seems to be an area where Yahoo really want to place themselves. oneConnect will allow you to integrate your IM clients on your mobile and also any social feeds such as facebook, twitter etc. Could be a very interesting mobile app.

Jukefly have a cool product which allows you to stream your music over the net. Perfect if you have a big music collection at home and want to be able to listen to it on the go without keeping it all on your hard drive. You can also share it with 1 other friend.

Daily Spam - 12th February 2008

2008-02-12T13:29:00Z

So Facebook slowed in growth in December, now Myspace has grown in January. Let's be honest nobody really knows what's happening on the big scale of social network use.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/10/myspace-reportedly-had-a-surge-in-january/

EA Games the biggest computer games manufacturer owns the rights to produce digital version of Hasbro Games, the biggest board games manufacturer (who own the rights to scrabble among many many others). So expect to see more social network versions of your favorite boardgames. And scrabulous getting either bought out or sued into oblivion (probably nothing in between).

http://valleywag.com/355262/electronic-arts-wants-its-games-on-facebook

Facebook translated its site into Spanish in 4 weeks using 1,500 of its users (there are 2.8 million Spanish speaking facebook users in total). One user alone translated 3% of the site. What reward did these dedicated followers receive?

UK government report proposes that ISPs monitor use for illegal downloads witha 3 strikes and your out policy.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/12/uk-proposes-three-strikes-and-your-out-illegal-downloading-law/

Google desktop may be hijacking your 404 pages.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/12/new-google-toolbar-beta-hijacks-404-pages/

A competitor to Google Analytics

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/11/nuconomy-emerges-to-provide-next-generation-site-analytics/

http://www.nuconomy.com

A G-Phone Hands on (haven't watched this myself yet)

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/11/first-gphone-hands-on/

MICROSOFT RESPONDS TO YAHOO! ANNOUNCEMENT

Reiterates Full and Fair Proposal for Microsoft-Yahoo! Combination

REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 11, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today issued the following statement in response to the announcement by Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) that its Board of Directors has rejected Microsoft’s previously announced proposal to acquire Yahoo!:
It is unfortunate that Yahoo! has not embraced our full and fair proposal to combine our companies. Based on conversations with stakeholders of both companies, we are confident that moving forward promptly to consummate a transaction is in the best interests of all parties.
We are offering shareholders superior value and the opportunity to participate in the upside of the combined company. The combination also offers an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market.
A Microsoft-Yahoo! combination will create a more effective company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. Furthermore, the combination will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising.
The Yahoo! response does not change our belief in the strategic and financial merits of our proposal. As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.
On February 1, 2008, Microsoft announced a proposal to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion and a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock based on the closing prices of the stocks of both companies on Jan. 31, 2008, the last day of trading prior to Microsoft’s announcement. Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

The Amazon Kindle e-Reader

2007-11-19T16:56:00Z

I’m highly sceptical about the new Amazon Kindle e-reader. I think it fails to solve the fundamental issues which stopped similar products from being successful in the past. I’m sure it will be bought by many gadgeteers but I can’t see it breaking across into any other market.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/19/live-from-the-amazon-kindle-launch-event/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/19/liveblogging-the-amazon-kindle-e-reader-show-with-jeff-bezos/

The big problem for me is that the book is not broken. In fact it’s about as popular as ever. So while I can see this being useful for certain types of document, I can’t see it replacing the novel. But for manuals, guides, reference books – things that are read out of order or in small chunks, books that benefit from being searchable and generally shorter items such as blogs or articles it could be useful.

The price is $400 at the moment which is a lot (iPhone or a Kindle?). And this is the sort of functionality that I want to have in existing things that I own – I don’t want to have new bespoke e-reading device weighing me down.

What’s good about it?

It can still be read in bright daylight (how many expensive laptops still can’t do this?).
It has a long battery life and batteries are easily replaced.
It’s small and light.
Amazon remembers what you’ve bought so if you lose it or it gets wiped you can re-download your e-books.
You can get RSS and Blogs.
It has free EV-DO wireless so you don’t need to hook it up to your PC
While it has its own Kindle format it supports pdfs and word docs

Knitting an online community together

2007-11-16T17:58:00Z

A friend of mine is a knitter. This is an actual friend not as opposed to those other “a friend of mine has a problem” friends. She loves to knit. She occasionally blogs about knitting and reads the blogs of other knitters. And she’s not the only one. There’s a huge, incredibly passionate, online community of knitters.

When one knitter (who was a photographer by day) wanted to create a photo-project of knitters sent out a request for participants, he was inundated with offers. This has led to the 1000 knitters project where he brings in knitters and photographs them as they knit a wool scarf, each person taking off where the last person finished.

The traditional image of old ladies being the only people who knit is apparently quite dated, despite advertisers telling us otherwise.

One of the interesting things about knitting is that it’s a very social hobby. The knitting circle is a centuries old entity where people (usually women both then and now) would gather together and knit and chat.

So why the blog about knitting? My friend told me about a website she frequents, www.ravelry.com, what she described as knitting 2.0. Unfortunately it’s in a closed beta so you can’t just sign up (I tried but there’s a huge waiting list due to its viral popularity). I did however borrow her log in and go have a shufty about. It’s one of the best examples I’ve seen of a community-oriented web 2.0 site.

The members of the community are passionate and involved – they can set up and participate in groups and they can post their current knitting projects online for other s to view and comment upon as the project progress. They can rate the materials they use (the types of yarn and the patterns they work from) and compare their experiences of using them with those of others. You can easily find people who’ve worked on the same pattern and ask advice.

The point is that social networks do not have to be like the facebooks or myspaces of this world – with a goal of having everyone in the world sign up. A focused involved passionate community can be much more successful. Ravelry is successful because it’s a friendly, inviting community; where people are happy to help each other out (often complete strangers) because they have something in common or can relate to each other.

Leisa Reichalt mentioned that connecting to others comes from exposing just enough of yourself to allow others to relate to you; it doesn’t matter whether it’s about an interest in social networking ot knitting and it doesn’t have to be earth shattering or phenomenal.

I am cleaning parts of bones collected with giant sloth scapula

2007-09-27T14:26:00Z

I was recently on holiday in LA and one of the things I did there was to visit the La Brea tar pits*. These are basically huge pools of tar which would trap unsuspecting animals who wandered into them. The remains of one woman were also found but there’s still no sign of Homer.The remains then sunk to the bottom where they were conveniently preserved so that archeologists could recover them thousands of years later. It’s well worth a visit.

One feature of the exhibit is the fishbowl laboratory they have where passers-by can watch the archeologists at work. What was interesting about the setup was that each person working in the lab had a small board upon which they would write what work they were currently doing and display it to the public. It was an unusual example of a facebook type status or a twitter happening in an offline context.

It was a very useful way of making people aware of what they were doing so that people could observe without disturbing. It also shows how versatile and imaginative non-digital pen and paper methods of doing things can be (I imagine the lab’s status system predates any online equivalent). We can also learn from those systems and in digitising them make them more powerful and more useful.

The concept of a keeping running personal status is very popular at the moment, status updates are one of the most popular features of facebook and the predominant feature of twitter. They are a simple and rather effortless way of informing a wide audience of where you are, or what you’re doing or thinking right now. The wide use and uptake of statuses suggest that it is a feature which could also be harnessed for more productive purposes also as well as the simple stream of consciousness that it tends to be currently.

*For those interested in the etymology of names, this means The tar tar pits. Like Mount Fuji means mount mountain, and the rivers Paraguay and Avon both mean river river.