Microsoft Office Labs is doing some notable interface thinking, illustrated by their new video montage. It puts a nice-production-values face on large array of the ideas they've been prototyping. There's understated finesse to a lot of the design work on display here. As opposed to heavy use of 3D for 3D's sake, their vision is moving toward more graphical interfaces in general. So shapes and movement are augmenting or replacing text in many places. All manner of animated, interactive charts, graphs, symbols and maps lead us toward more visual thinking in the future.
And instead of lots of rendered polygonal surfaces, we see lighter, more elegant uses of 3D. There are some well conceived explorations around ways 3D can be useful. The 3rd dimension can show relevance and relationships through proximity or compress sets of things by stacking. They illustrate focus by using angle to turn objects away from the user. These are simple, substantive uses of 3D in the service of information.
But where the third dimension comes into play powerfully, is in the spatialization of information around people's bodies. Information attaches to people's fingertips as thier hands move from one surface to another. Graphics are displayed on floors and walls in relation to the user. In multi-users scenes, information belonging to a person stays near them.
While many of these ideas are pre-existing, its informative and valuable to see them in action, woven together into plausible user stories. Its an encouraging vision of being liberated from mice & keyboards and the potential power of visual thinking.
Update: This video was created by motion design firm, Oh, Hello. They have a high quality link here.
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