IDPedia: Interaction Design Patterns for Games Library!

From the HelpYouPlay IDPedia (Interaction Design Patterns for Games Library) website:


"Design patterns are ways to describe best practices, explain good designs, and capture experience so that other people can reuse these solutions. The idea of a pattern was introduced by the architect Christopher Alexander for use in urban planning and building architecture, but since then a pattern community has emerged that specifies patterns for all sorts of problems. Interaction design patterns aim to capture optimal solutions to common usability or accessibility problems in a specific context. Typically best practices concerning interaction design are described as guidelines or heuristics. We consider interaction design patterns to be more descriptive than guidelines as it tells a designer exactly when, how and why the solution can be applied." 

Thanks, Barrie Ellis (One-Switch Games) for the link!


SOMEWHAT RELATED
Game Usability and Accessibility
Donate to the AbleGamers Fundraiser!
The funds will support the work of the AbleGamers Foundation, and donations are tax-deductible.

"The AbleGamers Foundation's mission is to empower the disabled population to enjoy the digital revolution that is taking place in gaming... We believe in harnessing the power of many people's voices to solve the problems of the not so few. The AbleGamers Foundation strives to bring together individuals from every lifestyle with a common goal of improving the lives of the disabled. Everyone has the right to enjoy the world, and together, we can make that possible. Together, we can make it possible for everyone to enjoy the rich content of digital entertainment with his or her friends and family regardless of disability."

Eelke Folmer's Human-Computer Interaction Research

Usability Patterns in Games (pdf)
Accessibility in Games and Virtual Worlds
Interaction Design Patterns

Eelke Folmer's presentation at the 2009 Games 4 Health Conference, Boston
Game Accessibility WorkshopG4H: game accessibility research @ University of Nevada, Reno

View more presentations from eelke folmer.

Courier: Microsoft's "booklet" prototype: A cross between a netebook and a...what? Via Gizmodo

To see a visual walk-through of how the courier UI works:

Courier: First Details of Microsoft's Secret Tablet


The scoop from Gizmodo:

"Courier is a real device, and we've heard that it's in the "late prototype" stage of development. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre."

Also from Gizmodo:


Leak:  Inside the Microsoft Store with Wall-Sized Screens and the Answers Bar

Update on Multi-Touch, Multi-User NuMTyPYsics

A few months ago, I wrote a post about multi-touch "NuMTyPYsics". Here is an update:

Below is a video that shows how two use two single-touch Nokia Internet tablets to provide an emulation of multi-touch input for NuMTyPYsics, a drawing game that based on Numpty Physics:


Here's the description from Perlinet's YouTube channel:
"Using two single-touch tablets and a laptop running NuMTyPYsics, it's possible to emulate multi-touch input (max. 2 cursors - one from each tablet). This allows for precise input control and testing multi-touch applications. More info: http://thpinfo.com/2009/mt/"


The game is also based on Crayon Physics, using the Box2D engine.

3DV Systems Motion Sensing Camera and Microsoft's Xbox 360

A while ago there was an article in Reuters that discussed how Microsoft was planning to buy 3DV Systems, a company that develops virtual reality imaging technology for digital cameras, called ZCams. The ZCams would be used as an accessory to the XBox 360 system.

It is true, according to a recent article in Business Week:

Microsoft Moves onto Nintendo's Motion Turf: "The software giant's Xbox 360 gaming console will have a camera system that lets users bring body movements and voice commands into play"

Information about the camera from the 3DV website:

"The new"ZCam^TM (previously Z-Sense), 3DV's most recently completed prototype camera, is based on DeepC^TM and is the company's smallest and most cost-effective 3D camera. At the size of a standard webcam and at affordable cost, it provides very accurate depth information at high speed (60 frames per second) and high depth resolution (1-2 cm). At the same time, it provides synchronized and synthesized quality color (RGB) video (at 1.3 M-Pixel). With these specifications, the new ZCam^TM (previously Z-Sense) is ideal for PC-based gaming and for background replacement in web-conferencing. Game developers, web-conferencing service providers and gaming enthusiasts interested in the new ZCam^TM (previously Z-Sense) are invited to contact us."

