Our project was to create a physical, motion based interface using cheap, common electronics and parts, and readily available software. The idea was to show that the implicit notion of human-computer interaction based upon mouse, screen keyboard is just that, an implicit which can be undermined and then improved using simple technologies
December 2003
Kevin Cannon - www.multiblah.com
Paul May - www.paulmay.org
Table Of Contents
The Problem with Mice
The idea of a physical mouse based interface is more than 50 years old. Having being conceived for use with the simplest of graphical user interfaces, such as early radar screens, the mouse was not adopted widely until Apple implemented a mouse on their Lisa machine in the early 1980s. Since then, the format of the personal computer has changed little, and is still to a large extend made up of a computer, screen, mouse and keyboard.
The massive advances in technology have not led to a more intuitive input device or scheme to translate physical movement into a computer interface. Despite the seemingly exponential growth of computer power, as demonstrated by Moore's “law”, computer input devices, and indeed graphical user interfaces remain locked to the computer, screen, mouse, keyboard format.
This project is an experiment in not what can be done with computer interfaces, but what should be done. With computers becoming more pervasive in our lives, the need for a more natural interface will become necessary as industrial, medical and domestic applications become more complex, and even more integrated with computer technology. Tablet PCs have introduced the first realistic and useful implementations of technologies such as handwriting-recognition, touch screen capabilities, but these are still examples of the computer as tool, as a thing to be acted upon, rather than a integral part of interaction between humans and the real world.
We have sought to break away from the existing confines of user interface devices, and build an experimental prototype which while not perfect, could demonstrate how it has become possible, with simple and cheap technologies, to fundamentally change the manner in which we interact with technology.