Tags to Richness

The primary reason I became an interaction designer was because I wanted to make games.  This is probably true of most of us. 

I recently finished Donald Norman’s book “The Design of Everyday Things” and in the last chapter he talks about the difference between designing a game and designing an application (or device).  Paraphrasing, he essentially says the goal of a tool is ease of use, and for a game it’s (calculated) difficulty of use.

… making things difficult is tricky business.  If a game isn’t difficult enough, experienced players lose interest.  On the other hand, if it is too difficult, the initial enjoyment gives way to frustration.  …  The same rules that apply to make tasks understandable and usable also apply to make them more difficult and challenging … The rules must be applied intelligently, for ease of use or difficulty of use. (page 208)

If you didn’t have a chance to see Microsoft’s E3 Press Conference, specifically the demos of Kinect, you owe it to yourself to watch it right now.  The various Kinect demos start about 40 minutes in.  I took away 3 main points from the demo.

1. Kinect is a milestone in UI design.  Microsoft finally nailed the body as controller concept and now there will be a mad rush as standards are explored and established in this arena.

2. Efficiency of motion is going to be an issue and I don’t see body gestural interfaces having anything more then niche or simple applications.  Tony Walt wrote a great article about this on UX Magazine

3. Kinectimals is an amazing game and a sets the bar for pet games extremely high.  I have four little girls who I’ve watched use Nintendogs, Tamagotchi and Pokemon.  And watching that little girl play with that tiger in the Microsoft press conference was breath taking.  They absolutely nailed that genre of game.