Honours Thesis
For most people that know me, you should know that by now I'm applying for Honours next year, with the intent of researching some good old fashioned UI / User Interface (or the more poetic but abstract term, UX / User Experience). I have been incredibly interested in the practical side of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) for some time now, and was excited to see if I was able to flex my creative muscles when I did that as a unit (in ICT325). Unfortunately, that was not so much the case, in that the unit was largely the theoretical side of the study of how users use computers, and it did teach me some very important lessons; user testing and feedback is paramount to the success of a product's interface, and that I am not the user of the software I'm creating (this is the basis of user-centered design, which I'll touch on later). 
Even though I was certainly far from being the best student in the unit, my lecturer, Graham, ended up seeing something in me when I was constantly probing him for answers and new concepts, and then I would end up, post-lecture, in a stream of consciousness of my ideas for particular interfaces pertaining to that software and how to improve this software, he must have saw something inside me; a burning desire and passion to move into research and development of my own software. And he became quite vocal about my future at Murdoch as an Honours student.
I guess if it wasn't for Graham mentioning it, or the series of talks we had before and after lectures, I would probably be sitting at my house right now freaking out that I didn't know what to do for the next year.
So, thanks Graham.
Anyway, onto my topic. I have been fascinated with the concept of touch as an interface (if you read the first few posts and didn't pick that up, I'd suggest reading them again, or, at least the titles), and have been seriously considering doing something with it. Talking with Fairuz (another lecturer at Murdoch that just recently moved from Mississippi), I played around with his iPad and rambled on (again, another stream of consciousness) about keyboards and general text input with touch-screens, while showing him Swype. He seemed impressed by the idea, but I countered that it was limited by the qwerty keyboard, and that I wanted to see theoretically if I could improve the layout of the keyboard (much like Dvorak did in the 1930's, even though that never caught on). While the concept of having platform-optimized text input methods (that is, different versions of the keyboard depending on what device you're using) sounds cool in theory because you're using (arguably) the most efficient and fast way of typing, the fact is that humans don't adapt very well to such changes which require their muscle memory, which touch-typing very much does. Nobody wants to re-learn a new keyboard every time they pick up a new device just to save 5 seconds every 10 or so words, when it takes them several days to train themselves - the initial loss of productivity generally overshadows the later benefits gained, which would be one of the reasons I've not learned Dvorak's keyboard yet (well, that and that I can't seem to find a keyboard that really enjoys being swapped around easily).
So we have continued talking, and discussing different opportunities afforded to not only touch input but other paradigms, such as body and hand gesture, and even eye-based interfaces.
This wouldn't be a true HCI-based blog without an image of Minority Report somewhere in it.
Just for a brief note, I actually believe the input methods of the near future is a hybrid between touch, body- and hand-gesture, speech, and yes, even keyboard + mouse and (to a lesser extent) stylus. They will all be used in different aspects when it makes sense, much like how keyboard shortcuts are used in conjunction with mouse gestures and movements (compared alt-tab versus clicking on the desired window, both have pros and cons). The far future will, I believe, primarily utilize thoughts, intentions, emotions, eye movements, and maybe the rest when particular things won't necessarily work (such as brainstorming or trying to write free-hand using a mouse), but that won't be for some time.
Now, reverting back. Essentially I need to write a thesis statement about what I want to tackle. I have considered this:
- Software Interfaces between mobile phones, slate PC's, touch-based desktop PC's, and desk PC's (Microsoft's Surface) are entirely different, and should be treated as such. People use them differently, and these differences need to be taken into account, and utilized when developing software interfaces for each platform.
That should sufficiently give me enough content to write between 10,000 - 50,000 words on, right?
