November 8, 2007

ZUI: The Next Step

Yesterday I talked a little bit about zooming user interfaces. Today I came across this jaw-dropping video of Jeff Han’s Perceptive Pixels Multitouch Display. It perfectly demonstrates what experience is possible if we put together multitouch technology with zoomable user interfaces.

Enough talked. See for yourself:

My vision for tandem is much more humble. It is about improving the experience for exploring Flickr. Part of that is harnessing the power of zoomable user interfaces. Another part, that I haven’t talked about yet, are filtering & layouting techniques that enable us to digest information in a more intuitive way. What I am really trying to do is bring together the concepts others have explored before me and apply them to Flickr. It’s as simple as that. In the spirit of Sir Isaac Newton:

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

P.S. Today I’ve got my first comment (that is not spam) on this blog. Besides that, it is an interesting one, too. I am glad that I am not the only one being fascinated by the potential of ZUI. Franklin Servan-Schreiber of Zoomorama is also working on bringing zooming to the web. To get an idea of what he’s up to, check out this introductory blog post and this beautiful example of his work. Thanks, Franklin.

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