DD2000 - Essay - Hand in

How have digital input devices such as remotes, keyboards, mice and pen tablets changed over time to improve comfort, usability and functionality?

Introduction

In order to look at how digital input devices, such as mice and keyboards, have improved over time in comfort, usability and functionality, I will look into certain areas of product design such as certain product life cycles and how technology influenced change. I will look at how the devices’ uses became more popular and both more professional and more casual as well as new jobs being created, and how they were redesigned to be more ergonomic, how demand for a certain device could decline and result with it becoming redundant and newer, more suitable devices taking its place, and how they were originally designed and how much they have changed, and identify trends and predict what may be in store for the future.

Past Devices Improving

The first commercial PC was the Programma 101[1] from Italian Manufacturer Olivetti in 1964 which functioned as a desktop calculator with a number pad, along with additional keys to add, subtract, divide and multiply as well as keys for printing.  It also featured a roll of paper that could be printed on. The keyboard of the PC is very small and limited and would have limited the capability of the machine were it capable of anything more than calculating numbers, additionally the keys boldly stand up from the machine and some of which are colour coded for ease of use. Which is something that doesn’t exist now due to how popular PCs have become as people have become a lot more adept at using them, it has simply become redundant and unnecessary in comparison. 

As technology improved, so did PCs as they began to be capable of carrying out more task, and so their user interface also improved allowing people more control over what they were doing. The BBC microcomputer was one of the first PCs to use a QWERTY keyboard and mouse allowing people to do much more with it. The QWERTY keyboard was first seen in a computer, the DataPoint 3000, a computer terminal, in 1967, although the actual design of the QWERTY keyboard is much older than that. 

The layout was devised and created in the early 1870s by Christopher Sholes who created the layout to slow down typist speed and to prevent key jams so that their workflow was kept at a more constant speed rather than being constantly stop by jams, “You know that my apprehension is, that the thing may take a while, and for a while there may be an active demand for them, but that like any other novelty, it will have its brief day and be thrown aside.”  The PC naturally inherited this layout for its keyboard as it was the layout that most people were familiar with and was the natural choice, as it prevented people from feeling alienated whilst also keeping up workflow. For example if a newspaper company were to replace their typewriters with early PCs they wouldn’t want to have a significant decrease in workflow as the typists are having to adjust and relearn how to type. In this instance typing can be seen as a skill that once learnt people will remember, similar to riding a bike, and there is a degree of cognitive psychology involved as people who have experience with QWERTY keyboards before will be able to type on any QWERTY keyboard fine.

The keyboard of a PC itself has changed significantly from early keyboards. As PCs have become more popular and more people have started using them, they have become much more ergonomic and easier for people to use with smoothed keys, tighter key spacing to allow people to type faster as they have to move their hands less. Additionally manufacturers have also altered the shape of keyboards to make them more rounded and comfortable with additional space for your wrists to rest to ensure that that their products are also safe and prevent people injuring themselves whilst working long hours at a PC, something that wasn’t present in older keyboards as people would spend less time in front of them. Also worth noting would be the presence of gaming keyboards as people have less need for a full keyboard and prefer to have a smaller compressed keyboard and with less keys for faster interaction. This is an example of how new digital devices have emerged from a new need that wasn’t around previously.

 

Similar to keyboards, PC mice have significantly changed over time as more people have started to use PCs and a greater emphasis on comfort and user-friendliness as the demand for such products began. Mice gained extra buttons and a mouse wheel as the tasks people would do on PCs began to become more complex and more ways of interacting with a PC were needed. This has again changed in the form of gaming mice which can have up to 14 extra buttons as people have found themselves wishing to interact with their PC faster and with minimal hand movement. Gaming mice among other gaming accessories also have taken an opposite direction in appearance as whilst more modern mice are aimed at being rounded and comfortable, gaming equipment such as mice have become more mechanical and robotic like in appearance, giving the user the sense that they are wielding a serious piece of machinery. Modern mice on the other hand have become much more rounded to suit the curvature of a person’s hand as comfort became important as more people began using PCs and for longer durations of time and the new comfortable design helped prevent injuries and discomfort. Additionally, although not a digital device, mouse mats have also evolved to have a large soft area on one side allowing the user the option of resting their wrist on it to prevent discomfort.

