Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Let's talk about multitasking as a feature

And immediately stop before doing any more damage. Look at any recent smartphone or tablet advertisements about multitasking. They're awful.

"You know what, we glued this clunky multitasking mode on the side of an already kind of lost operating system. Are you excited? We surely are, because it super easy for you to multitask when you're in the mood for multitasking."

Seriously. Multitasking is not a feature and you shouldn't talk about it as one. Ever.

An operating system either is or is not designed for handling multiple tasks simultaneously. It's the behavior how the OS treats applications and their windows. Whether it's giving its user a desktop pedigree control over them or not.

Without doing a serious overhaul to your operating system, you cannot change those things. Adding another feature to the side will definitely not do that. It just makes you look funny.

Unless you make stuff up of course. And that's exactly what happens in those advertisements. That will make you look even worse than funny.

Now, the main purpose of a mobile operating system is to allow user tasks to be done on the go. To enable whatever user wishes to do. Be it business, pleasure or both at the same time. The user is in control and the operating system responds to that call without questioning it.

For the experience to be responsive and smooth, the OS needs to be lean and unobtrusive. After all, the OS will always be secondary to what user wishes to do with the device. Complex operating systems require more memory and processing power than simple ones, eating away system resources from user tasks like gaming, browsing or watching movies.



However, implementing multiple home screens, truckload of widgets, separate app drawers or dedicated places user needs to go, to do different things, is just an amusement ride. Disguised usually as personalization. Yet another dishonest word used to cram in features.



Do these features give more visibility or priority to user tasks? Do they free system resources for those applications user wishes to keep ready to be used? Do they improve how application windows can be controlled?

No. They do not.

Not a single one of them had anything to do with improving how the operating system handles applications or makes them perform any better. Neither do they make it any more personal. Personal is not about giving you more things to manage. Personal is about you, how a device fits to your needs.

But what they do contribute towards is increased operating system complexity, increased hardware requirements and development effort. The resulting software is slower to load, slower to learn, slower to develop, maintain and fix. Most unfortunately, it's also slower to use since user tasks aren second class citizens.

Why do people buy that stuff then?

Most of the time they have too much faith in technology. It's easy to show a potential buyer how to flick between home screens or play around decorating them, changing sizes of things and managing bits and pieces. Just an illusion of power or relevance. Merely additional things you need to do since it's there and you bought it.

When buying a hammer, the sales person will not tell you how easy that specific product is to keep on a table, or how well does it match with your favorite novel or coffee brand. You will not hear how pets in general think about that hammer.

Anyone buying a hammer would walk straight out, unless sticking around out of mad curiosity, to maybe get a glimpse of where the sales department ends and the padded cells begin.

But when it comes to phones and tablets, people just blindly trust the technology and ignore all the insanity. They trust that these devises with their operating systems and applications give user needs the highest priority.

Sadly the mainstream crop of smart-devices fail miserably in that. The operating system has become more important. Both the manufacturer brand and the OS are treated as celebrities. User tasks on the other hand can be stopped to save system resources.

The OS race is currently about coming up with desperate distractions. A race that rewards competitor with increased OS complexity, increased hardware requirements and increased development effort. A race funded by its spectators.

Everybody needs to stop supporting this unsustainable competition. Your local school will at least thank you for your donation.

Stop believing blindly in technology because it's so easy to get wrong.

Imagine a mobile operating system as a modern version of a workbench. Only, that this virtual counterpart travels in your pocket. A workbench that has apps instead of tools, to let you do different things. A workbench that runs on your smartphone or a tablet.

It's important that this virtual workbench is designed to support your intentions and the tools you need to fulfill them. Tools that enhance and augment your abilities. Anything outside that is not helping.

One key function of a workbench is to keep all your tools neatly arranged and easily found. When you have plugged in and properly adjusted several tools, it's important that there's plenty of room on your bench for them to avoid repeating unnecessary steps in preparing them for use.

It's how naturally you're able to switch from using a single tool to another one, that defines how good of a workbench you've gotten yourself. It's how much the "generator" inside the bench can provide power to your tools in relation to using it for the bench itself. How many tools it can support simultaneously, without you having to turn off some of the ones you need.  It's how long can you go without having to top up the generator tank.

It's how the overall experience works for you, and for the tools you use.
Multitasking is not a feature. It will never be.

The next time when a sales person tells you how easy it's to flick between home screens, or how well does a widget or a tile match with your favorite novel or coffee brand, or how newly added features are approved by pets, and how all that will make you more efficient; walk out and buy a workbench.

