UI and usUI and us Bloghttp://www.uiandus.com/blog/2012-04-16T01:38:29ZSquarespaceUniversal Terms of Purchase - A Consumer Version of TOShttp://www.uiandus.com/blog/2012/4/16/universal-terms-of-purchase-a-consumer-version-of-tos.htmlKeith Lang2012-04-16T00:51:57Z2012-04-16T00:51:57Z 

  • Disclaimer 1) I'm no expert on licensing, open sources licences etc.
  • Disclaimer 2) I'm not a lawyer and have never been the stunt double for one on TV
  • Disclaimer 3) This post is on the boundary of User Experience, right at the edge of the experience 'do I buy/use it or not'. So.

 

Leverage the concept of BSD-style (etc) licensing 

All of us who use software, online services, and many other non-technological services are familiar Terms of Service, or similar. A huge length of text, which is generally optimized highly optimized for the company providing the service. 

What if we could take the concept of the GNU/BSD etc. style licensing and offer that to consumers? A 'Universal Terms of Service' or UTOP, written for the benefit of consumers/customers, which a service or product provider could adhere to.

 

Types of things the UTOP would cover:

 

  • That ingredients and full source of ingredients would be listed
  • Definitions for all "features" numerically. For example "Free Range" = Max of 10,000 chickens per hectare
  • That personal data would not be traded with other companies
  • That the company complies with some defined employee work conditions
  • etc.

 

"Complies with Universal Terms of Purchase 1.5"

How I imagine this would work: on the box/website/posted at place of business is this term. Breeching of this contract would enable a single person, with this clear legal document in place to seek compensation or other mechansim. The incentive for companies would  be to online marketing driving savvy customers to products that adhere to the UTOP, and a general preference to purchase stuff under this license.

 

Downsides:

 

  • To my understanding, MIT/BSD etc licenses were driven by the creator/consumer community. There may be less incentive from the pure 'consumer' end.
  • A pessimistic view would see industry impersonate and confuse consumers with similar labels; Imagine the box saying "Complies with UNOPE 2.0 (Much better than UTOP 1.0!)"
  • It's easy for big industry to sue a single consumer (think piracy cases). The other direction takes organization, and expensive cross-country legal muscle

 

 

]]>Making a better touchscreen experience by lowering latencyhttp://www.uiandus.com/blog/2012/3/15/making-a-better-touchscreen-experience-by-lowering-latency.htmlKeith Lang2012-03-14T13:36:56Z2012-03-14T13:36:56Z

via twolivesleft

]]>Kinect Hacking a New Musical Interfacehttp://www.uiandus.com/blog/2011/9/18/kinect-hacking-a-new-musical-interface.htmlKeith Lang2011-09-18T06:14:41Z2011-09-18T06:14:41Z

DJ fresh - Louder JAMkinect from Jonathan Hammond on Vimeo.

Found via the great kineme Quartz Composer forum

]]>The Rise and Rise of the Indie Mac/iOS Developer Conferencehttp://www.uiandus.com/blog/2011/8/22/the-rise-and-rise-of-the-indie-macios-developer-conference.htmlKeith Lang2011-08-22T00:37:19Z2011-08-22T00:37:19Z 

A good friend of mine is on the team of an upcoming indie-run iOS developer conference called Swipe.

It looks great. And it seems like a worldwide trend:

Melbourne, Australia: Swipe Conference  - Sep 5th

Brighton, UK: Update Conference  - Sep 5th

Denver, USA: 360iDev - Sep 11th

Edinburg, Scotland: NSScotland  - Oct 1

Massachusetts, USA: Voices That Matter  - Nov 12


]]>Introducing Prototypes for Machttp://www.uiandus.com/blog/2011/5/26/introducing-prototypes-for-mac.htmlKeith Lang2011-05-25T20:23:36Z2011-05-25T20:23:36Z 

If you design, code or have ideas for iPhone or iPod touch, you may be interested to hear about a brand new Mac application I worked on: Prototypes. Sexy icon by Wolfgang Bartelme btw :)

Prototypes is a Mac desktop app that Duncan Wilcox built (with some help from me) to allow you to quickly take your existing mockup images (made with Photoshop, Illustrator, a crayon etc!), and link them together to create a navigable mini-site that runs on iPhone.

Some nice writeups already: 

No Code, No Problem. Prototypes Turns Ideas Into Working Apps. (gigaom.com)

Prototypes (Lukas Mathis at ignorethecode.net)

 

Point your phone to ptyp.es and use the PIN 1234 5678 to see an example of what it can do.

Please do let me know what you think — it's definitely a 1.0 with lots of room for improvements and new features. Some of those planned are…

  • Support for landscape
  • iPad resolution support

Oh, and you can buy it from the Mac App Store: 

http://itunes.com/mac/prototypes

]]>Only Show Dock Badge on mouseOverhttp://www.uiandus.com/blog/2011/4/4/only-show-dock-badge-on-mouseover.htmlKeith Lang2011-04-04T02:26:31Z2011-04-04T02:26:31ZI try to have Dock notification badges for Twitter/email etc. off to avoid distraction. But then when I do want to check quickly, I need to open the entire app window. What if we could choose to only see the notification badges in the Dock when mousing over them?

 

]]>Got a Project?http://www.uiandus.com/blog/2011/3/31/got-a-project.htmlKeith Lang2011-03-31T06:13:28Z2011-03-31T06:13:28Z

 

Hello! It's been a little while…

I've just tidied up UIandus.com a little with some new design. Hope you like it.

Also, I'd  like to let you know I'm looking around for some projects to work on — could be Interaction design, graphic design, iOS, Mac, Quartz Compositions.

Find out how I can help your project.

And Yes — more blog posts coming soon!

]]>PlayStation Move demohttp://www.uiandus.com/blog/2010/8/31/playstation-move-demo.htmlKeith Lang2010-08-31T05:17:32Z2010-08-31T05:17:32Z

via Ars Technica

]]>Minority Report Coming Soonhttp://www.uiandus.com/blog/2010/6/7/minority-report-coming-soon.htmlKeith Lang2010-06-07T00:56:19Z2010-06-07T00:56:19Z

There's a bunch of companies working with 3D cameras and gesture/anatomy analysis, including of course Microsoft's Natal. Control of TVs with this technology seems the first best fit.

]]>Jigsaw Junior — an iPad App for Kidshttp://www.uiandus.com/blog/2010/6/2/jigsaw-junior-an-ipad-app-for-kids.htmlKeith Lang2010-06-02T13:31:02Z2010-06-02T13:31:02ZI wanted to share with you a little side project I've recently completed with a good friend. Jigsaw Junior for iPad (iTunes link) is a kid's jigsaw puzzle app we've just released — read more at the official Jigsaw Junior site here.

 

Definitely got a 'laundry list' of things to improve, so I'd love to hear your feedback to fill in the gaps.

 

 

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