Joel Eden's Informative Post: Designing for Multi-Touch, Multi-User and Gesture-Based Systems

Joel Eden is a User Experience Consultant at Infragistics- he recently wrote a detailed article/post in the Architecture & Design section of Dr. Dobbs Portal, "Designing for Multi-Touch, Multi-User and Gesture Based Systems". I thought I'd share the link, since I've been writing on the same topic.

In his article, Joel explains the differences between traditional WIMP (Window, Icon, Menue, Pointer) interaction and gesture, multi-touch, and multi-user systems. These systems are also known as Natural User Interfaces, or NUI. He recommends that "rather than trying to come up with new complicated ways to interact with digital objects, your first goal should be to try to leverage how people already interact with objects and each other when designing gesture based systems."

Joel goes on to outline UX (User Experience, IxD (Interaction Design), and HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) concepts that designers should consider when developing new systems, - Affordances, Engagement, Feedback, and "Don't Make Us Think", which he summarizes in the conclusion of his article.

I especially liked Joel's references:

Clark, Andy. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension

Few, Stephen. Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data

Gibson, John J. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception

Krug, Steve. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Second Edition

Norman, Don. The Design of Everyday Things

Norman, Don. Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes In The Age Of The Machine

I would also add the following references:
Bill Buxton
Multi-touch Systems I have Known and Loved
(Regularly updated!)
Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design

"Our lack of attention to place, time, function, and human considerations means these fancy new technologies fail to deliver their real potential to real people." - Bill Buxton

Dan Saffer
Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices
Designing Gestural Interfaces
SAP
Touchscreen Usability in Short
(Summary by Gerd Waloszek of the SAP Design Guild)
SAP Design Guild Resources (User-Centered Design, User Experience, Usability, UI Guidelines, Visual Design, Accessibility)
Kevin Arthur (Synaptics)
Touch Usability
Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini
Ask Tog: Interaction Design Solutions for the Real World
Inclusive Design, Part I
First Principles of Interaction Design
John M. Carroll
Human Computer Interaction (HCI) (History of HCI)
Bill Moggridge
Designing Interactions
Ben Shneiderman
Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies
Edward Tufte
Visual Explanations
Beautiful Evidence
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Envisioning Information
Rudolf Arnheim (Gestalt)
Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye

Update: A great reading list on general HCI. Some of the authors were involved in the early days of touch, bi-manual, and multi-touch interaction.

Jan's Top Ten List of Books on Human-Computer Interaction


FYI: If you know much about Windows Presentation Foundation, you probably know that Josh Smith, WPF guru, also works at Infragistics