
Spatial Interfaces (2019) - streulpita
https://darkblueheaven.com/spatialinterfaces/
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krm01
Spatial Interfaces are highly underrated and misunderstood. In the field where
I operate (UI/UX design) there are 2 loud camps: Pro skeuomorphism and Pro
flat. IMHO, both miss the point. Spatial interfaces are under explored, even
though it's how our brains operate. I'm currently studying the topic of
spatial interfaces regarding how our brains work. Or at least, the little bit
we know about how memories and thoughts are formed. Space is a centre piece in
how our minds operate. If you haven't already, read about the memory palace
and how spatial interfaces help our brains remember things better.

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Koshkin
> _2 loud camps_

And more generally, there’s another one: text-based.

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kwindla
If you’re interested in spatial interfaces it’s worth looking at John
Underkoffler’s work (Minority Report and Oblong Industries).

[https://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_pointing_to_the_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_pointing_to_the_future_of_ui/up-
next)

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Razengan
Sococo's overhead map feature looks really cool. One of those things that seem
like they would be obvious after you see them but almost nobody thought of.

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0x38B
This article speaks to me. For language learning and teaching, take a
technology like Mumble(1) with positional audio and integrate it into a game
so you hear those around you as in real-life?

Or what about taking a chapter from a textbook and making it into a level in a
game? The spatial world would help players to remember and fix things in their
memory, and they could always return to review.

Or a game tailored for language learning through real world situations, where
a teacher sets up a 'lesson' and then the students bring it to life. Maybe
that shopkeeper is a native speaker calling in and playing. The possibilities
are endless.

And this sounds amazing; bringing physicality to ephemeral webpages that are
here and gone the next moment:

"I could place my personal site on a street near the websites of my friends.
We could form a little village. I could then go to my favorite sites and walk
around nearby to find sites like them. This is a spatial interface that would
give us a new and intuitive way for navigating the Internet and understanding
how websites are related each other."

1: [https://www.mumble.info/](https://www.mumble.info/)

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jpalomaki
The point of video meetings and "who goes next" is valid. Have actually had
the exact issue. Simple fix could be to order the faces the same way on
everybody's screen.

If I'm have one-to-one meeting, I prefer to site face-to-face with other
person. Of course with multiple participants this is not possible. Wouldn't it
be an example of "bad skeumorphism" if the video conferencing would take these
real-life limitations to software? While the grid-of-faces is not natural, it
allows you to see everybody at once.

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streulpita
Yes, you’re certainly right about that. I often find that the gallery view in
Zoom is the best possible interface. And the limitations of real life might
not be better on a screen. But I’m still left wondering...isn’t something more
creative possible here?

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raihansaputra
specifically for standups: you can have a predefined list of people, displayed
in fixed positions in the grids. guests can have another box displayed in the
same order for everyone.

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ajuc
One thing about interfaces of graphic programs I recently realized is - they
all force the user to decide up-front how big the image is going to be, and
where it will be placed in the frame.

So if you "paint yourself into a corner and want to extend the image one way -
you have to select everything, move it, and scale the canvas or the selection
aproprietely.

This could be done automatically by the program every time you add new
details. The canvas could just as easily be infinite.

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dropofwill
Been a long time since I used it, but this is sort of how Illustrator works.
You do setup a canvas at first, but you can draw stuff anywhere in the whole
workspace. It’s not infinite and doesn’t auto expand, but it is huge.

The canvas is more of a way to group objects for export, you could resize and
duplicate them all over the workspace.

I used to use them as an ad how version control system, duplicate objects to
play around off canvas, and then “commit” to a new canvas.

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erwinh
Very interesting research domain, on the one hand computers are so powerful
because they can decouple us from our spatial reality, on the other hand we
need the spatiality to be able to navigate the computational structures.

If you are interested in this kind of stuff definitely also research Embodied
Cognition theory.

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chachachoney
Very interested. Can you recommend any seminal works?

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erwinh
This online entry is a pretty good starting point
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/embodied-
cognition/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/embodied-cognition/)

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chachachoney
Thank you.

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zwaps
this website loads the text of the article, and then does some sort of reload
and becomes completely blank. fyi

