Dynabook Usability

David Faught dave_faught at yahoo.com
Sun Aug 24 03:26:09 UTC 2003


Alan Kay wrote:
>      The most important feature seemed to be that once you chose one 
> style, it was good if the UI permitted you to stay there, and 
> limiting "back and forths" was very good. The Engelbart scheme was 
> very good at this. With "hands apart" you could navigate, issue as 
> many as 3 commands per second, do limited typing a correction of 
> typos at about a max of 30 wpm, and generally zoom around. For bulk 
> typing you would move both hands to the regular keyboard where you 
> could type at 90 wpm or more.

So then something like the Canesta projection keyboard, 
http://www.canesta.com/products.htm
might be effective, along with the Smart-Nav hands free mouse
http://www.naturalpoint.com/index2.html
??  I just like looking at this stuff!  This would make the input side
of things pretty virtual, except only at a fixed position.

> The other form 
> that was talked about for the Dynabook was Nicholas Negroponte's 
> notion that we would soon be living in a world in which wireless 
> networks, sensors and displays would be part of every room -- and he 
> realized that great things could be done if your (say) wristwatch was

> also a transponder that knew where you were and also knew the 
> position and orientation of your hand in space. This coupled with 
> voice recognition would provide incredible opportunities for great 
> UI. His ARCMAC group at MIT built some of the 70s greatest UI designs

> and demos around these ideas. Needless to say Nicholas' ideas have 
> been "rediscovered" several times since, usually without giving him 
> credit.

I like the ideas of using voice recognition, and sensing hand position
without direct contact.  It kind of reminds me of the virtual reality
controls used in the movie "Lawnmower Man", or the computer in Star
Trek.  I wish I could have seen some of the ARMAC group's demos!


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