Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Universal Remote

I wrote earlier on this blog about one of the most difficult interaction design challenges -- the design of a simple and useful remote control. Well, here is a new attempt. It looks good, but some comments noticed that why not use the iPhone as a universal remote? With an increasing interactive environment, we do need to find ways to interact with it. There are of course many different appraoches possible. Remote controls is only one way. Another is to use remote sensors and gestures, or maybe speech control, or... Any and every new interactive device becomes a part of a larger interactive enrivonment and we need to find ways for all of us to comfortably live and control these environments.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is interesting to think about new paradigms for interacting with familiar technology like TVs. As home environments becomes increasingly digital, I agree that there are countless new possibilities.

Since you mentioned remote sensors, take a look at this design I recently came across for a motion-sensing pointer based remote control. I think the zooming and scrolling suggest that this could be much more fluid way to navigate TV-based content.

Erik Stolterman Bergqvist said...

Hi Dave

I like that! Interesting, and I am convinced that we will soon see many more attempts like this. There is a huge need to create and design new ways of handleling our interactive environments. We'll see who and what will be successful.

Thanks for the link!
Erik