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The Mobile User Interface Blog has moved to http://www.tat.se/blog. It is new, improved, and just downright pleasant.

We hope to see you there!

Free TAT Live Wallpapers for Android

That’s right! This is a unique opportunity to try out three Live Wallpapers from TAT. Normally, TAT only creates these kinds of wallpapers for device manufacturers and network operators. Now we’re releasing three TAT-designed, interactive wallpapers for free, to show off some of the cool things we can do with our powerful TAT Cascades™ UI framework. Our three promotional wallpapers are:

Artemia: a soothing, yet spectacular undersea wallpaper

Artemia is the beautiful home of glowing creatures. Poke them to make them swim a bit faster or tap on the water to see bubbles. Try catching a glimpse of the largest creature in the ocean! Artemia changes dynamically throughout the day, and it even responds when you charge your Android device.

Blue Range: a fun, isometric and living landscape

This fun loving live wallpaper is full of animals with great personalities. Poke them and see what happens! You can affect land elevation and tilt trees and flowers by moving the phone. Watch darkness fall during the nighttime and don’t miss the cool sunbeam effect while charging your device…

Retro Pixels: a game-like wallpaper with old school aesthetics

Explore a retro-style pixelated world. Flowers bloom when you receive text messages and calls, leaves fall when you shake the phone, and at night the moon rises. This wallpaper also has four hidden secrets. Will you be able to find them all? And can you really trust the duck?

Check out the trailer below, then go get the live wallpapers for free from Android Market!

Artemia QR code or download directly from your Android phone

Artemia needs access to the accelerometer.
The world in Artemia will rotate when the device is tilted. Bubbles will appear when the device is shaken.

Blue Range QR code or download directly from your Android phone

Blue Range needs access to the accelerometer.
The trees in Blue Range will lean with the device when tilted.

Retro Pixels QR code or download directly from your Android phone

Retro Pixels needs access to sms/contact data and accelerometer.
The flowers in Retro Pixels will bloom when texts and calls are received. Leaves will fall off the tree when the device is shaken.

Supported Devices

Samsung Galaxy S

HTC Desire

HTC Nexus One

Motorola Milestone/Droid

Abracadabra (UIST 2009)

You could try this out on a regular mobile device. Most of the iPhones and Android phones have a compass.

/SLincoln

Beautiful Modeler

This looks fascinating. There's something about these half finished prototypes that captures me. I've certainly never seen anything like this before. But I don't know what the heck I would use it for. It seems like a brilliant, useless idea. Unless...

There is potential here. I can sense it.

Anyway. Thanks Karl D.D. Willis. I hope I may one day stand on your shoulders and do awesome things with these techniques.

Does the Ford UI Destroy Night Vision?

The first rule of designing for night time use is: Do NOT use blue, because it destroys your night vision. Red is much better.

Ford's been making cars for longer than anyone. Certainly they have people who know about this. Why then?

Or is the difference between colors on night vision overstated?

AlphaUi Back Type

I don't really know what to make of this one. It's fun that people are breaking with tradition. Real buttons perform better than touch screens and I'm sure expert users can write faster with fewer errors on this device, than say a touch screen with the same size. So, if you're a secretary taking notes for a boss that walks around a lot, maybe this is something for you.

For the rest of us, having to learn a new keyboard layout is just too much to ask. Most of us know the alphabet as one long row, and when you break it up into three rows we have genuine difficulties finding characters. That's why alphabetic layouts fail.

Frequency based layouts, where you have the most common characters in the middle fail for another reason. Coming from Sweden, I typically switch a lot between writing in Swedish and English. If I had two different layouts I would make mistakes all the time. The same is increasingly true in many other places as english is becoming the de facto world standard language.


AlphaUi

Your vital signs, on camera

Amazing!

Put this in a car, and then customize the interface to minimize interruptions while I'm stressed out. Hold all calls. And flash a hush sign to silence passengers. This could make driving a bit safer.

More at MIT.