At least you know it doesn't try to cheat or distract you from the purpose it's intended for.

That is an honest product. People. Demand the same from your smart-devices.

Thanks for reading and see you in the next post. In the meantime, agree or disagree, debate or shout. Bring it on and spread the word.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Thoughts about doing the impossible

Happened on a beautiful autumn day at Kangasala, near Tampere.

We were having a get-together with our friends. Kids were nicely playing outside, when my friend and I were tasked to lure them back in.

And out we went.

While persuading the loud lot to seize their sandbox adventure, in favor of sitting around the table inside, the topic of something being impossible somehow popped up.

Saying that something is impossible is very easy.

People default to impossible all the time when they don't care to think about it. When Jolla first came out with the news of continuing from where MeeGo had previously fallen off the grid, many reached out for the default reaction.

To build a new operating system, with a smaller crew than what Samsung has people for making coffee, was treated as nothing short of hilarious.

It was a good laugh. People from all over the technology industry stood up for a chuckle. Important people. Powerful people.

Impossible was contagious. Once someone said it, it was easy to agree on. All you had to do, is repeat it.

We got told it's impossible without 100M€ investment and serious commitments from industry partners. The emphasis was on impossible.

When repeated enough times, it turned into a truth. It was now officially as impossible as it was hilarious.

I don't like the word impossible.

Improbable is much better. Because that's how it usually is. Things have varying degrees of probability.

When you think about the word impossible, it's a stop sign for your thoughts. You're not allowed to proceed. It really is impossible. However, if you replace the impossible with improbable and think again, you're allowed to take a closer look.

I like to take things apart. In my opinion, many things are more beautiful on the inside. For me as a kid, it meant great fun.

For my parents, property damage.

Taking thins apart is a good way to judge probability? Up-close, you can identify things that increase or decrease the probability.

For Jolla, the improbability factor was in the insane ratio between the amount of work and the amount of people working on it. Since we couldn't really help the people part, only the workload remained.

Let's summarize it.

It was considered improbable for a small start-up company to be able to build an operating system by themselves.

Now, that's already pretty well defined. Then all you need to do, is to increase the probability of building it. And that happens by focusing on what you're going to build.

What counts as an operating system?

Do we automatically imagine Android or Windows, both of which have accumulated an unhealthy amount of complexity over the years. Building something like that might be very improbable for Jolla. So, can you leave something out to increase the probability. To design something that counts as an operating system, that can be still built with the few people we had available.

All of a sudden you're talking about what is important, in what order and who does what.

A huge step from impossible.

When the news started to flow in, about global operators and retail chains signing partnerships with Jolla, the chuckling suddenly stopped. People from all over the technology industry stood up to look at each other. Important people. Powerful people.

With a question on everyone's lips: who said it was impossible?

Not to mention shipping also a phone running that operating system.

Only 10 days late of reported schedule.

With less than 100 people.

With around 30M€ of total investment, instead of estimated 100M€.

Be careful what you label as impossible. Because if you do, someone is bound to prove otherwise. What you deem impossible today, will most likely be only improbable tomorrow. And when that happens, it doesn't matter how important or powerful you are. It doesn't change the fact that you're mistaken.

So, every time you wish to dismiss something as impossible. Don't.

Just replace the word impossible with the word improbable, and think. Work your way with increasing its probability. Wonderful things can be achieved with an open mind and a positive approach. And if it's not probable enough today, pursue it tomorrow.

At the end of the day, negotiating kids to stop all the fun and go inside to wash their hands, wasn't impossible.

Just improbable.

And that we could already work with.

Thanks for reading and see you in the next post. In the meantime, agree or disagree, debate or shout. Bring it on and spread the word.

Harmonizing touch screen gestures

When you're using a touch screen device, you expect that it's meant to be touched.

When you move content up or down on that screen, you're expecting stuff to move accordingly. It has worked that way in mobile touch interfa... STOP!

Stay absolutely still. DO NOT try to move things horizontally. Slowly backtrack your flick and listen.

Flicking the screen sideways seems to be the thing to do these days. Nobody really knows why, but everybody does it. Why wouldn't they. More is better, so more flicking must equal more value. The more flicks you can master, the more you can do with them. The more fingers you add to the fun, the better.

A solid plan no doubt.

