After posting my last entry on virtual worlds I was contacted by Nicole Yankelovich, who is the project lead for Project Wonderland over at Sun Microsystems. She very kindly invited me to contribute a guest blog about the work we've done on Sun's site, and it's just gone live. Thanks, Nicole!

I'm also pleased to say that you can now also read about VEGA's virtual academy on our company website. I'm very pleased with the reaction we've been getting from demonstrations of our virtual world, and it's great that I can now spread the word online as well.

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Tags: innovate, online learning, project wonderland, vega, virtual academies, virtual academy, virtual worlds

I've been interested in Virtual Worlds (henceforth referred to as VWs) for a long time, but this year I've also become a practitioner. Together with some colleagues I developed a VW that ties in to our company's main business areas - training and simulation - to provide a prototype Virtual Academy that is intended to give an impression of how users might access training at some point in the not-too-distant future.

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Tags: online collaboration, simulation, training, virtual worlds

Rebecca and the twins have a Nintendo Wii; I recently bought a Playstation 3. I've been thinking a lot about the way in which I interact with both systems. Putting the adrenalin-fuelled rush of the latest video games to one side, I'm talking more about the way in which game consoles and game designers adopt conventions for interactions and control input (or sometimes reject those conventions, with variable results).

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Tags: gameplay, interaction design, nintendo wii, sony playstation

I've joined the ever-increasing number of people who have a Facebook account, and I spent some time at the weekend developing my social network and adding little customisable applets that display photos from my Flickr account or tell me how many days it is until the next Talk Like a Pirate Day. I particularly liked the fact that you can drag and drop individual elements of the page to customise its appearance, and promote or demote applications according to their usefulness or priority. But as time went by I became more and more frustrated by the interface that Facebook uses and the way they have addressed some of the main design issues.

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Tags: facebook, gui, interface design, software, usability

I just got an automated email from LiveJournal informing me that it's my birthday on Saturday, and asking me whether I'd like to wish myself a happy birthday by clicking on the thoughtfully provided hyperlink.

I'm sure there's something wrong there. Just can't... quite... think... what...

Tags: design, forethought, usability
Current Mood: confused

There's an interesting discussion going on at Slashdot at the moment about the findings of a team from the University of California in Los Angeles. The psychologists were looking at how rhesus macaque monkeys learn tasks. The monkeys do better performing tasks related to memory and recall when they are left to discover things for themselves - if a hint system was used during training, they fared worse in tests.

If we assume that humans learn in the same way, then it means there's such a thing as giving a student too much help. Passively accepting direction isn't as effective as active engagement in the learning process, something constructivists have been saying for years.

Tags: constructivism, education, learning, memory, psychology, recall

I've been getting into podcasts recently, so when Quicktime told me there was a new version available I took the plunge and downloaded the free bundle which also installs Apple's iTunes software. Since then, I've been trying to find my way around the program and learning its idiosyncrasies. And boy, does it have some.

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Tags: apple, itunes, usability

I had a very interesting conversation about learning at work this week, sparked by the popularity of the recent Internet phenomenon of LOLcats. What makes memes and macros like this so incredibly popular? Is it possible for me, as a training designer, to spark some of that same creative zeal in a learning environment?

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Tags: constructivism, david jonassen, edward tufte, interfaces, learning, learning theory, lolcats, memes, usability

The big news today has to be Microsoft's new table PC, called Surface. It employs a multitouch user interface very similar to the one demonstrated by Jeff Han at TED last year - you use your fingers to drag, stretch, rotate and otherwise manipulate graphics on a horizontal display screen.

Watching the videos on the Surface site, Microsoft have obviously "got" the potential of the interface: the examples they show feature tasks that are intuitive, easy to understand, and execute flawlessly. It would be nice to think that the current paradigms of interaction with consumer electronics (not just computers) are about to be replaced. Certainly I'd like to live in a world where manipulation of data was as easy as they make it look.

I'm particularly impressed with the idea of assigning areas around storage devices such as phones and cameras that are placed on the table. Files are transferred to and from those devices by placing them within their area of influence. Of course, you'd want just about anything you use with Surface to have either WiFi or Bluetooth enabled; you still have to access data in the item's own memory. For everything else, you'd want an RFID chip embedded to tell Surface what it's dealing with. On the other hand, an inactive object with a particular distinctive shape could be used to trigger events; it depends how good the system will be at recognising the shape of objects placed on it. Interesting idea - I wonder what sort of applications we might see that use this approach? Whatever they turn out to be, I imagine that the potential for most applications hasn't even been thought of yet.

At present, Microsoft are aiming the device at business users, such as hotels, but I'd imagine as more people hear about the device, demand is going to grow very quickly. Well, I want one, anyway.

Tags: hci, interfaces, jeff han, microsoft, multitouch, rfid, usability

The best text book I've bought in the last ten years has to be Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge.

It presents a history of human-computer interaction, with interviews with most of the major players - in my view the book is worth it just for the section on Bill Verplank. There are more than 700 pages full of useful suggestions, design methodologies and photos of major design innovations, including the first mouse - a fetching number carved from wood with a very serious and threatening looking red button on the top. Great stuff.

As if that wasn't enough, the book also comes with a DVD that contains interviews with 30 or so of the main people featured in the text. Highly recommended.

Tags: bill moggridge, bill verplank, hci, recommended, text book, usability