"The proCONTROLL library allows Processing to communicate with controll devices like joysticks, joypads but also keyboards and mice." It works quite nicely.

"We made a commitment to real choreography. I basically drew a line in the sand and said, “If this interface is going to be great, and we're going to make a dance game that's gonna be transformative, you have to be able to dance 'Crank That' by Soulja Boy.” That’s the bar for a good interface."

Fantastic.

Nice post on future interfaces, but primarily bookmarked because I can *never* find that GITS:SAC still when I need it, and it's *brilliant*.

"Harrison's concept--which works, by the way--uses the body as a sort of echo chamber. Which is to say, when the user taps a particular part of their body, a sensor worn around the upper arm can tell if the tap-point was at a particular spot on the forearm or on one of the individual fingertips, by assessing the vibrations sent throughout the body by the tap." The detection of tap location is remarkable - a single sensor, that picks out location based on the characteristics of the body's reverberation from the tap.

"Use [ffffl*ckr] to find the photography you like using the simple idea that people whose work you like, probably like stuff you'll like. You start with a set of pictures - if you authenticate, it'll use 20 of your last 100 favorites - otherwise it'll start with somebody's favorites. Click any picture to load more. Don't like what that person likes? Scroll back and click a different picture you like. It's that simple."

Does what it says on the tin. Blimey. But also: awesome.

"Flicking over to the old graphics — and I, for one, found it almost impossible not to do so on every screen — shows you the game as you originally experienced it, and it looks completely different. Suddenly you remember the old imagery too. Conceptual memory gives way to visual memory, in a clear illustration of how the mind functions on different levels. It’s an odd experience, first thinking you recognise something, then discovering that the original was in fact quite different, but that you now remember that too, as additional detail. In one way it’s a contradiction, and in another it’s sharper focus." Emmett on the Monkey Island remake, and the ability to dynamically swap between old and new interfaces.

"Syncing is easy and reliable - as simple as you'd expect from a games company rather than as rubbish as you get from a GPS company."

This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about around a year ago - the value of bespoke, beautiful UI to interact with mundane code; people aren't just paying for software here, they're paying for interaction design.

"Here's a handy, step-by-step guide to using the sniper rifle in the smash-hit PlayStation 3 shooter, Killzone 2." Mitch Krpata has four hands.

Seriously, the UI customisation that some players go through amazes me. And yet: the level of customisation possible also amazes me. There's some good stuff in here not just on customising your UI, but also making it look functional and useful; UI design is still possible in the sea of plugins.

"...the biggest consequence [of a universal micro-USB adaptor] will be the ease of transferring data/content from street service provider to consumer, and consumer to consumer... There is a place at the edges of the internet where the level of friction makes content and data grind to a halt. It's largely unregulated. And it just got seriously lubed."

"Herzog Zwei was a lot of fun, but I have to say the other inspiration for Dune II was the Mac software interface. The whole design/interface dynamics of mouse clicking and selecting desktop items got me thinking, ‘Why not allow the same inside the game environment? Why not a context-sensitive playfield? To hell with all these hot keys, to hell with keyboard as the primary means of manipulating the game!" Brett Sperry, of Westwood, on the making of Dune II. Via Offworld.

"Our tireless multi-touch team is pleased to announce another bit of software meant to make your prototyping life a bit easier, via support for using a wiimote with our flash API to quickly turn any TV or projection surface into a multi-touch environment" Nice, simple, hacky.

"It’s easy to roll your eyes at the people who look at an Xbox 360 controller or Dual Shock and say it’s too complicated. “Left 4 Dead” proves there are hardcore experiences — not just Wii and DS games — that can draw them in…but the controller remains a challenge that won’t be easily overcome." I'd never roll my eyes; modern pads are very complicated, and twin-stick move/shoot is one of the hardest skills to acquire. Still, a nice piece of commentary on what learning to use a controller looks like, and a healthy reminder.

"The Whale Hunt is an experiment in human storytelling." 3000+ photographs, with what seems like a confusing-and-shiny interface to explore them - but hides a detailed metadata manipulation layer underneath. Beautiful pictures, too. Something really quite special; the "interface" pages should explain more.

Satoru Iwata interviews the product designer and producer behind the Wii Fit balance board. There's some interesting stuff on the prototyping process on the second and third page of the interview.

