Note on Blog Interface + Initial Research

Even looking at the blog interface chosen (on purpose of course) it becomes clear some of the small nuances that effect the flow to an interface. Rounded edges to the centered text window (containing blog text) removes the harsh edges that portray discontinuity. Moreover, a slightly blurred background adds to realism because of the idea that as humans we do not see the things outside our vision that we do not focus on. Nice touches but important to pinpoint why they are advantageous.

Findings:
- Realism in innovative ways (Blurred background. Rounded Edges)
- Text/Font clear and rounded
- Soft Shadows add to realism

Initial Directions for Generic Research include:

iOS Guidelines: They have the most defined expectations for user experience. Good starting point
iOS Guidelines

Android UI: Good place to see differences between established UI kings and competitors. Allows to see how revisions in new 3.0 operating system UI compares to previous along with Apple's.
Google UI Patterns

Android Tutorial: One persons' view on UI. Depending on findings will allow pitfalls/best practices to be examined.
Blog Opinion

Android UI book: Industry practices
Industry Practices

Exploring the change in Win 7 UI
Win 7 Mango

Wiki the "public" view on UI
Wikipedia


More to come

Thanks to Sean O'Sullivan

And I'd like to thank Sean O'Sullivan for making Rensselaer's Open Source Center (RCOS) possible. Without the generous support of Mr. O'Sullivan, alumni of RPI, there would be no way to have any of the great projects to take place.

Subversion Code

The code for the summer project will be held at the following link:

http://code.google.com/p/rcos-user-interface-research/

Constant code pushes and research updates will take place here. Weekly (hopefully bi-weekly) blog posts will contain information that can't be encapsulated into code.

-Sean

Friday - May 27th Project Start

For the summer of 2011, I propose working on deep academia research revolving around the human compute interaction and interface domain. Because of the increasing importance of interfaces in modern day computers, it is critical to have a resource for understanding where research points towards the greatest advantages. Being a Information Technology / Computer Science student at a very good Institute I still find myself unaware of any sort of standards on the matter. I, also, have found it incredibly hard to find someone / somewhere to get reliable information or source code on the matter. Having thorough examination of where the research is being done will bring to light many common human behavioral trends along with the general ideas that formulate successful interaction with computers.

The proposal is to gather this available information in any form possible. Determine the validity of each research paper based upon the author and other criteria that could deem their opinion/research more valuable. Taking different papers and noting their core direction can give numerous data points for the common underlying laws of interfaces. Having all people save a tremendous amount of time by having easily accessible examples, academic papers and one’s own summary of the noted will make sure that anyone who learns computer science can apply these same techniques to ensure a seamless interaction. Just as understanding engineering is critical to design an effective, powerful algorithm it is also critical to know how to portray this to the user in a powerful way. If the user cannot understand the system, the system has not achieved what is possible.

Developing sample code base that precisely defines examples that are found contrasting this with past thoughts or common mistakes will provide not only a visual feedback mechanism but will elaborate via the code that certain dynamics, such as direct text input, rely on general laws for easy interaction. Having highlighted comments within the source code will give some substance but the bulk of the work will be research plus examples that visually show the lessons learned. This will be worked into the RCOS website so an easy to find link is publicly available, not just on a subversion hosting, letting many people benefit from its existence.

Schedule (Revised):

Following a more academic development route because of the needed information gathering.

May 27-31: Research and find at least 5 scholarly papers.

June 1-14: Research, Read Papers + Current Mock-up and Examples of my interpretation of an interface + common examples of interfaces. Hypotheses where I believe pitfalls are and general consensus on pitfalls.

June 15-30: Research + Determination of avenue for interface mock-ups.

July 1-14: Concentrate on mock-up creation versus research

July 14-30: Evaluate current research found and mock-ups devised. Iterate.

August 1-14: Revise research and refine code base

August 14-30: Deliverable of all goals listed below on Google Code and discuss how to get this information easily available on RCOS website

Goals:

1. To research and discover, at least, 15 prominent papers/book by, at least, 10 various authors revolving around the current paradigms of human computer interaction / interfaces.
2. Accurately reference these authors in an open-source documentation.
3. List and show the evolution of interfaces over the rise of computing (last 50 years)
4. Develop several, 2-3, mock-ups of web apps/ web sites / mobile apps that describe
5. Concisely document via the app interface and internal code, key practices that encapsulate the understanding from the research
6. 5 page write-up specifying the research conclusions compared against initial hypothesis