{"id":214,"date":"2004-11-11T12:34:42","date_gmt":"2004-11-11T12:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/214"},"modified":"2004-11-11T12:34:42","modified_gmt":"2004-11-11T12:34:42","slug":"buxton-at-iswc-its-the-transitions-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/214","title":{"rendered":"Buxton at ISWC: it’s the transitions, stupid!"},"content":{"rendered":"

[I’ve been trip-blogging this past week but haven’t had convenient net access, so I’m afraid the real-time aspects of blogging are lacking… now that I’m hooked into the wireless at DEAF04<\/a> here’s some of my backlog.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill Buxton’s ISWC keynote made a lot of points, but the one that struck me most was derived from three basic laws:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Moore’s Law:<\/b> the number of transistors that can fit in a given area will double approximately every 18 months.<\/li>\n
  2. God’s Law (aka the complexity barrier):<\/b> the number of brain cells we have to work with remains constant.<\/li>\n
  3. Buxton’s Law:<\/b> technology designers will continue to promise functionality proportional to Moore’s Law.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The problem then is how to deliver more functionality without making the interface so unwieldy as to be completely unusable. Buxton went on to talk about the trade-off between generality and ease-of-use: the more specifically-designed an interface the easier it is to use but the more limited its scope.<\/p>\n

    The key, he argues, is to make lots of specific applications with interfaces well-suited for their particular niche. Then you don’t need a single general interface, but instead can concentrate on the seamlessness and transparency of transitions between interfaces<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    It’s a nice way of thinking about things, especially when thinking about the combination of wearables and ubicomp (see next post).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [I’ve been trip-blogging this past week but haven’t had convenient net access, so I’m afraid the real-time aspects of blogging are lacking… now that I’m hooked into the wireless at DEAF04<\/a> here’s some of my backlog.]<\/em><\/p>\n

    Bill Buxton’s ISWC keynote made a lot of points, but the one that struck me most was derived from three basic laws:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Moore’s Law:<\/b> the number of transistors that can fit in a given area will double approximately every 18 months.<\/li>\n
    2. God’s Law (aka the complexity barrier):<\/b> the number of brain cells we have to work with remains constant.<\/li>\n
    3. Buxton’s Law:<\/b> technology designers will continue to promise functionality proportional to Moore’s Law.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The problem then is how to deliver more functionality without making the interface so unwieldy as to be completely unusable. Buxton went on to talk about the trade-off between generality and ease-of-use: the more specifically-designed an interface the easier it is to use but the more limited its scope.<\/p>\n

      The key, he argues, is to make lots of specific applications with interfaces well-suited for their particular niche. Then you don’t need a single general interface, but instead can concentrate on the seamlessness and transparency of transitions between interfaces<\/em>.<\/p>\n

      It’s a nice way of thinking about things, especially when thinking about the combination of wearables and ubicomp (see next post).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wearable-computing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}