3DV System's Video Gallery

Video of 3DV Systems at CES 2008

Put-That-There: Voice and Gesture at the Graphics Interface and more Blasts from the 1980's HCI Past

bigkif's information about "Put-That-There" about Put-That-There gives a good description of this video:

Put-That-There at CHI '84

"In 1980, Richard A. Bolt from MIT wrote Put-that-there : voice and gesture at the graphics interface. It was a pioneering multimodal application that combined speech and gesture recognition.

This demo shows users commanding simple shapes about a large-screen graphics display surface. Because voice can be augmented with simultaneous pointing, the free usage of pronouns becomes possible, with a corresponding gain in naturalness and economy of expression. Conversely, gesture aided by voice gains precision in its power to reference."

Richard A. Bolt "Put-That-There": Voice and Gesture at the Graphics Interface (pdf) SIGGRAPH '80

Here is another blast from the '80's:

Kankaanpaa A. FIDS- AFlat-Panel Interactive Display System IEEE March 1988 IEEE Computer Graphics Applications(Nokia Information Systems)

"Although the needs and expectations of these various users are very diverse, they all have a common requirement: more natural and easier methods for communicating with the computer than are available today. Furthermore, they do not want to interact with the computer; they want to communicate with the application they are using. They do not want to use computer jargon; they want to use the same natural methods that they use when they perform the same tasks without a computer."

“We believe that only three of the flat-panel technologies described above, namely LCD, EL, and plasma, will be sufficiently advanced for mass production within this decade.”

Bill Buxton was working on multi-touch and gesture interaction in the 1980's, but his dreams did not become a reality until this century, for a variety of reasons. He shared his thoughts about the paradox of the speed of technology in a presentation at the 2008 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference:Surface and Tangible Computing, and the “Small” Matter of People and Design”(pdf)

‘Carrying on from an earlier thesis in our department (Mehta , 1982) , we built a tablet that was sensitive to simultaneous touches at multiple locations, and with the ability to sense the degree of each touch independently (Lee, Buxton & Smith, 1984). We stopped the work in late 1984 when I saw a much better implementation at Bell Labs – one that was transparent and mounted over a CRT. The problem was that they never released the technology, so, the whole multi-touch venture went dormant for 20 years. But, I never stopped dreaming about it. (Lesson: don’t stop your research just because someone else is way ahead of you. It might be transitory, and anyhow, remember the story of the tortoise and the hare.)

“I spoke earlier about the paradox in the speed of technology development it goes at rocket speed, but that of a glacier as well; Simultaneously! In the perfect world, this would be ideal: we could go through several iterations of ideas so that by the time the new paradigms of interaction, such as Surface and Tangible computing are ready for prime time, everything will be in place. But, the rapid iteration is more directed at supporting the old paradigms faster and cheaper, rather then helping shape the new ones. The reasons are not hard to understand. From the perspective of circuit design, the problems are really hard. So, one has to have one’s head down working flat out to get anything done. But, there is a side of me that motivated this paper that asks, If it is so hard, then isn’t it worth making sure that the things one is working on are things that are worthy of one’s hard-earned skills?”

SOMEWHAT RELATED

Bill Buxton's Haptic Input References (pdf)

The Internet of Things can be Cute: MIR:ROR by Violet

The MIR:ROR application supports memory and interaction with your computers as well as your Web 2.0 applications via a RFID Stamp. You can even figure out the last time you fed your fish!

Here is some of the promotional information from the Violet website:
"Mir:ror makes your everyday objects interactive, intelligent, communicant. Stick RFID Ztamps on them and show them to the Mir:ror: your keys will send e-mail to tell someone you’ve got home, your pills know when you’ve swallowed them, your toys play videos… Thousands of uses you can easily program through a Website."

"Nano:ztags are lovable micro-rabbits with a RFID Ztamp in their tummy. Program them to play any content or application you choose each time you show them to a Nabaztag:tag or Mir:ror."

(Also posted on the Technology Supported Human-World Interaction blog)