It’s really nothing that new. Companies like FedEx have been connecting physical things to the web for years. Most of the examples are similar though – they involve scanning codes and updating systems to keep customers up-to-date. Another notable one is Domino’s pizza tracker. A system that lets the pizza makers scan barcodes at certain parts of the pizza making process to update their customers on the Web.

Recently we’re seeing an increase in activity here that goes beyond scanning codes, and it has me giddy with excitement to see where it goes. Poke’s Baker Tweet is a prime example of the physical Internet. Put simply, it’s a physical box located in the bakery that sends messages wirelessly to Twitter to let followers know what’s fresh. The guys who built it actually started a company called Breakfast who, from what I’m told, is all about creating experiences like this.

Another good example of this is Nike’s Chalkbot. A machine that took tweets and messages from real people and plotted them in chalk along a portion of the Tour de France.

I think we’re going to see some really innovative stuff this year, most of which will be connecting virtual stuff with real stuff. Last week, Andy Sandoz over at Work Club posted an interesting article that touched (sorry) on what it may be like if Facebook had a physical ‘Like’ button. I’d love to hear of more examples or thoughts on this.

While Apple won’t be blessing Canada with the iPad until later this month, that hasn’t stopped some of us from crossing the border and heading directly to the nearest Apple Store. I didn’t take the road trip myself, however I was the beneficiary of one and over the past 2 days, I’ve been using my iPad quite frequently (in fact, most of this post was written using the Wordpress App).

Since its announcement and subsequent release, the general consensus appears to be a) the battery life / speed & industrial design is unparalleled, and b) the software is somewhat limiting. I’ll definitely echo these observations, however I’ve noticed much of the criticism has been focused on issues which will undoubtable be addressed in future OS updates. Everyone is busy looking at their feet, complaining about the immediate and obvious shortcomings, when they should be focused on where Apple is going with the iPad. Make no mistake about it, the iPad really is Apple’s reconception of personal computing, however they’ve only taken the first of many steps in that direction.

“It’s just a big iPod Touch”

When Apple first announced the iPad, an audible groan echoed across the Internet. It’s just a big iPod Touch appears to be the most common reaction upon seeing the iPad for the first time, and while there is definitely some validity to that observation, it’s not exactly true. Yes, the iPad looks and feels very similar to an iPod Touch, and yes they share the same operating system (which really makes them fraternal twins). However, the iPad currently sits uncomfortably between the iPod Touch and the MacBook; Born from a smartphone and wanting to be laptop replacement, but unable to reach its full stride. It wants to run—and starts to pickup pace— but then trips over it’s own feet.

Coming from an iPod Touch or iPhone, you’ll feel right at home. Sure, the screen is roughly 4x the size, but it looks and functions more or less the same. You’ve got the singular home button on the face, the same dock along the bottom, and the same lock screen (now with 4x the unused space!) . However, once you start using iPad-optimized Apps, it becomes clear that this is a different ballgame. The larger screen affords a completely unique experience, and the developer community is taking full advantage of this. It’s actually quite amazing how quickly the operating system disappears once you launch an App. The App fills the entire screen and you immediately feel like you’re holding an entirely different device. But then you try to delete something and a tiny blue dialog window appears, drowning in a sea of pixels. It feels odd and out of place, like a relic from a different era. There are all sorts of little details like this that reflect the iPads smaller-screen lineage.

You get the same feeling when you turn the iPad on for the first time, and you’re forced to tether with your computer and authorize via iTunes. Arguably, you shouldn’t have to do this with an iPhone/iPod either, but it feels even worse with the iPad. This isn’t a device that should require a separate computer. You should be able to give it your Apple ID and have everything automatically sync. Apps, email contacts, calendars… files. And this is where the iPad begins to move towards the MacBook and then stumbles. I want to save & edit files on the go, but there’s no meaningful way of managing them. While I believe Dropbox is vastly superior, Apple’s iDisk should really be the “exposed” filesystem on the iPad. It shouldn’t be an App like it is on the iPod, but a home directory that’s accessible by all Apps and sync’d across all your devices. But what happens if you’re sharing the iPad with other family members?

“The First Real Family Computer”

I’ve seen a number of people describe the iPad as the first real family computer, and I would agree that this is an apt description. My iPad will live in the kitchen and will be shared by my wife and I. However, when I started setting up my email and calendars and contacts, I realized that this wasn’t really going to work. We may want to share the device itself, however we don’t want to share applications. The iPad really needs unique user accounts, complete with independent setups. Of course, this adds a magnitude of complexity and I’m unsure if the platform can really support it. Fundamentally, the iPhone and iPod Touch were designed as single-user devices, but the iPad clearly has multi-user intentions. Being that the share the same OS underpinnings, I can see how the iPad could be weighed down by it’s resolution-deprived siblings.