What a wonderful piece of a UI; two projections of a tunnel-boring machine, synchronized with one another, to help you visualise it in 3D. Lovely - not what you'd expect from a fairly niche company's site at all.

"The main screen of the application. All operations are performed using this screen." And you can tell, you know. What a UI!

Cultured Code do a large behind-the-scenes look at how they designed their Things iPhone UI. Lots of detail, lots of working shown. Even if you don't agree with the choices they made, it's excellent to see somebody sharing at this level of detail.

Kars releases the source for his travel-time map of the Netherlands. Nice to see the artefact-as-code, as well as the artefact-as-design.

An interesting series of concept images of what context-aware, mobile search and data-diving tools might look like. Some neat thinking around transparency and context.

Some really nice code to make decent sliders in jQuery without compromising the underlying HTML.

Haughey is right. Some of the worst offenders in this regard are delicious and Wordpress' default templates. A useful reminder of what is, frankly, basic copywriting. Copy as interface, gang!

"...words are a critically important driver in the success of the end user experience, and therefore a writer is a critically important player in the beginning. Period." Spot on stuff here - makes me feel guilty for being lax on copy on some recent work.

Wells Fargo hired Pentagram to overhaul the UI of their ATMs. Interesting article.

A nice reminder about the perception of interfaces (as opposed to the reality).

"This led me to investigate the evolution of game controller over time, a topic already addressed by others." Some nice, detailed graphical analysis of the mess that is controller design over the years.

"One-Sheeters are quick and easy marketing tools for information architects. They're like mini brochures to advertise IA deliverables and promote the IA practice in your company."

"Click-draggable. Range-makeable. A better calendar." No IE6 support, but it's not half bad so far.

"TimesMachine can take you back to any issue [of the NYT between 1851 and 1922]". Some lovely flourishes in the interface, and some remarkable content, as you might expect.

There are no software applications in the traditional sense... The laptop focuses children around "activities." This is more than a new naming convention; it represents an intrinsic quality of the learning experience we hope the children will have"

Notes from a talk by Will Wright in 1996. So much good stuff in here; it's almost certainly going to get a dedicated blogpost soon.

"In both scenarios, the interfaces enabling these quick experiences are DOS-driven. No gradients, no Ajax, no mouse. Fitts’ Law isn’t even of concern. Just alphanumeric characters and keyboard strokes." Character interfaces till rule for ePOS

"Designing playful IAs means taking care that you encourage discovery, support exploration and provide feedback on mastery." Kars' whole talk is great, really.

"Clutter Free is a plugin that lets you hide portions of the WordPress posting interface that you rarely (or never) use."

Some nice, insightful commentary on the relevance of Apple's Human Interface Guidelines in 2007. Good stuff, for anyone interested in interface design.

Expectnation has launched properly; some of the back-end infoviz for event organisers is really nicely built.

Initial press release for Microsoft's "Bob". Never mind!

"In this paper, I ... argue that interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means"

"Aesthetics incorporates more than beauty, and the purpose of this article is to introduce three aspects to build an aesthetics idea for the context of roguelike interfaces."

"It seems like, in current Rails, there’s not a very helpful helper around to give you select boxes which allow multiple items to be selected. So I present you with one."

Thomas Vanderwal on the new Yahoo! Bookmarks service. Quite dense.

People love mysteries and myths so much that they create them when an explanation seems too simple or straightforward.

Groundbreaking is hardly the word I'd use; it's a rather uninspiring list, and the copy is dreadfully average. But into del.icio.us it goes, anyhow...

"Inviting users to play classic arcade games by collaboratively moving on and controlling a 9-foothigh joystick (modelled after the 1980 Atari 2600 one), Mary Flanagan highlights the spatial and social role of the interface." Fun!

Fantastic: a bit of plastic you put over your DualShock2 controller to turn it into *reins*. Affordance a-gogo

Ahehe. It's Track and Field all over again! (But seriously: when you're given an interface, the instinct is to subvert it, hack it, and what better way than by modifiying the hardware? It's the low-tech version of an autofire button)

Some nice indicators in here - could come in handy.

Interesting picture. Interesting concepts - and way more interesting than the prototype PSX controllers...

Nolan Bushell speaks out.

Radio with no physical controls; it just gets moved in space. Nifty