Susana Vilaça

Another great example of Microsoft Kinect usage, and how it can be used to create new and different user experiences!

Chaotic Moon Labs’ “Board of Awesomeness” is intended as a technology teaser to show how perceptive computing can turn around the way we look at user experiences. The project utilizes a Microsoft Kinect device, Samsung Windows 8 tablet, a motorized longboard, and some standard and custom hardware to create a longboard that watches the user to determine what to do rather than have the operator use a wired or wireless controller. The project uses video recognition, speech recognition, localization data, accelerometer data, and other factors to determine what the user wants to do and allows the board to follow the operators commands without additional aid.

The video below is a new commercial, launched by Microsoft, about the XBox Kinect sensor. Kinect is a motion sensor for the XBox console and was initially intended for gaming purposes, however people started using it in various ways including in the fields of medicine, education and music.

This type of technology sure brings lots of challenges in the UX field. The gaming industry is still struggling with some interaction problems this sensor brings, and there are not many interaction patterns defined yet. Lets see where this takes us. For me, I believe in this technology, and I think there is room for evolving and improving.

Being a huge fan of videogames and having played them since childhood I’m an apologist that video games can really help boosting a child’s learning and educational curve.

At the Summit on Science, Entertainment, and Education Will Wright (game designer of video games like The Sims or Spore) talks about this subject and makes some interesting points:

Basically Will Wright summarizes the main aspects of what is learning and explains how videogames are useful for a good education experience.

Resuming, video games:

• allow identity
• offer a reason to do it (clear objectives)
• allow and mitigate risk (controlled environment)
• encourage failure
• problem solving: allows you to think outside the box´
• empower creativity and imagination

Of course, I think that playing outside with other children is also important but the fact that some healthy video games’ playing can bring many advantages cannot be denied.

So what are your thoughts on this? Would / Do you let your children play video games?

*image by Guild Grinding

Following my lastest post I present here some ideas for Portuguese parties to improve their online presence.

1. Clearly identify their view on which are our nation’s main problems

Ok, we have a problem with money! We need it but we don’t have it and no one wants to loans us money. The Portuguese people understands this, however we need more. We want to understand the problems. The whys and hows of our situation.

I think the main questions here are where and why. Where are the main problems and Why are we in these situation.

Political parties could use the web to explain the crisis to the Portuguese people using for example infographics, video infographics, podcasts or even Slideshare presentations. I saw this great video explaining the crisis of credit and I really think this type of resources are very helpful.

2. Present solutions for the identified problems

So here are the problems and here is how we plan to solve them! That’s pretty simple but unfortunately is where political parties fail most.

The electoral program is presented through something like a press conference and then a huge document is made available online. First in this press conferences only the main issues are presented, second the huge document presents some astonishing unclear and fuzzy proposals, and third the majority of the Portuguese people only ears the proposals through the media that, well, only show what they want.

So my message here is present your program directly to the voters. Make videos, podcasts, and speak with no intermediares. And also but no less important present clear and concrete solutions.

3. Provide means of direct contact

This is where social networks like Facebook and Twitter are really useful. Political parties should use these tools to speak and listen to their voters and not use it as a news feed or calendar.

Provide means for conversation and interaction with the party and mainly with the Prime Minister candidate. Make it personal, collaborative and inspiring.

4. Inspire change and optimism

And at last but not least use the Web to let people know you are committed. You want to change our situation and you have a clear vision of how.

Inspire people and make them really believe that coming out from this situation is possible.

We need solutions, not accusations or empty words.

In about one month (5 June) we’re going to have elections in Portugal. The 5 major political parties are already starting their campaigns which involves the traditional travelling around Portugal, speeches, travelling around Portugal, more speeches and hopefully live debates between candidates. So this is the pretty standard offline political party presence, plus all the media coverage.

For me, and I believe for the majority of the Portuguese people, I won’t see at least one full live speech from one of the candidates. I will watch the news and pay attention to what others (critics, experts) are saying  but I want at least one way of contacting directly with each one of the parties so I can get information about their proposals for the new mandate. I immediately thought “I’ll go to their websites. They must have what I’m looking for.”

So I went to all major parties websites:

1. Partido Socialista
2. Partido Social Democrata
3. CDU
4. Partido Popular
5. Bloco de Esquerda

Parties nr. 2 and 3 have made specific websites for the elections. The others have just created new areas in their existing websites.

As I visisted these websites I had three main questions in mind:

1. What are this party proposals for the new mandate
2. What’s your plan of action against our nation main problems
3. How do you intend to deal with the presence of the International Monetary Fund

As I visited website by website I was disappointed with what I saw when I first entered, which is News, answers to fights between parties and, in the corner, deep in the page, a link to the electoral compromise.

When I visited the electoral compromise, well, another disappointment… They presented me with a huge page or a PDF document (about 40 pages) to read! I still don’t know if my questions are answered in these pages because I haven’t read them yet…

Regarding the presence on social networks only found parties 1, 2 and 4 Facebook pages and they seem like a news feed…

I think political parties need to step up their game in the online field. The web and social networks are an excellent place for a more direct communication with the voters, with no intermediaries. Making videos or writting posts about one specific subject, or about one problem and what they think it will help solve it would be a step in getting people more involved and helping them decide their votes.

We don’t need more lines like:

“Portugal is this situation because José Socrates is a lousy Prime Minister! Portugal needs a strong and honest hand, and we are that hand!”

It’s been 3 weeks since I started using Office 2011 for Mac and I’m already wishing all apps for Mac had a ribbon.

Let me explain a bit my experience:

Until 2 years ago I was exclusively a Windows user. Sure I had already had some experiences with other Operating Systems, but not on everyday basis.

When I started using a Mac regularly I had to struggle against some habits, however there is one thing I never got used to – the damned inspectors (floating tool windows), that various applications for Mac have adopted and are always getting in your way!

These damned windows have so many things that negatively affect my experience, like:

• they are always in front of your working area, you never seem to know where to put them
• they open the last place you put them, which it isn’t necessarily where you need them to be
• they are not responsive and contextual, meaning that they do not adapt to your selection. For example, if you select an image it doesn’t show the image tools.

In Office 2007 I was used to having a ribbon where my tools were organized in a effective and neat way, that adapted itself to my selections, basically I didn’t had to worry about it! When I started used Office 2008 (and other Mac software) and had to work with those inspectors I really felt frustrated with the amount of time I lost just taking that window out of my way!

So when I saw the ribbon in Office 2011 I was really satisfied. My experience with Office has greatly improved and I just wish that other tools, like Omnigraffle for example, adopt a similar solution instead of those lame tool windows…

One of the many wonders AR has brought to our everyday lives

If you have an iPhone check the app at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/word-lens/id383463868

So Google knows my country (Portugal), he knows my search habits, my translation habits, and much more. So why the hell the default Google Translate languages are Spanish to English??

Lately I’ve been using Google Translate more often because I was assigned a project which requires some technical knowledge. Every technical term either I want to translate it to Portuguese, to better understand its meaning, or translate it to English to know what is the English word/expression. I’ve been doing this for some weeks know and the suggested languages were Afrikaans to English. Every time I used Google Translate I had to, at least, change Afrikaans to Portuguese.

To my astonishment, today I noticed it was no longer Afrikaans to English but Spanish to English! What a hell?? Spanish?? Why?? Google why did you put Spanish to English and not Portuguese to English?

Initially I gave Google some benefit of doubt and checked my Google Account settings to see if Spain or Spanish was anywhere defined, but no. I have as my country Portugal and as my default language English.

By simply fixing this to my home country language, Google would give me a better user experience and I wouldn’t certainly be frustrated by wasting tine setting up my translation options every time I use Google Translate. It’s simply a crappy experience!