I’m incredibly excited about how much potential the iPad has. I’m sure Apple will address the multitasking issues that plague it and the iPhone. I’m sure they’ll correct the odd interface holdovers its smaller siblings. And I’m hopeful they’ll introduce some sort of cloud-based solution for the file management issues. The only question is if Apple will allow for multiple users per iPad, or if they’re expecting 1 iPad per person. I have a feeling it’s the latter.

Between the dozens of panels, talks and conversations that happen every day during South by Southwest (SXSW) and the ensuing parties and networking opportunities each night, there was quite a bit to take in in Austin last week. Yesterday I shared some of the highlights and trends that I observed at SXSW 2010, but for me the real reason for attending SXSW is having the opportunity to hear some truly inspiring and fascinating people who work in Design speak in person.

Dan Roam on Visual Thinking

One of first few talks I attended was by Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin, a bestselling book on how to think and express ideas visually. Dan took the last five minutes of his excellent hour-long session to summarize what visual thinking is, and used it to illustrate the history of humanity. Dan has an extremely engaging way of speaking that is enhanced by the live sketching on his slides.

Peter Molyneux on The Emotion Engine

Peter Molyneux is a game maker and the founder of Lionhead Studios and creator of Populous, Black & White and the Fable series. Although Molyneux is often critiqued for not delivering on his visionary ideas that go into each of the games he makes, I’ve always admired his ability to engage players emotionally in gaming experiences, and to challenge their moral views. At SXSW, Molyneux spoke chiefly about the emotional side of gaming, particularly with regard to his upcoming game Fable 3.

He also described the concerns and excitement Microsoft’s new controler-less motion tracking interface dubbed “Project Natal” poses to him as a designer. I could instantly relate to the duality Molyneux expressed around anxiety & excitement when faced with a platform that forces us to re-think how we design. Over the past few years, platforms of like the iPhone, Microsoft Surface and iPad have definitely left us with no shortage of design challenges as we explore all the design possibilities inherent with their form factor.

Wired Magazine on the Tablet

Wired hasn’t been shy about getting into the Tablet space. While I was at first excited to hear about magazines and other publishers getting on board with the iPad and other touch devices, I can’t help but be underwhelmed at Wired’s design execution. Their demo at SXSW with a rep from Adobe felt like a magazine crammed into a tablet, as opposed to content designed specifically for the form factor. I absolutely admire their visual design work in print and am a regular subscriber for that reason, and can understand their desire to reuse content and design from print to web and tablet.

However, their “one size fits all” approach to designing the tablet version in Adobe Air, and attempting to force it into other platforms like Android felt cheap and rushed (and borderline unreadable, from what I could see). Other publishers are sparing no expense to provide readers with a truly new experience, suited for the form factor and taking advantage of the device’s ability to provide rich animations and interactions.

I’d have loved for this post to be the introduction of our latest iPhone application. An application that introduces a new default optional home screen. A screen that doesn’t require you to scan for red dots with numbers inside of them. Instead it would display information and notifications of things that are new and relevant to you. We’ll all have to keep dreaming for the time being. Unless you’re willing to jailbreak your phone it simply isn’t possible to develop and implement this type of hostile UI takeover using the iPhone SDK.

Until then (we’re doubtful that sort of freedom will ever be available) Here’s how we might design a new home screen.

You can see from the screens it’s essentially just a scrollable list of applications and notifications. We envision it behaving in much the same way that the list view does in the Calendar application. By default it may track things like missed calls, unread emails and calendar events. But what if users could allow other apps to feed into this screen as well? If I’m a Facebook junkie I’d be able to tell the Facebook app to include certain feeds on my home screen. If I was a frequent traveler I may include the Tripit app to show me my upcoming trips. The options would only be limited by what apps you have installed.

Update: The demand for this has been too great to ignore. We’re building a working version of this. More details and screens to follow. You can follow us at twitter.com/teehanlax

A scrollable screen of the stuff that matters to me.

Application preferences would allow users to include certain feeds on their home screens.

Jon had mentioned (as did Drew in the comments) he’d like this info without having to unlock the phone. I agree. If only development were this easy.

Yesterday Jon visited the BNN studios to chat about the Palm Pre. For those not in the know, it launches today. Watch the video for his thoughts. type=”text/javascript”>Watch the video for his thoughts. type=”text/javascript”>AKPC_IDS += “1834,”;

We just received our Android phone from the fine people at Google. We’re running it SIM free for now since it’s not commercially available and hope to do some dev work on it in 2009. I haven’t spent as much time with it as I’d like yet, but first impressions were pretty good. I love the various inputs (track ball, touchscreen, keyboard). As Jon puts it – this device has a ton of potential.