It seems like the smartphone industry, with certainly some apps to go around, is self-guiding itself towards maximizing the variety in horizontal gesture use. No holds barred.

To prove my point, I'll list some things that can happen when user flicks horizontally from the screen center. These are not in any particular order, and I'll stick with just applications to narrow things down. No app names are mentioned to keep things civil.

Let's just flick it.

  1. In the first app, by flicking left to right, you open a menu of some sort with additional controls or content categories. Just like pressing the menu button does from the app header.
  2. Another app does the same but using a different direction, from right to left. Surprise!
  3. The third one has a different behavior and a much longer flick is required. Son, you need to be more specific. A thumb extension surgery is a good idea if one handed use is your thing.
  4. A fourth app requires a specific speed for the flick. It didn't understand what your kind-of-a-flick was trying to accomplish. Not just any flick qualifies. Go on, try again.
  5. The fifth subject has only been reading user comments for the past two years, and hasn't yet implemented the required horizontal flick support. Please press a button on the top right corner. Or left, wait, it was at the bottom somewhere. Google it.
  6. The sixth contender is insecure, but polite. It asks you to define what would you prefer for that particular flick to do. Neither developers, designers nor managers could pick one, of all the possible features the monster of an app offers. They're hoping for you to solve the problem for them. You open the flick manager. While browsing through all those options to select one, you forgot the purpose of the app.
  7. Our last example application is the most advanced of them all. By flicking on top of an individual content item, and altering the flick direction, speed and blood pressure; you can delete, manage, reply, call back, link, fold protein and travel through time. In every multiverse. Times Pi.
Oh yes, modern apps have gotten really powerful.

But that potential doesn't directly transfer to the user. All different solutions aim to solve who has the most innovative application interface. Application design is focused on doing a very specific task, instead of a efficiently completing a sequence of tasks within multiple apps.

All eyes are on measuring an individual application performance, instead of the performance of the overall system. When reviewing the system performance, it's important to include user as the operator of the system. If each app functions differently, it comes at the expense of the overall system performance, because user has to adapt to different ways of how similar tasks are done.

Users are looking for smarter and leaner experiences. Doing more with less. Making that happen with application-centered thinking is difficult. Because each app is an island.

Fully independent, self-sufficient, self-governed and self-centered.

And every time you jump between those apps, you have to remember what island you're on this time. Even if they all, most of the time, are doing the same thing with a similar gesture.

How did it got so fragmented?

What was missing from those application development tools, were both the default behavior and function for horizontal flicks. Without those, everyone invented their own.

Sailfish OS was designed from ground up to allow direct control of the interface through touch gestures, without the need for additional buttons. This results in a much faster and efficient interface by bringing structure to how individual apps use touch gestures.

If you want to create an app, you save time in both design and implementation because the default behavior and functionality for those flicks is already built in to the way the OS handles application pages.

Now, let's take a closer look at them. To help remember and relate easier to Sailfish OS gestures, I'll give them names: "Symbolic swipes" and "Functional flicks". Don't worry, these are not official terms.


Symbolic swipes


Start from the display bezel and slide your finger over any screen edge to perform a symbolic swipe. They are controlling the operating system in the same way as a Home or power button would do on other devices, symbolizing the function of those buttons.



In the first picture, swiping from the either side takes you to Home screen. On the middle, swiping from the bottom edge shows the Events view with all your notifications. The last image illustrates a swipe from the top edge. It ends your current activity by closing the application you're in. As mentioned in my previous post, moving the notification access to the bottom edge helps greatly one handed use.

Functional flicks


Starting from the screen center, move what you see on the screen to either left or right, depending of the function you wish to use. Functional flicks are related to controlling the most important functions inside Sailfish applications. Like going back to previous page.


In the first picture, flicking to right takes you to the previous application page, replacing the common back button. In the middle, flicking to the left opens a page related to the current one (not shown in the video), replacing a common menu button. Close it by going back (right flick). A dialog page uses right and left functional flicks in canceling or accepting a common yes/no confirmation from an app.

Flicking up or down moves the content vertically as it does in many other device.

However, controls that directly relate to the current page content (create a new message, search etc) can be accessed by using the same movement direction. Imagine the content as an extension of your hand, like a rope. When you pull the content down, a pulley menu starts to open. As you keep revealing more menu options while pulling down, they become highlighted, one at a time. Releasing will select and perform the highlighted action. The name comes from an apparatus that's used to lift heavy loads.