Fabian Hemmert: The shape-shifting future of the mobile phone

I think the timing for Fabian's ideas are really good. I would love to have my phone be flat in my pocket, and thick enough to give me a really good grip when I hold it. Holding my iPad at the thin end of the wedge feels really dangerous. I'd much rather handle expensive fragile devices with thick wedged edges.

The weight shifting technique is really interesting, but definitely farther away. If you expand the device when it's in your hand, you have extra room to move stuff around. The battery is usually responsible for most of the weight, so if you could move that around you wouldn't have to add a dedicated weight.

But I would be worried about dropping a weight shifting shape changing device.

Maybe this would fit better in a TV game controller, where you have a better grip, and where you have more room inside.

Anyway, great work Fabian.

Prototype: NTT DoCoMo's Touchable 3D display with Haptic Pen

As usual, filming a 3D Stereoscopic screen with a one camera lens does not do it justice. So the chameleon looks blurry, but I'm sure it looked great at the fair.

What caught my attention in this piece was the force of the haptics in the pen. It looks like it really kicks you in the hand. I'm still not sure how well finger touch works on stereoscopic screens, where you may need to interact with things that appear to be a few centimeters behind the screen. Maybe a pen can help you get the most out of such a screen.

Original article here.

Mozilla Seabird

This is not a product that Mozilla plan's to build. But it has some really nice ideas that can become reality once you have two built in pico projectors and some infrared sensors.

Compact Chinese

When you design user interfaces in english you usually will have to make extra room (about 30%) on your rows to make sure you can translate your labels into languages like German and Finnish, which tend to have much longer words.



Look at all the space in this list! Chinese is really compact. I don't think the layout would look like this if it was intended for the local chinese market. If I had this much space in an interface I'd probably use it for split screen, or something else. I'm glad we translate our Swedish phones from American designs, rather than from Chinese. It would be a nightmare to be able to come up with meaningful words with three characters for every label.

Microsoft Research: Buttons Beat Multitouch Mouse

Always interesting to see the giants bashing each other. Here, Microsoft basically says it's better to have real buttons.




Meanwhile, Apple's spindoctors call their product Magic Mouse. For a product that has no affordances for it's new functionality, it's a very flattering name. Seems to me that the new features are hard to discover, pretty hard to remember, and I'm worried about triggering functionality by accident when I handle the mouse. But, to be fair, I only used it for a minute in a store, so who am I to bash it.

pCubee: A Perspective-Corrected Handheld Display

Shaking cows around is such a brilliant idea. I smile every time I see it. This looks like a wonderful toy. To be able to render the scene in correct perspective, they use some kind of magnetic head-tracker mounted on a pair of headphones.

Horizon 2D-3D transitions

Recently, 3D has made a splash in the media and tech world; we see it in everything from blockbuster 3D movies to TVs and handheld devices with stereoscopic 3D (S3D) screens. What does this mean for the future of user interfaces (UIs)?

At TAT we are thrilled by the design possibilities 3D graphics have to offer (as we explained in this whitepaper). We believe S3D will dramatically increase the demand for 3D UIs. Of course, we don’t expect 3D to replace 2D anytime soon, as most users are familiar and comfortable with 2D UIs. Nevertheless, there are obvious advantages to both. Now, we have invented a way to combine these approaches, based on a solution that we call the Horizon 2D-3D transition.



Take maps, for example. Not so long ago, most maps were in 2D. These maps are typically simplified, making it easy to orient yourself in relation to stylized images of roads and blocks of buildings. Recently, digital map providers such as Google and Microsoft (Bing) have begun to offer maps in a “street view” 3D layout. These 3D maps allow users to actually see the height, shape and surfaces of objects such as buildings, which is useful when looking for a particular landmark.

Clearly, there are advantages to both 2D and 3D maps, and they coexist side by side in many map solutions. The problem however, is that users risk losing their visual points of reference when switching between 2D and 3D views. We think that the Horizon 2D-3D transition is the solution. In our Horizon Map demo, we show how 2D and 3D maps can be combined into a singular application where layout alterations are seamless and dynamic. This is much more comprehensible than the mode switching of current map solutions. The demo is built with TAT Cascades and it uses stunning 3D map meshes from C3 Technologies.



