In Introduction to Motion Control, we discussed media and cultural touchstones that have shaped popular perception of motion control experiences, what it means for an experience to be intuitive, and some heuristics to help us give our designs a critical lens. In this article, we’ll take a deeper dive into each of these three topics and also […]
// UX Design
For decades, motion controls have held a persistent place in our visions of the future. We’ve watched the super heroes, mad scientists, and space cowboys of popular media control digital experiences with just a wave of their hands. We’ve been captivated by these powerful, natural, and intuitive interactions; imagining what it would be like to […]
What is a city without its shops? Is it just an empty shell? How a team of developers in the Netherlands are fighting to draw attention to a dying retail street with an outdoor art installation.
From art galleries and museums to retail centers and hackathons, the Leap Motion Controller can bring a little magic to interactive exhibits. Here’s a quick design guide to help installation artists and developers get started.
Old habits can be hard to break. When I’m building Leap Motion prototypes, I often find myself slipping into designing for cursors and touchscreens – paradigms based on one-handed interactions. By remembering to think outside the mouse, we can open ourselves up to interacting with virtual objects using both hands. But when are two-handed interactions the right approach?
Immersion is everything in a VR experience. Since your hands don’t actually float in space, we created a new Forearm API that tracks your physical arms. This makes it possible to create a more realistic experience with onscreen forearms.
Going from zero to 60 can feel exhilarating – but if you don’t know what you’re doing, it can spell disaster. The same is true for first-time app users. Even with traditional interfaces, a clear and intuitive onboarding experience is important. For new interfaces like the Leap Motion Controller, it can be the difference between joy and frustration. The trick is to build an onramp – a starting experience where users can “speed up” to access the full functionality and interaction set.
Human anatomy is complex in its nature, and people have been trying to understand it since the late Bronze Age. My latest project, the Online Anatomical Human (OAH), is the first of its kind – offering real anatomical data in an online environment with existing linked knowledge and the ability to add and share new information. I describe this data as real anatomical data, because it’s obtained from medical imaging data and is not based on an idealized average anatomy.
The way we interact with technology is changing, and what we see as resources – wood, water, earth – may one day include digital content. At last week’s API Night at RocketSpace, Leap Motion CTO David Holz discussed our evolution over the past year and what we’re working on. Featured speakers and v2 demos ranged from Unity and creative coding to LeapJS and JavaScript plugins.
Art imitates life, but it doesn’t have to be bound by its rules. While natural interactions always begin with real world analogues, it’s our job as designers to craft new experiences geared towards virtual platforms. Building on last week’s game design tips, today we’re thinking about how we can break real-world rules and give people superpowers.