Situated Research's Blog

Summary: Websites and mobile apps both frequently cram options into too-small parts of the screen, making items harder to understand.

A computer screen’s precious pixels are the world’s most valuable real estate. Amazon’s Add to Cart button is 160×27 pixels, or 0.003 square feet (0.0003 m²) at a typical 100 dpi monitor resolution. You could crowd almost 800,000 Buy buttons onto the floor space of the average American home, which currently sells for $160,000. Even a single Buy button will often bring in more than that — let alone the revenue from 800,000 buttons.

Normally, when something is extremely valuable, you try to conserve it. But screen space shouldn’t be hoarded, it should be spent. I see too many designs that cram highly valuable content or action items into tiny spaces while wasting vast amounts of screen space. Read more »

When the iPhone feels your pain: Smartphones are smart, but tomorrow’s gadgets will have emotional intelligence

Computerworld – We love our gadgets. But they treat us with an indifference that sometimes feels like contempt. They’re like cats.

But soon, they’ll act more like dogs – perceptive of how we feel, and reacting to our moods by joining in on our elation or treading lightly when we’re angry. Read more »

Television and cinema screens that produce holographic images without the need for special glasses are being developed by computer giant Apple.

Most current 3D technologies require viewers to wear glasses that allow the right and left eye see slightly different images to produce the illusion of a three dimensional image on the screen

A recently granted patent reveals that Apple, the company behind the iPod and iPhone, has been working on a new type of display screen that produces three dimensional and even holographic images without the need for glasses. Read more »

A newly unveiled Apple patent (USPTO #20100279768) reveals Apple’s plans for multiplayer, location-aware interactive iPhone games.

In a nutshell the patent describes how iPhones could be used for real-world cooperative gameplay, using the iPhone’s sensors, camera, GPS module and WiFi/wireless internet connection. Read more »

Image: From Introducing the iThink by Paul Mic on his The Monkey Buddha blog

The history of smartphones looks something like this: At the end of 2008 the very first Android handset was available on T-Mobile in the US. The iPhone has existed for 3 years. The very first Blackberry featuring push email came out in 2002.

From WAP and push email to iPhone in 5 years. From one iPhone to 60 different Android handsets in under 3 years. At that rate it’s challenging to create a credible mobile roadmap that extends as far as 6 months- and the rate of change is increasing. Read more »