From jpierce@cs.cmu.edu Wed May 27 00:26:16 1998 Received: from burdell.cc.gatech.edu (root@burdell.cc.gatech.edu [130.207.3.207]) by lennon.cc.gatech.edu (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id AAA20250 for ; Wed, 27 May 1998 00:24:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (15VUYxZH1GpndoRsguqoJg8LskunIP9I@[128.95.73.60]) by burdell.cc.gatech.edu (8.8.4/8.6.9) with ESMTP id AAA02315 for ; Wed, 27 May 1998 00:24:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: from ux2.sp.cs.cmu.edu (UX2.SP.CS.CMU.EDU [128.2.198.102]) by wheaten.hitl.washington.edu (8.8.8/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA21614 for <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu>; Tue, 26 May 1998 21:24:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ASYNC13-8.NET.CS.CMU.EDU by ux2.sp.cs.cmu.edu id aa08165; 27 May 98 0:24 EDT Message-Id: X-Sender: jpierce@ux2.sp.cs.cmu.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.0 Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 11:45:01 -0700 To: 3D UI List <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu> From: Jeff Pierce Subject: Re: UI design in a new medium In-Reply-To: <199805261452.KAA07654@lennon.cc.gatech.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO At 10:52 AM 5/26/98 -0400, Doug Bowman wrote: >Second, Ernst's article regarding the use of 2D interfaces in 3D >had some good points. After a (rather lengthy ) message, he >concluded that the requirements of most VE interactions are very >task-specific, and there will not be one simple solution for all >of them. As long as we're talking about tradeoffs, note that there's a tradeoff here. Yes, task specific interaction techniques will generally be better (depending on the metric you're using for better) than more general interaction techniques. But the price you pay is that you've got to generate new techniques for every task. This is fine if VEs are curiosities developed by a few researchers (the current state of affairs). However, if VEs ever become mainstream then I would argue that a few general interaction techniques will predominate over different interaction techniques for every application. >I wholeheartedly agree, and would like to add more to this statement. >I think the complexity and domain-specificity of most VE applications >make them much more difficult to design interactions for. In my >thesis, I'm trying to look at this in a generalized fashion, and >consider characteristics of not only the task, but also the user, >environment, and system, along with the performance requirements of >the application, to determine a good interaction technique. There >are many more variables than I can hope to consider in a a few >experiments, but I think this framework is a good way to start >making the design of interaction techniques for VEs more systematic. How about including cost (user time, $) in the framework? Customize-ability? User specific, task specific, environment specific, system specific, affordable. Choose 3. Or maybe 2? Jeff