Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Why Not Make User Interfaces Better Than 3D Reality? (04 Nov 2004) Some designers dream about building interfaces that approach the richness of 3D reality. They believe that the closer an interface resembles the real world, the easier the usage. They strive for resolution that matches film—with rapid camera movement and lively animated objects. This is a dubious proposition since user studies show that disorienting navigation, complex user actions, and annoying occlusions can slow performance in the real world as well as 3D interfaces. Many constrained interfaces are designed to be simpler than the real world by restricting movement, limiting interface actions, and keeping interface objects in a plane. However, the strong utility of pure 3D interfaces for medical, architectural, product design, and scientific visualization means that interface design for pure 3D remains an important challenge. An intriguing possibility is that enhanced 3D interfaces might offer simpler navigation, more compelling functionality, safer movements, and less occlusion, than 3D reality, especially for information exploration and visualization tasks. Such features can enable superhuman capabilities such as faster-than-light teleportation, flying through objects, and x-ray vision. Enhanced 3D interfaces might have super-natural tools such as magic wands for instantly shrinking, enlarging, duplicating, or sending objects and enchanted environments that provide error prevention, history keeping, and programming-by-demonstration. Article URL: ftp://ftp.cs.umd.edu/pub/hcil/Reports-Abstracts-Bibliography/2004-29html/2004-29.pdf Read 37 more articles from University Of Maryland sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: BBCi to add page numbers to its navigation     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy