SensoryMetrics

The idea of having an expiry date on emails has always appealed to me. A couple of years ago I built a proof of concept email delivery system which would let me do exactly that. The message content of the email was pulled from a server. So after sending an email, the content could be changed or deleted. This wasn’t a perfect solution since only the email content would be deleted and not the entire email. It also allowed me to check whether or not the message was read and at what time.

One of the most common uses for this expiring email for me was to send out an invitation for a meeting later in the day. If there was no response by a set period of time, the email was retracted or changed to a later date. It’s also great for progress reports. Just one email can be sent out which can be reopened several times throughout the week/ month, each time with new up to date content from the server. It’s a significant shift in how people interact with their email. Emails become portals to information. This however, then requires a feature to let them take static snapshots which can be saved and a marker on the email to indicate when new content is available. Features which could only be implemented by the email application.

To me, the ultimate email solution would allow me to track and control forwarded emails. I could preset the email rules to limit the forwards to internal office use or to a preset group of individuals. I’d also be able to see the audience reach and how long into the future the message gets passed along. And of course, I could always update the content.

Popularity: 25%

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User Experience 123-poof, email

By all accounts, Voice 2.0 was a resounding success. Thanks to Ross Macleod and “Team OCRI” it was jammed packed with great content – and every session was right on schedule!

One thing that struck me was the enthusiasm and energy that the participants demonstrated for telecom innovation. It truly is a rebirth.

On the topic of innovation – the conference keynote, Martin Geddes – spoke that he wished he had a mobile phone with touch strips on both sides of the device that would enable him to easily “surf” contacts. These contacts would be clustered by type and importance. I’ve always wanted a phone like that too… and my colleagues and I at Nortel almost got to build it.

In 1990 I got the idea for the border touch user interface. This consisted of a bit-mapped display framed by touch-sensitive strips. The user interface would take advantage of the border real-estate to provide context-based options… Content in the middle, and navigation and controls on the sides. This concept was so adaptive that it could scale to any size display and replace all other “hard” keys on the device.

In the lab, we also demonstrated that by integrating miniature vibrators into the strips we could simulate texture and motion. If the UI required a scroll mechanism for a list – we could mimic a flywheel spinning. Reaching the bottom of the list, the user could feel a hard stop. We were also able to create tactile “bumps” on the strips. This was very useful at identifying the location of buttons, and reducing the user’s dependence on the display for navigation. For certain telephony features, the user could learn the location of keys… For example, if the user was on a call – they could activate call waiting without having to look at the display.

We eventually filed this patent application in 1998. In 2002, US patent #6,369,803 (www.uspto.gov) was granted for the “Active Edge User Interface”. The abstract reads:

“An active edge user interface includes dynamically configurable flexible touch areas positioned near the perimeter of a display to support interactive communication between a user and a user environment for flexible active touch areas surrounding a display. The interface allows for multiple levels of sensitivity, texture, key travel, and varying widths of active touch areas based on the user environment.”

This idea was later incorporated into a product prototype for World Com. Unfortunately, it was never built.

But the idea is alive. Recently, this patent has been referred by numerous companies including Nokia, Seimens, Seiko-Epson, Philips, 3M, NEC, and Lenovo. Is somebody working on a touch strip mobile? I hope so!

Popularity: 22%

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Mobility, Patents, User Experience active-edge, touch-strip

Ever since Apple released the ipod shuffle, I’ve been thinking how cool it would be to be able to navigate the playlists via an audio only interface. Imagine how much fun it would be to be able to browse through the songs via a sound-scape. Just adding a voice clip to play-lists and song titles would be neat, but that’d be the tip of the iceberg. I could imagine play-lists being represented via riffs and audio clips pulled from the songs themselves or there could be a set series of built in sounds that you could use to represent play-lists and artists. A bit like ring-tones, you could choose a sound-scape theme to use for navigation.

To make it even more fun, add in a left / right pan, and a vibrato sound effect to denote distance and you could create a 3D audio space which could be mapped to the round button on the ipod. If Microsoft is listening out there, here’s your chance to release a Zune companion product. Through audio only, you could navigate through menus that would let you set shuffle mode, choose play-lists, tell you the time and date, play audio games, store voice clips, and so on. Now that’d be a cool product. You could do away with the display without doing away with all the functionality normally provided through the display.

This interface would really be great for use in the car. There’d no longer be any need to glance at the display while driving, with a spin of the dial and a couple of clicks you could make your way to your favourite song by sound alone. I’m sure there are several other mobile devices out there which could benefit from audio navigation.

Popularity: 35%

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Gadgets, User Experience iPod, spatial-navigation

OCRI is presenting Voice2.0 on October 16th at Scotiabank Place. It’s a great one-day lineup offered at a bargain price! Conference organizer Ross MacLeod has included the User Experience as one of four themes driving the emergence of the “new telecom”. I’ll be keynote opening that session, as well as participating on the UX panel along with Microsoft strategist Bill Buxton and UI academic Gitte Lindgaard.

Popularity: 21%

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Events, User Experience OCRI, voice2.0

Thanks in part to being inspired by the dedication of #4 VoIP blogger Alec Saunders, we’ve joined the club. Although, I do wonder who reads the first few posts of a new blog???

Anyhow thanks for reading!

Popularity: 15%

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User Experience

Back in March 1998 Mitch Brisebois and I filed a patent on what we figured would be a very useful feature for web browsers.

We called it enhanced bookmarks and it allowed users to pull up a specific portion of a web page with a single click. This would be useful for pages which are frequently accessed to get information such as a stock quote, the weather, a sports score, and so on. Furthermore, a collage option would allow you to pull up specific portions from dozens of web pages at the same time. Initially we had thought it’d be very useful for mobile devices, but we did not limit the patent to a specific device. It could be instantiated in a web browser on your computer, on your palm top, or on your cell phone.

With the upcoming release of Mac OS Leopard, Dashboard will now support ‘web clips’ which allow users to grab a portion of a web page to display on the dashboard. It works in very much the same way as we described in our patent back in 1998. It’s really nice to see one of our patent ideas materialize years later.
US Patent # 6,219,679

A system and method for providing improved bookmarking of remotely provided user-interactive information such as WWW page content are provided. When a bookmark of a page is created, in addition to storing a remote file access pointer such as a universal resource locator, a locator element is stored which identifies a particular subset of the page. When the bookmark is subsequently accessed, only the updated particular subset is displayed, thereby eliminating the need for users to repeatedly scroll through material in which they are not interested.
A super-bookmarking option is provided which provides for a bookmark which results in the display of a collage of previously created bookmarked material.

Popularity: 54%

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Patents Apple, Dashboard, enhanced-bookmarks, OSX, web-clips