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As the kinds of digital interactive user experiences we’re designing at T+L begin to move beyond the computer screen, fundamental things like display resolution become a little more complicated and a lot more interesting.

Effective resolution is a perceptual term—I’ll define it here* as the perceived pixel density of a display image at a given viewing distance. Math-wise, the basic equation can be pretty simple: Effective Resolution (ER) = DPI x Distance**. From this, we can see that for a given absolute resolution, the effective resolution increases along with viewing distance.

Pretty straightforward stuff so far. Here’s where it starts to get interesting…

Comparing resolution across devices

You can compare the effective resolution for different devices using the formula above. For example Using this DPI calculator, here’s what you get for an iPhone, Macbook, and generic mid-sized HDTV:

Notice that even though the iPhone has the highest absolute resolution of the 3, it has the lowest effective resolution***.

Optimizing for effective resolution

In terms of user experience, ER is a better way to compare display technology because it takes the context of use into account. For example, let’s say that the optimal effective resolution was the threshold at which individual pixels were just no longer noticeable, and let’s say this happened hypothetically at ER=300 (red line below). Based on the comparison example above, we could see that while the MacBook over-performs against this measure, the viewing experience for both the iPhone and HDTV could still benefit from higher (absolute) resolution displays.

Optimal viewing distance

You can calculate an optimal viewing distance based on effective resolution. Just set ER to a desired value—say, to 300 as in the example above—and solve for distance (D = ER/DPI).

Practical and ergonomic constraints on effective resolution

Depending on usage and input modality for a given device, the viewing distance will be a constraining factor on effective resolution. For example, an iPhone’s effective resolution is constrained by the fact that you hold it in your hand. Similarly, laptop or surface-based computing devices need to remain within reach. TVs are a little more flexible, although there are recommended viewing distances for those too.

Interaction design implications

So how could or should interaction designers be taking effective resolution into account? Here are two suggestions for starters:

1. Improving readability. This article is actually what started us thinking about effective resolution. Most digital design use pixel height for specifying font size. (Point size is more appropriate for print media.) We could use effective resolution to set baseline pixel heights that are relative to both display technology and context of use in order to ensure readability.

2. Design tools. I think it’d be great to be able to simulate different effective resolution modes in design environments like Photoshop. This could be achieved through a combination of pixel interpolation and zooming transformations. For example, say you were designing icons for an IPTV interface and wanted to know if they will be easily recognizable from the couch. Toggling into an HDTV preview mode would automatically zoom out and slightly degrade the resolution to give you a rough idea of what they’ll look like.

Had the opportunity to attend this month’s Torchi event, featuring two guests from Microsoft. Lisa Anderson, MS Surface User Experience Director, talked about the fundamental shift from command line interfaces to GUIs, to what she called Natural User Interfaces (NUIs, I guess). Some really cool theoretical thinking in her presentation but it would have also been nice to get into a more concrete discussion about where they’re headed with Surface. I guess we’ll just have to wait for the SDK and interface guidelines spec. Lisa talked about how they’re trying to make the interface “disappear” by leveraging intuition and allowing interaction through direct manipulation. But there must be at least some standardized interface elements built into the Surface and I’m really keen to learn what these are and how they work.

Jansen Harris’ discussion about his work heading up the Office User Experience Team was also really interesting and much more concrete. No matter how you feel about Microsoft’s past performance when it comes to innovating the user experience, it’s hard to deny that they did a great job with the latest Office suite (and this has been borne out both critically and in terms of revenues generated). 3 things Jansen mentioned that stuck with me:

1. Early-on they established a set of design tenets to guide decisions at a high level over the course of the project. One that really stood out to me was “Straight-forward is better than clever.” I know I’ve often been guilty of breaking that rule :)
2. Developers took the first couple of months basically rebuilding the programatic foundations for Office specifically so that the UX team could afford to make mistakes and revise as they progressed along.
3. The Office 2007 team was comprised entirely of people who passionately believed in the project. If your heart wasn’t in it (and there were apparently those who fundamentally disagreed with the idea that MS could or should re-engineer the UX for Office), they found something else in the company for you to work on.

In general, I was impressed by how much grunt-work the team put into validation and evaluation throughout the design process. Rather than testing for testing’s sake or gathering data just to justify pre-ordained decisions, they used evidence to answer very focused, well-defined questions.

Quick plug: ToRCHI events happen monthly and are usually worth coming out to. Great guests and good discussion.