Because you just used the content to access that menu, it doesn't matter what size your hand is, or is it a tiny phone or a tablet. You're not trying to reach and tap an icon or a button. Only the distance you pull down matters, and you can feel a small vibration when a new option is selected. Move content back up to hide the menu again.

Most of you have already done these in many apps that already exist out there. So it's hardly a first encounter.

Sailfish OS has simply harmonized and promoted common touch gestures.

If you think it's complicated, you most likely haven't tried it. Because it's not. It just takes few days for your hands to wake up from the button-based smartphone hibernation.

And the difference between a symbolic swipes and a functional flick is really where you start it. From the screen edge, or from its center. An easy way to remember it is: Swipe what you feel (device edge) and flick what you see or know (on the screen).

On almost all button-based smartphone operating systems, when you go to a sub-page, that page animates in from the right. The movement clearly communicates that it came from that direction. So what's the best way to undo that movement?

Yep, move it back to where it came from. I'll do another post at some point about interface animations and transitions.

Harmonizing and promoting gestures like done in Sailfish OS doesn't only makes moving and working inside applications faster and more ergonomic, but also much closer to how we're used to interacting with the physical world.

Nothing happens until you let go and stop affecting an object. If you lift a coffee mug from one table to another, the time you release your grip has a big impact whether it's a disaster or a graceful landing.

As long as you keep your finger touching the screen, you're in control. You can test what a gesture does as you can see what is happening moving your finger. If it was a wrong one, simply reverse the gesture to your starting point without releasing.

With a button-based navigation, you can only press and release a button. When you do, you get to enjoy the show from the passenger seat. You touch it, you buy it.

No peeking.

Thanks for reading and see you in the next post. In the meantime, agree or disagree, debate or shout. Bring it on and spread the word.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Pushing the touch interface to the next level

Earlier this year, at World Mobile Congress in Barcelona.

Before his main interview, I explained a journalist what Sailfish OS interface is all about. Why improving how touch interfaces work was important.

In the evening, I got to read this.

Breaking the smartphone mold isn't easy. Just ask Jolla

I was taken to school that day. Learned a thing or two about talking to media.

No regrets, though. To keep sucking, I got a vacuum cleaner as a gift (it was waiting for me at the office - I love you guys), and the resulting article title is spot on to wrap this post around.

Before you start creating anything, you have to make a choice.

Is it enough to stick with what you have? Is there anything you can keep and re-use? Or is it all beyond saving and starting from scratch is the right thing to do?

As I mentioned in my previous post, the problem is in the interface. The reason for the hurt came from the button based navigation. The solution that already existed before the problem did.

We raised our sledgehammer high, and brought it down hard. Buttons had to go.

As the dust settled, our creation emerged as pictured below. A smartphone with three buttons less. It doesn't look like much, now does it?

And that’s exactly the point. It’s not about the looks. It's how it works with your hand. It's your hand that completes the touch interface.

Not by adapting, but by the way it naturally works.

It's more than what you see. Much more. When you take advantage of how the human body works, several benefits are gained over other interfaces, that treat our hand mainly as a mouse cursor replacement.

First comes comfort, because your hand size is irrelevant. Then speed, since less accuracy is needed.

Finally, when your brain recognizes a familiar pattern, it can immediately perform the matching interaction without eyes confirming it. It's just the way our body works.

And the interface works with it. Not against it.

Meet Sailfish OS.

The most commonly used actions (Home, back...) are based on simple gestures. This means they can be performed exactly where your thumb is most comfortable during content interactions (and not like this).

The notifications page access is also moved to the screen bottom edge for easier access with larger devices. Your hand is usually closer to that edge. Especially with larger phones and tablets.

My next post will illustrate better how Sailfish OS interface works. Meanwhile, you can check some quick tutorials on Jolla's Youtube channel.

In short, you swipe over the screen edge to interact with what you feel. From the screen center, you interact with what you see or know. But, I'll do a more detailed post about it next.

For a touch screen interface, our ability to know at all times where our thumb is in relation to other fingers, is important. To test it, close your eyes and pick up a phone. With your eyes closed, try placing your thumb on the center of the display. Next, try finding the device edge.

Both are very easy to do, because you've had that hand (and brain) since you were born. It's natural for you.

However, allowing you to make use of it on a smartphone, someone has to break the smartphone mold.

The one with the buttons.

Help us break it.


We're few against the many. The perception of what a smartphone is doesn't give in easily. It's been the toughest thing to face in my professional career. Almost every day I hear or read from someone how both back and home buttons are etched in the minds of smartphone users so deep, that it's impossible to change.

