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Perhaps it’s the 2011 date that makes it odd, but I think the author is picking way too much on dumb marketing commercials, when there are countless of companie

Perhaps it’s the 2011 date that makes it odd, but I think the author is picking way too much on dumb marketing commercials, when there are countless of companies in the world shipping actual products fitting these ideas. For instance Nintendo has been exploring that space for so long, coming up at mass market level with different paradigms to interact with their devices. Microsoft has a long history of UX/UI research and actual shipped adaptive products, including for people with special needs. We’re going way past 2011 but there is also a ton of research on better haptic feedback and ways to make the “R” part of VR more real. On the other side, I’m sure I’m not alone in disabling most of the input haptics and sounds and animations when setting up a new phone or laptop. Glass is fine for visual things, and I’m also fine with only visual feedback when using hand tracking on the Quest2 for instance, and the stuff I am manipulating are menus and lists, and I’m fine with no tactile feedback for fundamentally virtual concepts.

dahauns 4y ago
>Glass is fine for visual things, and I’m also fine with only visual feedback when using hand tracking on the Quest2 for instance. Hard disagree here. As impressive as the hand tracking in the Quest 2 is (especially the new 2.0 iteration - just...wow.), I'll prophesize that until at least some kind of haptic feedback system is available (Powerglove 2.0! :) ) it will hit a brick wall. Hard. It's such a natural mode of interaction that the total lack of haptic feedback sticks out like a sore thumb and breaks the immersion hard - so much so that I find myself going back to the Oculus controllers after a few minutes because they feel(!) more natural. They only might be a crude first order approximation, but at least there I have a "power grip", for example.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  I find this pretty interesting in that we still haven’t found a practical “raison d’etre” for VR, which makes the great and deal breaking parts completely different for each of us. I see the future of VR as two-fold, with the use as a specific tool on one side, and games/entertainment on the other side. On the tool side, I see hand tracking as 90% there, would use it mostly for navigation and input, and totally see myself in excel like applications with finger gestures and Minority Report like movements but actually well thought and useful. I am with you one the game/entertainment side, where more feedback and immersion would tremendously help enjoy being in the moment and feeling things that aren’t there.
bmitc 4y ago
Can you give other examples of countless? You've listed two companies, Nintendo with their Switch controllers and Labo and Microsoft with things like the Surface Dial, that are some of the only companies exploring stuff like that. You make it sound like it's ubiquitous when 99% of people interact with the digital world through one or two fingers (or a few more with a keyboard or a hand with a mouse).
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Google went with squeezing on past phones, Sony put a tremendous effort on the trigger mechanism for the PS5, Panic playing with the crank handle on the Playdate, to stay on very public products. And yes I see a lot more on up to come products designed for VR. I agree 99% of people interact with very shallow feedback, and that’s I think a reasonable state, 99% of the applications we use are effectively shallow and require very simple input and only have a basic output (it makes me think about the amount of people using no more than 2 or 3 keyboard shortcuts for their daily tasks on a desktop computer, they’re not stressing about getting more from these interactions) PS: I feel silly not mentionning on Apple or Samsung’s stylus with pressure and angle sensitivity…
  - crooked-v 4y ago
    Steam's VR controllers and the Steam Deck play with a distinction between "touch" and "press" with buttons/joysticks, for more intuitive multimodal controls. For example, various Steam Deck control schemes have gyro aiming, but only while you have thumb touching the stick. It's one of those things that's very intuitive in use but hard to explain the "why" to somebody who hasn't tried it.
munificent 4y ago
I think in many ways, you're reinforcing his point. Your perspective here is one that doesn't even consider ways of interacting beyond touching a flat screen. When you talk about haptics, you only mention passive haptic feedback: annoying bumps, buzzes, and rumbles. You're right that those are annoying and mostly useless (though the haptic feedback on MacBook Pro trackpads is quite nice). But that's not what he's talking about at all. His whole point is that interacting with tool's isn't "fundamentally virtual". That's a choice that technology has made because screens of pixels are so amenable to software control. If you want to, say, decide which restaurant to eat at, there's nothing intrinsically visual or 2D about that. We assume that a screen is the only natural way to do that simply because we're used to that paradigm, which is exactly the problem he's ranting about. Imagine a "restaurant tray". It has, I don't know, physical sliders and buttons at the top where you can specify what kinds of restaurants you're OK with. When you do, a bunch of tokens appear on the tray for every potential restaurant. You and your party can reach out and grab them. Group a few together as potential ones. Sweep the ones no one wants off to the side. Maybe let each person take and hold their favorite, or pull them over to their side of the tray. Swap and trade them like poker chips. Think about how much more immediate and collaborative that process would be for reaching agreement on where to go. That's the kind of stuff he's talking about. You might be thinking, "Well it would be too hard to build a system that creates physical tokens for every possible restaurant." But, again, that's a technological problem we'll only solve if we have a vision for those kinds of experiences in the first place. If we can't see beyond pixels on screens, we'll never get there.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Thanks, I think I better understand the point he is making. I would call that the “why don’t we have flying cars” kind of thinking, and the restaurant example feels the same to me. To the “that's a technological problem we'll only solve if we have a vision for those kinds of experiences in the first place.”, that’s a valid point. I think were I stray from that is I don’t feel the appeal of the vision. A restaurant giving me complex “a choosing experience” instead of presenting the traditionally “flat” list and menus is not an improvement from my perspective. In general, I think we’re at a stage where interface that make more sense physically are still physical. For instance cars are completely electronically driven but we (still) have physically optimized controls. My oven is a computer, but I have nobs and buttons that click. My “smart” lights have rotating controls to adjust brightness, etc. These interfaces are well into the world and I feel they’re not in the article because the author (and you perhaps ?) take it for granted.

