We met some of UX folks and bit explored Microsoft Campus, Usability Labs, etc. and it was my first visit to US. You can imagine how exiting it would be!!!! Later we played for a while with surface table. It didn’t take time for me to fall in love with this Surface table... IT FLIRTED ME :) and felt WOW!!! We played and experiencing different applications. Amazed with photo gallery applications and very involved in exploration. The good part is that you can run several apps and multiple people can use at same time using multiple hands / figures.
Played some music, videos, maps, browsing, games... and what not dear!!! Just loved it. You know one thing... i read e-newspapers too! If you find an interesting article you want one of the others to read you can send it to him/her with just a wipe with your finger.
Tons of ideas and interaction imaginations bubbling on my head!!! and thought for a while... What am i doing, Where am I, Why am i still in a floppy disk era!!! Still old design school..Blah Blah Balh..! I was very curious to know how the surface table works and what kind of applications can be developed. Read many articles online, checked videos...done some exploration at that point of time. As usual left all these thoughts aside and back to my original work!!!
Again, never thought of Surface...Did not get an opportunity to design or think about multi touch. Recently (May 2010) again i got an opportunity to play with Surface in Europe. UID ( a leading UX design firm based out of Germany) has developed some kool apps for Microsoft Surface and they were gifted a Surface coffee table by Microsoft. Again looking at that UID - Surface Table... same fascination & same excitement....!!!
UID team showed me their demos, interactions and some cool apps which they have created for Surface and they are really cool. The new learning here was they had some RFID chips attached to some objects. Placing these objects on the surface will display the action / interaction accordingly and it was awesome! I asked many questions to get more clarity...& my brain started processing ideas...tic tic tic..!!! Again second time even after 2 years, my interaction with Microsoft Surface...it FLIRTED ME !!! Same old story.. all my ideas gone to trash & back to my original work.
Again surprisingly, very recently i came across a design firm in Hyderabad and they develop surface apps. I never though that surface apps are getting done currently in Hyderabad, as Surface is not officially launched in India. Their surface apps portfolio which they developed were bit impressive. They walked me through RFID object interaction apps like BMW car interiors apps, Credit card apps, TV news paper apps, Games, etc. Most of them are developed using WMF & Silver light. Experiencing Surface, I felt the multi touch is not much smooth as apple i pad or iphone. Sometimes it was hard to close or to interact with action buttons, navigations, etc.
Let me talk something about my iphone & ipad Multi touch Interactions. No doubt that Apple is Apple and they make sexy and sleek with great experiences. I did played & explored with iPhone & iPad too (Yes, i have taken a pic tooo) and it rocks! If Apple comes up with coffee table size iPad (they may call iTabel), We don't know what in Apple's mind :) but I will vote for Apple :)
From Microsoft point of view, we are hearing these multi touch technology from past 6-7 years. I don't know why Microsoft was unable to launch innovative solutions and introduce to market quickly and expand their business rapidly. I feel they always miss their market share in many consumer centric areas and small players will be crossing them. Any way they have launched surface first and hope tons of apps comes up and surface gets cheaper & available in coming days.
Coming back to Surface, I see there is lot of scope to create great user experiences with multi touch surface and the surrounding also adds more impact on the user experience. Physical interaction with bare hands and flipping items with your figures ... its awesome!!! How about thinking about designing some kool apps and FLIRT our own users???? I cannot express much and you should personally experience yourself...
More from the retail, hospitality, travel and banking sectors soon, there will be lots of very interesting consumer-facing stuff coming up in near future!!! Now its time to think... think... think...!!! How we can explore great user experiences with the multi touch technology!!! As a User Experience Designers, if we are not thinking... then we are definitely lagging behind competition & defining / crafting great eXperiences..!!!
2 comments:
I heard this technology (Microsoft Surface) when I was doing my engineering (I think, in 2002 year). But, still after so many why Microsoft isn't creating buzz. Where as, Apple has launched iPad recently and it is a big hit, fascinating users and changing the way the user interacts.
Yes...Abhi, u are right. As i said Microsoft somehow lags behind and looses market share in many mediums.
I feel if the Surface was launched by Apple it would be a great hit by now! We may find it almost every where, no matter how expensive it is.
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