While playing a video game recently, it struck me that when presented with a new way to interact with a device how we can be surprised and impacted. It's been interesting to play games on Nintendo's two newest systems – the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii. Both systems introduce new form(s) of input available from users. I'm not an expert on the systems or the subject of human & system interactions—just a normal person like most others. It's just been interesting to me.
Between the two systems here are some actions I've made that I don't recall having done previously while playing a game (at least something that was designed to impact gameplay): swung my arm, twisted my wrist, pointed at an enemy, tapped an enemy, drew a line (a circle, a line for direction, to swing a sword), talked to a character, blew out a candle, punched, shook my hand (not in anger ;)… and I'm sure there are others, but these I could think of off the top of my head. How many different opportunities does that open to somebody as a user? How many new ways can that be implemented (within reason) in the design of the games?
Although I've listed a number of new ways to interact with a game, the designers and programmers at Nintendo deserve quite a bit of kudos, since it's all come in stride. It's not like they throw it all at you at once and let you flop around. It's given to you one bit at a time, with room for discovery and experimentation. Both systems have been truly a pleasure to experience and play with.
What impact does this have to you? Possibly not much, but for those of you who impact/influence interaction design, there are two good learning points from these simple video games:
- Don't overwhelm your users with too much new all at once. Nintendo eased all Wii owners by giving them their killer app - Wii Sports. Little did we all realize they were just getting us used to all the new ways to interact with the system.
- Don't spell out every little detail to your users. Leave a bit for them to discover on their own. In The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS the game designers introduce new tools for Link to utilize throughout the game. One of the most impressive tools can be used in at least 5 different ways.
Again, I'm not an expert on any of this, but keeping these things in mind as I move forward will be essential to improving the human experience on tools I develop.
The G2 collection has rolled onward. This time in honor of my anniversary with Maria. Although I started making this particular edition in attempt to meet up with Maria's birthday, I didn't make anywhere nearly in time. This one had a very specific set of music from which to pick and choose. In honor of Maria being a child of the 70's, and me being generally a fan of the 70's, I decided to make this collection entirely out of 70's music – specifically songs from the Billboard Top 100 charts. I made another CD in the G2 series. As usual, I provide the song list more for information rather than input. I'm not opposed to input, but it's not going to change anything (since I've already given it to her). I'll throw out the disclosure on this one that there are more songs on these 2 discs that I would never give to her in all seriousness. If you're saying to yourself, “Whoa… he confessed to giving her that song?” – that's almost 100% guaranteed on there in reference to an inside joke or something along those lines. I'll talk more about the artwork below the song lists.
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I've been wondering how things would be if our globe was pictured the opposite of how it is now—Antarctica at the top of the world, Canada and Russia at the bottom. Keep north pointing towards the top of the globe, and south towards the bottom. How has our/my mentality of the world been molded by how I see things laid out on a map, or a globe? Take all of your feelings, whether you're totally aware of them or not, about the north and south and swap them. Here are couple thoughts I've had about it, and some I just came up with:
- The North would have lost the Civil War, and us southerners would be just as thrilled (the Civil war is filled with fun swaps)
- North and South Dakota and Carolina?
- I might feel more distant from Santa's home at the North Pole
- It would be "Down Home Northern Cookin'"
- The majority of modern civilization would be in the South
- I wouldn't think the Southern Hemisphere's weather and seasons were all that weird
- Would people still have seen the boot in Italy, or just a weird shape?
- New England would be the southern peninsula of the US, not Florida
Those aren't really earth shattering… just… different. It's interesting to swap your thinking about something that is so universal (in our little world). Imagine the different take on things had that been the way. One reason I think the North has become the top of the world is only that it is where modern civilizations started. Once they figured out there was more than just their little village, they put themselves in the presumably dominant position - on top. I've never taken any sort of classes that would discuss things like this, but it was just something I was thinking about. Just wanted to share.
It's this easy: make the product easy to open. I'm not talking about certain types of products, I'm talking about all products (though Mother's (pink and white) Circus Animal Cookies are the product that made me write this). It's the worst when you're trying to open something, and not only does it open, eventually, but it opens a little excessively and either rips down the side of the bag, or essentially explodes, making stuff go everywhere. Chips seem to be a popular thing to cause these issues. Electronics are tough, but only the ones those plastic-stamped cases that require either a pair of super tough scissors, or an act of deity to open. I'm aware that some of the products are packaged in a way to either cut down on theft, or to make the product not burst open at some point pre-consumer consumption… but for all the money we spend on these freakin' things, you'd think they could invest at least a little in making the packages more friendly to consumers. Despite the serving size of 6 cookies, I have a ruined bag on my hands, and I'm not willing to let them go bad, just because Mother's can't engineer a decent bag.
Surprise!! I took the liberty to redo the recipe collection. I know that nobody asked me to do it, but I did it anyway. This represents some magical happenings by yours truly to incorporate the recipes into their own publishing system. I spent good time to make sure that the old recipe page(s) would automatically lead to their new home (don't forget to update your bookmarks). If it didn't… well… you got here somehow, so… maybe it actually did work.
You may ask, "Why?" and I would say… "Because.". Previously the recipes where housed in their own database, and weren't really all that easy for me to update (hence my lateness in putting up recipes sometimes). I'm kind of tired of doing that, and I wanted to take advantage of some of the cool features of a publishing system. So here's what you get out of the deal:
- RSS/Atom Feed - Tired of checking to see if I've put up the latest recipes? Subscribe to the feed for the recipes, and you'll know automatically when I put up new ones. Learn about RSS/Atom. I recommend Google Reader. I really like it (or NetVibes)
- Search functions. I tried out a Google Coop search engine for a few days… but I didn't really like it. Sure it fast, but I couldn't go "back" in my browser (thanks to the funky javascript). Kind of annoying. (Plus I, as a site stats lover. couldn't really track my search stats, and I want to know what you as users are searching for so I can hone my site a bit (plus I don't really like ads on my site, like Google did))
- The new system will also hopefully encourage me to edit those recipes to clean them up a bit. Don't keep your fingers crossed on that one—it'll take me a lot of time if I do it
- Print Formatting – I spent the time to make sure these things would print out in an acceptable format. I only know one person with a computer in their kitchen, and it's not me. We all want these things on paper so we can actually use them. Just go ahead and print. It won't look the same when you print it as it does on your screen. Don't believe me? Preview the print job, and see if it looks good to you. Just a little trickery on my part there (it also cuts back on storage for me not having duplicate pages).
- Last but far from least, Comments. To me, food is all about enjoying it with others, and it's nice to be able to leave comments on recipes. Share your thoughts about a recipe, or even ask simple questions. I'm game.
Hopefully you like the new features as well. If so, drop me a line letting me know. I very rarely won't respond, so keep your eyes peeled for that response from me. Happy cooking & eating! :)