The Horizon 2D-3D transition is not limited to maps, however. For instance, in our Horizon List demo, we show how a standard contact list in 2D transforms into a more complex 3D list, which also shows status updates. While maintaining the simplicity of 2D when looking for a specific contact, it is easy to switch to the information-dense 3D list to find out if someone has shared any news. With full support for both 2D UIs and 3D UIs, TAT Cascades now makes it possible to move dynamically and seamlessly between both, in any application.

Tactilis

This drawing app is just full of novel interaction design. It may be the first time I see commands issued by crossing the edge of the screen. I'm sure you could do lots of other things with that.

It's the first time I see the circular ruler in a paint program. The gesture is interesting for that one, because it differentiates between a two finger rotational gesture where both fingers move, vs two finger rotational gesture where only one finger moves. Interesting.

Multitouch on stamps

I always thought the idea of multitouch on tiny screens was kind of ridiculous. So I kind of laughed when I heard Apple was going to but multitouch on the iPod nano, because it's really no bigger than a stamp.

But Apple got the last laugh, because they found a really nice use for it. Instead of having an accelerometer guess what orientation you want, you use two fingers to rotate the screen, and you get what you want. Simple to learn. Easy to remember.

I thought the automatic switch would be the best, but I've learned when living with the iPad and iPhone that it often rotates when I don't want it to. Stopping the guesswork and just using two fingers to rotate the screen is a step in the right direction. I think.

Future os Screens - Experience video

Capacitive screens has now become a commodity for touch screen devices. Screen technology is now taking the next leap and the coming years imagination is the only thing stopping us. We will soon have dual screens, malleable screens, screens built into wifi connected mirrors, desks or backside of gadgets clothed with e-ink screens, tactile feedback, color screens with great contrast in sunlight, holographics/stereoscopic screens, color e-ink touch screens, or screens actually knowing where they are in relation to other screens thanks to ultrasonic emitters and microphones.

We want to show some of these things in an "experience video", that shows a normal day in a couple of years when all these technologies are affordable enough to be used everywhere. This video is the result of our experiment with open innovation, read more about our experiment here. Big thanks to all the people from TAT and around the world who helped out and sometimes shared their ideas and sometimes gave us homework on our own ideas.

Ringo by Ivan Tihienko

Holographic Interface - round interface - Ringo from Ivan Tihienko on Vimeo.

Circular user interfaces are very futuristic. I think real interfaces are often square because it's more space efficient than circular shapes, and space is always at a premium. But when you project on the ground, you have lots of space. Pico projectors are just around the corner so it's time to start thinking about what's different about a projected interface.

Exploring Tablet Interfaces

In 2010 and 2011 there will be a device explosion in the Tablet space. We can expect to see a wide variety of new devices ranging from 5 to 12 inches on operative systems such as MeeGo, Android and Windows 7. What kind of user experiences will these devices offer? How do you design astonishing tablet interfaces?

On one hand we have companies that scale phone UIs to tablets. On the other hand we have companies offering the full blown desktop experience scaled down to tablet size. We believe that both of these approaches will result in crippled user experiences. For example, the tablet form factor is perfect for media consumption and this could be manifested in the UI. TAT recognizes tablets as a radically different type of device - personal and mobile yet powerful and creative. We are now on a quest to design fantastic UIs that are optimized for this device space.




Follow the link to check out Velvet - a playful concept UI for MeeGo tablets by TAT and Wind River. With full support for 3D graphics and shaders, TAT Cascades enables astonishing UIs on MeeGo, Android and other tablet OSs.

Microsoft Experimental Adaptive Keyboard

One of the things that you really miss when you design for touch screens is tooltips on mouse-over. Nobody wants to look stupid, and mouse-over can really help users avoid pressing the wrong buttons, by providing more information about what they do.

A physical keyboard with real keys could still have a touch sensitive surface. Then you could have tooltips when you rest your finger on a button. This is not included in the Microsoft Prototype, but I like to dream. It's nice to finally see some serious adaptive keyboard hardware. Although I think I would prefer an e-ink screen instead.