Old Devices Dying

Certain digital devices reach the end of their product life cycle and die off as they become obsolete, are replaced by better products or are made redundant as they demand for that product no longer exists. Although no device has completely died off but rather a newer model has improved there are still signs that it they are dying off. For instance joysticks used to be highly popular, especially during the “Golden Age of Arcade” as many arcade games would use them as a controller for players to interact the game with. Despite joystick designs being redesigned and improved time and again to have more buttons and more functions and even being designed to appeal to a different market, mostly the flight sim market, which is quite a small niche market, manufacturers aren’t making enough money to be able to release outstanding products like they used to. For instance force-feedback joysticks used to be a must as they would send vibrations and increase immersion within the game, however now most modern joysticks won’t do that, as manufacturers have to make their products cheaper to make as less people are buying them, which sadly may see an end to joysticks in the distant future as the majority of people either use more conventional mouse and keyboards or else begin to use touchscreen interfaces instead.

Newer Devices Emerging

Digital devices have not only inherited designs from older devices but newer and original devices have also emerged as demand for such products grew as new jobs have been created as technology has also grown. One such device is the pen tablet, a surface which tracks the movement of a pen and is able to interpret its data as brush strokes or sweeps, which was created to allow artists to work in a completely different medium in the form of digital art, allowing them access to photo manipulation tools among other things. This also aids concept and digital artists as they are able to digitally create their work, removing the hassle of them scanning their work, which in turn increases their workflow and increases the amount of work they can get done as well as improving the quality of their work. Initially pen tablets were very basic with little or no buttons on the actual tablet or the pen which limited an artist’s workflow as they had to spend less time drawing or painting and more time fiddling with keyboard hotkeys and controls. In comparison pen tablets now are very advanced with buttons on the

pen and the tablet which allowed artists to work much quicker as their hands moved around less as the buttons that they needed to interact with the PC were very close by.

Touchscreen technology has also made a huge impact on the way in which we as users interact with PCs and other such devices as we are not only able to still type on a QWERTY keyboard and draw with our fingers but we are also allowed to use more natural interactions with such devices such as pinching the screen to make it zoom out, or else drawing a circle around with your finger around a group of icons to select them. Touchscreen allows users to interact with devices in much quicker and more natural ways which makes interacting with the device easier, which indeed follows the trend of simplifying something down to make it more accessible to more people as more people are starting to use these devices.

Following the trend of digital devices becoming much more user friendly and becoming much easy for people to interact with is Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox 360 which uses 2 cameras to fully map a user’s body which enables the user to interact with the Xbox 360 using gesture based commands such as waving your hand, telling it to focus on you and give you control. Kinect’s technology was very user friendly, allowing users with little experience with video games to be able to play games that it supported, IGN rated it 7.2 out of 10 having said that "Kinect can be a tremendous amount of fun for casual players, and the creative, controller-free concept is undeniably appealing”. Although the use of a motion capture camera to allow the user to interact with a device isn’t necessarily a new concept, but it was implemented well with Kinect as it gave players of a game another level of interaction as they were then able to give squad orders with arm movements or voice commands. The Kinect is another device that follows the trend of simplifying interaction with a device and becoming more user friendly.

Google Glass is an interesting upcoming device as it features a heads up display mounted on a similar frame as regular glasses, which allow a user to view and interact with social feeds, the internet or possibly listen to music whilst they are on their daily routine. This means that people will be able to interact with the web and possibly each other whilst they are on the move during their day. What’s most significant about the Google Glass however is that it is a step towards merging both a person’s virtual life on Facebook and Twitter and their real life as they will constantly be able to keep up with what’s happening online. Additionally with such a product coming out in late 2013 – early 2014, it is clear that technology really is advancing at an incredible rate to the point which virtual reality is coming closer and closer to becoming much more accessible.

Conclusion

In conclusion, digital devices have become much more user friendly over the years with devices becoming much simpler in the way in which their control scheme is laid out, but also how ergonomic they have become as devices have become much more comfortable to use as more people have started using them. Additionally devices have become slightly more complex in some degrees as devices such as gaming mice and even modern pen tablets have many more buttons and uses, which, although it complicates the usage of such devices slightly, it also aids workflow and use as certain users find it much easier to simply use the extra buttons which saves them from having to use the keyboard.

Bibliography

Retrieved 27/11/12 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programma_101

Stoles, Christopher (1867), Retrieved 12/12/12, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Latham_Sholes

Retrieved 27/12/12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwerty

Retrieved 27/12/12 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_pen

Retrieved 27/12/12 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen

Retrieved 27/12/12 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinect

Retrieved 27/12/12 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Glass