Web Standards Group Roundup
* Gestural Navigation
* Semacodes
* Fitts Law
* Usability
Maybe I'm completely losing my web design seo mind but I recently joined the Web Standards Group WSG. Joining was relatively painless, a matter of entering my email address into the form and pressing the enter key. After a few weeks of following their threads, mainly to do withcss , the geek in me got aroused and I decided to investigate further - be brave - make human contact and meet the people behind the web standards group face to face.
The April monthly Melbourne meeting was my opportunity. It was featuring John Allsopp, speaking on: "The Web Beyond The Desktop", and Gerry Gaffney: "How Users Really Search". It was held at the loop bar in Melbourne - a hip bar that sold boutique beers and would more than likely be frequented by clubbers and ravers than web standards people.
I kept close to the bar for moral and spiritual support. I was downright non-negotiable about drinking my way through the presentation - and in 20/20 vision of hindsight I did the right thing. I arrived a little early and observed an office dressed woman sitting at the table nearby, maybe my luck was changing. She wasblonde and dour. Swapping business cards is what people do in this kind of environment and could prove the genius of the web standards groupwsg . But no, she was just not giving off the right vibes (I always say that). When her date rolled up I surrendered to a night of geek speak made bearable by too many overpriced beers.
Gerry Gaffney kicked off the evening with "how people really search". No break through concepts, but there were over one hundred people there and they all seemed engaged by the subject and Gerry's delivery. A little light on for information, but I am anseo and can understand that he was speaking at a good level for the audience.
John Allsopp made the night worthwhile. As gathered momentum, he provided some interesting food for thought, topics I have not greatly considered, which I will summarize:
"We are on the brink of a revolution" - Gestural Navigation : The delivery of information is spreading further and wider than just thepc and now is delivered to mobile phones, ipods, Wii , toaster, cars, fridges and even vibrators - it permeates almost every moment of our waking lives. The use of motor skills to navigate will soon be a thing of the past. Skill and dexterity required to navigate throughflyout menus will become obsolete. Taking it's place will be gestural navigation. The gestural interface will using body movements as a source of input. This can be hand waving, foot movement even eye and mouth movements. Some are excited that we are on the cusp of revolution that will reinvent to way we interact with computers, making them exponentially more accessible.
Semacode - Linking the virtual to the physical: A semacode is like a bar code. It is designed to be read by mobile phones. When you take a pic of a semacode, which could be on a tee shirt, or on a poster or packaging, the mobile device is designed to interpret this information and do something with it. In most cases it would be aurl. So someone who takes a photo of you with a semacode on your clothing could be taken to your web site. Brilliant!!
Fitts Law: This one takes the amount of movement, the distance required to move and the size of the target to make deductions and measurements in usability.
So that's the strength of it. When it was all over I went round and had a chat to a few geeks and then to the curry house across the road where I got chicken curry, a cab home and it was all over.
