Adaptive Path Blog

Mobile is a realm of user experience that has long held my imagination because it’s an accessible opportunity space for designers to explore, prototype and ultimately invent new ways for people to interact with information. Mobile is a place where we can experiment; it’s a place where designers can test the tethers of the PC desktop legacy and create interactions that begin to bring Mark Weiser’s original vision of ubiquitous computing closer to reality.

There have been clear and consistent signals over the last year that indicate the technology landscape is rapidly evolving beyond the boundaries of the PC and mobile devices …

The demo from MIT’s Pattie Maes’ and Pranav Mistry’s wearable Sixth Sense device as well as David Merrill’s Siftables demo were the buzz of TED 2009. These presenters gave the audience of thought leaders insight into the exciting interactions that will be possible in the not-so-distant future.

IBM’s research scientists in India have developed a technology that will offer users the ability to talk to the Web and create ‘voice’ sites using mobile phones.

Barcodes can now hold entire video clips and games with Mobile Multi-Colour Composite, a 2D barcode technology. Better than a QR code, users don’t need internet access to discover associated media—the data is all in the picture.

These signals as well as a host of others indicate we’ve arrived at an important and magical technological inflection point. We’re entering an era – a Golden Age of sorts – that is encouraging interaction designers and user experience professionals to explore the frontier that lies beyond the desktop.

Within this broader trend, I’ll be hosting a discussion on Wednesday, April 8th at Adaptive Path titled, Beyond the Desktop: A Panel Discussion on Emergent Interaction Paradigms. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have the opportunity to facilitate a discussion between these thought leaders who are actively exploring this exciting frontier…

• Aza Raskin, head of User Experience at Mozilla Labs will discuss the progress of Ubiquity and represent the promising world of intent-based systems.
• Brent Fitzgerald, and Jeevan Kalanithi of Taco Lab will share their experiences developing Siftables and exploring the realm of physical computing.
• Noah Richardson, manager of Tellme’s Mobile User Experience group, will share his expertise on designing voice-driven systems and interfaces.
• Nathan Moody and Daren David of Stimulant will share their perspective on designing NUI and multi-touch interfaces for the Microsoft Surface Table and other public, multi-user computing installations.
• Jennifer Bove, a Principal at Kicker Studio, will share her perspective and expertise in designing products with gestural interfaces.

I hope you can join us. If you can, please head over to Upcoming and let us know. And if you have ideas about the panel or the topics you’d like covered, comment here or twitter with #btdpanel

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Adaptive Path, Design Leaders, Events, Experience Design, Futures, Gestural Interfaces, Interaction Design, Interface Design, Mobile, Physical Computing, Product Design, Upcoming Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.