And that's sad to hear because it's not true. It's improbable to happen overnight, but definitely possible when given time.

Just by following others and copying what they do, takes nothing forward. Copying is the reason we're stuck with over a decade old touch interface with buttons in wrong places. When you copy, you don't think. When you don't think, stupid stuff happens.

Sticking to a vision has already made a big difference for our community. Instead of copying what others do, we challenged the smartphone industry. A tiny company with a wonderful community succeeded where many companies have failed.

In being themselves.

If you ask me or anyone working at Jolla, you will hear it's not easy to break the mold. Ask our community the same question, and they'll tell you it's already been broken.

A more natural touch interface might not sound like a big thing. Until you try it yourself.

And you've just hammered off a good chunk out from the smartphone mold.

Roughly the size of you.

Thanks for reading and see you in the next post. In the meantime, agree or disagree, debate or shout. Bring it on and spread the word.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Solving a problem before defining it is a bad idea

A big part of design is solving problems.

A big part of solving problems is defining the problem. A big part of defining the problem is identifying individual parts in that event sequence where the problem occurs.

Solving problems properly not only helps to really solve the problem, but can also expose other potential issues in that area, or even the system as a whole, resulting in better design.

Don't do it backwards.

Finding a user problem that fits an existing solution is problematic. The actual manifestation of the problem, in relation to user interactions, becomes easily abstracted or very difficult to spot.

In other words, you might know the user problem or need, but how it occurs as a part of a natural user activity remains unclear.

If you observe the problem where and when it occurs, you can spot the root cause and find a proper technology or solution for it. Without understanding the root cause, you might be treating a symptom instead of the problem itself.

Let's use an example. A button based navigation model on a smartphone. It's design done backwards (or intentionally screwing it up). It's also easy to illustrate and familiar to everyone.

Back and Home (and a possible third) buttons are the pinnacle of modern smartphone interface development, so surely they can withstand some criticism. Below, is an illustration of a hand, holding a generic smartphone that has a button based navigation, represented by three circles.

First, observe the thumb. Look at its position.

That’s what a relaxed thumb position looks like. Now, grab your own phone and, with one hand, scroll through a list of contacts. Then flick between some images.

What location did your thumb return each time after relaxing?

Can you spot a pattern in how your thumb is backtracking to the same location after each interaction?

Almost all content interactions are somehow connected to this thumb position. From that position, it’s very comfortable to draw a small circle, flick up, down, left or right.

It’s the place to be for easy content interactions.

Then, whose idea was it to place the most commonly used actions (Home, back...) related to content interactions, as far away as physically possible?

Reaching those controls from your relaxed thumb location requires both high thumb mobility and accuracy.

Or using your new “modern” smartphone with two hands. It doesn't help the matter if the access to your notifications is through the opposite end of the device.

"What, are you a left handed person? Oh, we didn't think it mattered (or you existed). Placing the back button to the bottom left was the right thing to do"

And this design accidentally worked when it was validated with much smaller touch screens over ten years ago. Except it didn't work even then for the left handed folks that well.

What happened?

A solution existed before the problem was defined as a part of a natural user activity.

All previous navigation schemes (let's all give a big hand to desktop interfaces) used to have a back button, so one had to be introduced here as well. Coupled with a Home button and whatnot. User thumb location, in that specific moment when the need arose to go back, was irrelevant.

A back button could not simply be in the middle of the screen.

Everyone knew that much.

The technology was driving the user experience. A solution (button) existed before the problem definition.

Small display sizes at that time helped to mask the issue. Everybody was thrilled to be able to directly poke at a screen to do stuff.

It was magical.

Today, over ten years later, everybody is still thrilled to be able to directly poke the screen to do stuff. A generation of users exist who haven't experienced a phone you can use with a one hand. They have no idea what they're missing out. For them it's normal.

For our hands it's a disgrace. As it is for the development of mobile user interfaces in general.

Mobile devices are intended to be used in a mobile context, where our hands naturally interact with the environment as well. For that reason, a mobile device interface should be unobtrusive and empowering.

However, if two hands are required to navigate the interface by default, it’s clearly anything but.

If you wish to get your other hand back, so that you don't have to drop everything else when you need to use your "smartphone", you need to fight for it.

Manufacturers will not just waltz in to your doorstep to give it to you.

Do you want an alternative mobile interface to exist? Good, you're not alone.