dahauns 4y ago

>Glass is fine for visual things, and I’m also fine with only visual feedback when using hand tracking on the Quest2 for instance. Hard disagree here. As impressive as the hand tracking in the Quest 2 is (especially the new 2.0 iteration - just...wow.), I'll prophesize that until at least some kind of haptic feedback system is available (Powerglove 2.0! :) ) it will hit a brick wall. Hard. It's such a natural mode of interaction that the total lack of haptic feedback sticks out like a sore thumb and breaks the immersion hard - so much so that I find myself going back to the Oculus controllers after a few minutes because they feel(!) more natural. They only might be a crude first order approximation, but at least there I have a "power grip", for example.

makeitdouble 4y ago
I find this pretty interesting in that we still haven’t found a practical “raison d’etre” for VR, which makes the great and deal breaking parts completely different for each of us. I see the future of VR as two-fold, with the use as a specific tool on one side, and games/entertainment on the other side. On the tool side, I see hand tracking as 90% there, would use it mostly for navigation and input, and totally see myself in excel like applications with finger gestures and Minority Report like movements but actually well thought and useful. I am with you one the game/entertainment side, where more feedback and immersion would tremendously help enjoy being in the moment and feeling things that aren’t there.

bmitc 4y ago

Can you give other examples of countless? You've listed two companies, Nintendo with their Switch controllers and Labo and Microsoft with things like the Surface Dial, that are some of the only companies exploring stuff like that. You make it sound like it's ubiquitous when 99% of people interact with the digital world through one or two fingers (or a few more with a keyboard or a hand with a mouse).

makeitdouble 4y ago
Google went with squeezing on past phones, Sony put a tremendous effort on the trigger mechanism for the PS5, Panic playing with the crank handle on the Playdate, to stay on very public products. And yes I see a lot more on up to come products designed for VR. I agree 99% of people interact with very shallow feedback, and that’s I think a reasonable state, 99% of the applications we use are effectively shallow and require very simple input and only have a basic output (it makes me think about the amount of people using no more than 2 or 3 keyboard shortcuts for their daily tasks on a desktop computer, they’re not stressing about getting more from these interactions) PS: I feel silly not mentionning on Apple or Samsung’s stylus with pressure and angle sensitivity…
- crooked-v 4y ago
  Steam's VR controllers and the Steam Deck play with a distinction between "touch" and "press" with buttons/joysticks, for more intuitive multimodal controls. For example, various Steam Deck control schemes have gyro aiming, but only while you have thumb touching the stick. It's one of those things that's very intuitive in use but hard to explain the "why" to somebody who hasn't tried it.

munificent 4y ago

I think in many ways, you're reinforcing his point. Your perspective here is one that doesn't even consider ways of interacting beyond touching a flat screen. When you talk about haptics, you only mention passive haptic feedback: annoying bumps, buzzes, and rumbles. You're right that those are annoying and mostly useless (though the haptic feedback on MacBook Pro trackpads is quite nice). But that's not what he's talking about at all. His whole point is that interacting with tool's isn't "fundamentally virtual". That's a choice that technology has made because screens of pixels are so amenable to software control. If you want to, say, decide which restaurant to eat at, there's nothing intrinsically visual or 2D about that. We assume that a screen is the only natural way to do that simply because we're used to that paradigm, which is exactly the problem he's ranting about. Imagine a "restaurant tray". It has, I don't know, physical sliders and buttons at the top where you can specify what kinds of restaurants you're OK with. When you do, a bunch of tokens appear on the tray for every potential restaurant. You and your party can reach out and grab them. Group a few together as potential ones. Sweep the ones no one wants off to the side. Maybe let each person take and hold their favorite, or pull them over to their side of the tray. Swap and trade them like poker chips. Think about how much more immediate and collaborative that process would be for reaching agreement on where to go. That's the kind of stuff he's talking about. You might be thinking, "Well it would be too hard to build a system that creates physical tokens for every possible restaurant." But, again, that's a technological problem we'll only solve if we have a vision for those kinds of experiences in the first place. If we can't see beyond pixels on screens, we'll never get there.

makeitdouble 4y ago
Thanks, I think I better understand the point he is making. I would call that the “why don’t we have flying cars” kind of thinking, and the restaurant example feels the same to me. To the “that's a technological problem we'll only solve if we have a vision for those kinds of experiences in the first place.”, that’s a valid point. I think were I stray from that is I don’t feel the appeal of the vision. A restaurant giving me complex “a choosing experience” instead of presenting the traditionally “flat” list and menus is not an improvement from my perspective. In general, I think we’re at a stage where interface that make more sense physically are still physical. For instance cars are completely electronically driven but we (still) have physically optimized controls. My oven is a computer, but I have nobs and buttons that click. My “smart” lights have rotating controls to adjust brightness, etc. These interfaces are well into the world and I feel they’re not in the article because the author (and you perhaps ?) take it for granted.