Zoom zoom zoom
April 25th, 2007
No, this isn’t a Mazda car commercial. Our once and future LF colleague Dan has a very nicepost / screencast / floating-head screencast where he describes how he feels his brain functions when he scans search results (such as results from Google). It’s a very cool, short, and informative video, and I highly recommend it. The part that I really take to is Dan’s example, using fractal geometry, of zooming in and around information.
Dan’s post reminded me of another demo I had seen a few years ago. Jef Raskin, who is credited for much of the original Macintosh UI and specifically features such as the one-button mouse and drag-and-drop, prior to his untimely death in 2005 developed a demo of azooming interface that he was intending to eventually hook into his Archy project. Click on the link to the demo above, and give it a spin (or more aptly, a zoom). Very similar to Dan’s fractal example, no?
Now, let’s think about this in the context of input devices. There are new types of input devices that are starting to become mainstream - the Wimote, for the Nintendo Wii, shows how the input device is a critical component of any user interface. The forthcoming Apple iPhone will use multi-touch technology. If you haven’t seen this video of multi-touch technology, it’s worth looking at.
So, imagine using a multi-touch input device with a zoomable user interface, and apply both to an information discovery and retrieval experience.
Zoom zoom zoom.
Posted by jaf