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It was part art, part joke. It turns out, it also fulfilled a real "need" people had: an interspecies gaming experience with their cat. I want to improve the c

It was part art, part joke. It turns out, it also fulfilled a real "need" people had: an interspecies gaming experience with their cat. I want to improve the cat/human connection by letting the human use the iPhone to control the mouse on the iPad. Keep a look out for that feature in the coming months. EDIT: The hardest part about adding that feature isn't the bluetooth communication between devices. (That's easy, Apple provides sample code.) Rather, the most difficult part is designing an interface that is easy to use. I can't tell you how many iterations we've been through to design a way to pause the game that is 1) hard for cats and 2) memorable and intuitive for humans. I call this the Game-For-Cats-Law-of-Touch-Screen UI: any UI feature that is too hard for a cat is too hard for your average iPad user.

joshu 15y ago
FYI, my (larger) dog CAN press both buttons at the same time. Here's my smaller dog playing with a sound board: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/5702009514/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/5702009514/in/photostream...
jlees 15y ago
I call this the Game-For-Cats-Law-of-Touch-Screen UI: any UI feature that is too hard for a cat is too hard for your average iPad user. I am partly in awe of your skill and this extremely insightful comment, and partly terrified.
jasonkester 15y ago
I can't tell you how many iterations we've been through to design a way to pause the game that is 1) hard for cats and 2) memorable and intuitive for humans. Look in the app store for a Baby App called Rattle. It has a simple, effective way to get to the menu that babies can't do by accident. It has a little "i" icon that, when held, brings up a non-obnoxious, non-modal, hardly noticeable translucent text message saying "drag this down with 2 fingers". Do so, and the menu appears. Do anything else and it reverts back to the game.

joshu 15y ago

FYI, my (larger) dog CAN press both buttons at the same time. Here's my smaller dog playing with a sound board: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/5702009514/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/5702009514/in/photostream...

jlees 15y ago

I call this the Game-For-Cats-Law-of-Touch-Screen UI: any UI feature that is too hard for a cat is too hard for your average iPad user. I am partly in awe of your skill and this extremely insightful comment, and partly terrified.

jasonkester 15y ago

I can't tell you how many iterations we've been through to design a way to pause the game that is 1) hard for cats and 2) memorable and intuitive for humans. Look in the app store for a Baby App called Rattle. It has a simple, effective way to get to the menu that babies can't do by accident. It has a little "i" icon that, when held, brings up a non-obnoxious, non-modal, hardly noticeable translucent text message saying "drag this down with 2 fingers". Do so, and the menu appears. Do anything else and it reverts back to the game.