Back in the early 80's, just about the same time that the
Xerox PARC windows paradigm was kicking around, a
number of us were playing with an alternative 'cartographic
interface' approach which would allow a user to maneuver
through an interface landscape where the monitor was the
windscreen on their 'vehicle'. One advantage was the
ability to seamlessly move between novice ('fly through')
and expert ('teleport') modes. The latter was where you
associated a name with a 'location', invoked it to 'go there',
and thereby generated your own 'menu'.
The cool thing was that when you 'teleported' somewhere
you knew where you 'were' in relationship to everything
else based upon the mental schema that you had, so you
could simply 'gain altitude' to revert to the 'cartographic'
mode. Another was that navigating in space is an inherent
pre-symbolic capability (like moving objects in a window
interface) so users rapidly adapted to it and found it very
useful and extensible. It is also language and largely age
independent.
The graphics and data communications speeds back then
were pretty limited so we were pushing the envelope. Not
the case now, and it would seem that this would be a
natural interface for web based mobile and 'augmented
reality' applications.
'The more things change', eh?
Rob Durst
Technology and Business Development Consultant
rob.durst@durstgroup.com
Discussion on:
Message 2 of 1
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