Like, just a post complaining that screens should be better An Article by Matt Webb interconnected.org It’s been 19 years since Pixar released Monsters, Inc. with all that CGI hair. Where are my hairy icons? Ones that get all long and knotted as the notifications number goes up. Why can’t I feel my phone? I found that paper from 2010 (when I was complaining about keyboards) about using precision electrostatics to make artificial textures on touchscreens. I should be able to run my thumb over my phone while it’s in my pocket and feel bumps for apps that want my attention. Touching an active element should feel rough. A scrollbar should *slip. Imagine the accessibility gains. But honestly I don’t even care if it’s useful: 1.5 billion smartphone screens are manufactured every year. For that number, I expect bells. I expect whistles. A Brief Rant interactionsoftwareinterfacesdevices
Time and space Tones appear placed and directed predominantly in time from before to now to later. Their juxtaposition in a musical composition is perceived within a prescribed sequence only. Horizontally, the tones follow each other, perhaps not in a straight line, but of necessity in a prescribed order and only in 1 direction – forward. Tones heard earlier fade, and those farther back disappear, vanish. We do not hear them backward. Colors appear connected predominantly in space. Therefore, as constellations they can be seen in any direction and at any speed. And as they remain, we can return to them repeatedly and in many ways. This remaining and not remaining, or vanishing and not vanishing, shows only 1 essential difference between the fields of tone and color. The accuracy of perception in one field is matched by the durability of retention in the other, demonstrating a curious reversal in visual and auditory memory. Josef Albers, Interaction of Color It will not stand still to be pointed at