Thanks for reading and see you in the next post. In the meantime, agree or disagree, debate or shout. Bring it on and spread the word.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

How to judge a smartphone interface

Well, it's about time.

First, a huge thanks to Jolla Pioneer Fans and everyone in the amazing Jolla, Mer & Nemo communities, for the wonderful support and encouragement <3

For a long time now, I've wanted to do a set of posts that walk you through some of the less visible parts, both directly and indirectly related to Sailfish OS user interface design. This first post is a bit of a wall of text as I need to lay some groundwork, but if you stick with me the story gets better.

Also, this is important. I want you to focus. There's going to be pretty pictures, but not in this post. I hope you don't mind.

Lovely. So how do you judge whether a smartphone interface has a good or bad design?

Start by raising your hand. Make it dance and look at it for a while. Combined with the human ingenuity, it’s the ability to use our hands in a variety of fields and in a variety of ways, that has carried us this far. Our hands are highly adaptable, sensitive, efficient and amazing. Every single day.

I’m not the first one to point this out to you, and will not certainly be the last. Unless the smartphone industry suddenly stops being silly.

But trust me on this, it will not.

Old habits die hard and it’s easier to work with things you can measure. Emotions and how things work together will not fit into an excel sheet. Hardware specifications and feature lists on the other hand feel right at home. And the end result sticks out like a sore thumb.

Regardless of that pain, our hands continue to be amazing - and will not run out of amazing any time soon.

That’s one of the biggest reason why many current smartphone interfaces are considered acceptable. It’s because we, as users, bend over. Or it's our hands that do the bending.

What makes it kind of sad, is how the acceptance has been created through a clever indoctrination. The handiwork of a ruthless media machinery, feeding constantly new needs into our minds from all directions and channels imaginable.

A recently released smart phone claims to be "Bigger than bigger". Right, let's think about what that mea..

It. Doesn't. Matter.

Seeing past that pay-grade of bluff is hard. But when you do, you can judge the product and its interface clearly without any smoke and mirrors.

Now, focus.

For a product to feel natural and effortless, it should allow you to use it naturally by supporting the way your hands work. It either works with you or against you.

Working against you doesn't mean preventing you from completing something, but just slowing you down or making you feel cumbersome. Like, having to reserve two perfectly awesome hands for a small device, kind of cumbersome.

The exact opposite of how I earlier described the human hand.

This is apparent with many existing products. You’re wasting your potential. Dumbing down your hand to a level of a pointing device. Every time I think about it, a question arises: why are these interfaces then designed to fit the technology instead of our hands?

That's a simple one. It’s cheaper.

Ah, the great motivator. Why waste money on improving how things work, if our amazing hands can adapt! Just add another layer of features and do some marketing.

That’s the problem. Smartphone manufacturers believe their existing interfaces require only cosmetic updates. That adding features on top of an already shaky foundation will make it a good product. Our hands disagree, but nobody seems to care. All eyes are on the next shiny thing on the horizon. Same poop, different pile.

Still, it's us who have authorized this kind of model. A moderate product is better than no product, and if enough people have a moderate product, any shortcomings are negated.You adapt and forget.

Let's slow down. Stop for a moment even. Think about what our hands have accomplished in the long history of hands accomplishing things.

Once more, raise your hand. Make it dance and look at it for a moment. Do you want to restrain that potential? Look at the silly smartphone industry. It has dropped the ball completely. It needs to keep selling to sustain itself.

At your expense.

What little time is left between introductions of new models, goes into coating the previous version a bit differently. That cycle is so viciously fast that there's just no room to really think why we even have such amazing hands since a lot less would suffice. And the thing just keeps repeating.

As long as we allow it to.

Back to here and now. It doesn't matter whether you think you can or cannot make a difference, you're absolutely right. Always remember that.

Keep focusing on how it all works together, with your hand, enhancing or limiting our natural potential, while doing something you want to do. Does an interface allow you to fly or force you to walk?

That's how you judge an interface.

Finally, what did I mean by making ones hand dance? It's another fantastic ability of ours. We can imagine any series of movements, take dancing for an example and our hand can perform it perfectly.

Your hands ability to dance is therefore depending on your ability to imagine a hand dance. For pretty much anything, you have to imagine it first, for your hands to start creating it.

Never stop imagining.

Thanks for reading and see you in the next post. In the meantime, agree or disagree, debate or shout. Bring it on and spread the word.