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Two New Categories that May Have not been Noticed

In yesterday’s post (A Rainy Virtual Walk Sparks Reading) I had a couple friends reach out today and comment that there was a new category, Calm :: Category :: vanderwal.net, that appeared. This is correct, I added “Calm” as a new category (today I went back and added it to past posts were it applied as well, a few more may be added as I discover the need).

But, I also made another addition in categories and used it on yesterday’s post as well, Ambience :: Category :: vanderwal.net.

The Two New Categories Have Long Been Central as Perspectives

The idea and ideal of calm has been something central that I realized I seek and have noticed for more than a couple of decades (and in reality, much longer). In 2000 I had a moment where this really struck me as I was leading a skunkworks / innovation project, but also writing code and coordinating the design to code, data interactions, and interoperability to other services. There was a lot going on and it needed focus. I hadn’t noticed that my desk phone had been quite for months. The assistant to the Executive Director came into our office to find me and apologize that somehow my phone number had been routed to the bureau’s fax number. I no longer had a working phone at my desk and hadn’t had one for months.

The apology came with a promise to get a phone working for me again. I realized the focus and lack of extra disruption this provided me with a calm environment to get things done. I asked for a promise to not turn the phone back on. My preferred method of communication was instant message, which I would read and reply to when I cleared my head of what I was concentrating on or email as an alternative. The phone ringing meant I should drop what I’m doing and respond.

But, I had long been aware of the need for calm environments. I like the loud, chaotic, and erratic, but in limited doses that have a known end. I learned early that severe silence also is a trigger alert for the brain for trouble. There needs to be a little something, but often something minimal so one can focus where they need to focus.

Calm and Atmospheric Ambience as a Criteria

I’ve long had a preference for calm interfaces and interaction models in design. I tend to push things out that scream for attention. But, with user testing I’ve found most people get distracted for heavy motion interfaces that are there to wow, but the motion isn’t the focus, it is the content that goes with it, which utterly fails at designing for use. This is often from people who don’t understand good design, nor what a product should actually do as the product’s purpose.These are basics, not good to haves.

For years I’ve had my devices with the sound off, or a light ambient sound that is just noticeable in the background. I may have something in the background playing as music or atmospherics (like the background sound of a damp Paris walk for a few hours or a calm cafe). That ambience is akin to calm, but also provides something that is in the background and not screaming for attention. It is an atmospheric layer that can mute or numb the jarring cacophony.

When I’m writing to capture things as notes or writing to understand things a little light ambient sound helps. But, when getting to the honing of that output I need the focus on that task at hand. One of my workflow passes for things I write often goes through iA Writer app, which I bring up a fair amount, a it is focussed on your words you are writing. It is an interface with a calm interface, but can fade to your words you are writing and little more, or further fade further to the line you are writing in context of a few lines around it. The calmness and ambient focus pull everything else away.

There is a kindred relationship between calmness and ambience / ambient environments that pull one into focus and regard the task at hand with the care and attention it needs.

Calm and Ambience are Attributes Worth Noting

In my notes on environment, gatherings, but also apps and services the term “calm” shows up a lot. These are often things I deeply enjoy and appreciate. I equate ambience with atmospheric essence and ambient qualities that don’t overwhelm, but are just noticeably there to augment, but not take the focus.

As I think about adding definitions to the category pages, these two terms, calm and ambience, are ones that are a little squishy. I also realize but I’m realizing I need to call out more as the are often central to getting things with the focus in the right places.

A Rainy Virtual Walk Sparks Reading

This weekend trying to get some fiction reading in and wanting a good café, but none reliably close with the vibe I was currently looking for, I resorted to another trick I use. The nice thing about a café is the ambient noise in the background and the “feeling” of people around. I often can get a lot done in a comfortable café or on a train with work, but also reading.

I resorted to popping open YouTube and searching for Amsterdam, Paris, and London city walks in the rain. YouTube has an abundance of 1-hour to 5-hour ambient walks through the cities with a little background noise. Adding rain into the mix also helps keep the streets more quiet from conversations, plus adds the wonderful sound of vehicles sloshing past.

This time around the option that looked best was a rainy walk through Paris in 4k and getting the volume just right. I turned on the reading light and got cozy on the sofa and it worked well. Every now and then I would look up and the location looked rather familiar, but I couldn’t sort out where it was and that was a little more distracting than I expected. I really enjoy this with physical books.

With ebooks or needing to do a little focussed with and wanting a quick step into another environment like a train, I’ve thrown on the Vision Pro and opened the fantastic app from the French high speed rail service, TGV. The “TVG Inoui” app provides an immersive 3D simulation of riding on the TGV and with an Apple Developer account, that immersive environment can be used as a backdrop to your work in Vision Pro or using the Mac Virtual Display. The sounds and peripheral vision in the environment work well enough to get my brain convinced it is working on the train, even if it is virtually.

Great Art and History Pairing

A week or two back while reading the Financial Times I stumbled upon a piece about The Metropolitan Museum of Art having added Alberto Giacommetti sculptures to the Temple of Dendur room - Giacometti’s fragile figures mingle with the gods at the Met.

I have a strong appreciation for The Temple of Dendur in The Metropolitan Museum of Art room. I think nearly every trip I’ve made to New York City / Manhattan and stayed, I have made a stop to visit this room. My first trip to The City in 1991 I stopped in to see The Met and gave myself around 45 minutes to an hour (yeh, I know) and I wondered through the galleries on a speed run looking for something that would match my (then) art appreciation. After about 15 minutes I went down and wandered into the Temple of Dendur room and was instantly amazed.

There are a few galleries and museums that bring the outside world and inside world into the same space. The Uffizi in Florence has a spot leaving the upper level of the gallery to exit where you look out a window and the Duomo is perfectly framed by the window. My thought was, of course this is included in the gallery, but yet it isn’t. The Temple of Dendur room to me is much the same, but at a much grander scale.

The temple room not only has the temple assembled in it with a water feature around the temple as an echo to the Nile, but the room with its floor to ceiling angled glass wall not only bring in natural light, but provide an amazing view of Central Park. I’ve been in the summer, but the fall and winter views out are amazing. In fall the changing colors come in and are a background blanket of colors and textures that add a wonderful glow to the pace. In winter, when the trees are barren the site is more stunning as the room pulls in the stark nature sketched remnants of trees as a backdrop and part of the exhibit with a bit more of a view of the architecture of The City and its artful glory.

From my first trip to each that followed, I’ve entered the room and been absorbed and it takes a while to get out. The room brings focus and often calm. But, it takes me in different directions with bring drawn in by the inside out gallery view, where the park and The City are fittingly part of the exhibit (as they should be). But other times it is the interplay of now and then across history and time, were I to blink (maybe really hard) would I open my eyes to an other time?

Now with More Elongated Forms

I have long been a fan of Giacometti’s works as the elongated forms seem fragile yet elegant, as well as whimsical as a giraffe. I’ve never sorted the how nor why they pull me in. They feel a little like alien form, but comfortably familiar like your long shadow from a low sun has taken more than a flat form and you can see it from many sides as you walk around it.

But the addition of Giacometti’s sculptures to the temple room seem like a magical fit - Giacometti in the Temple of Dendur - The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The pairing of the elongated forms and the tall elongated passage entrances to the temple and the gates seems like it would add to the magic of the room and space as a natural fit.

I’m really hoping to get to New York to catch the exhibit before it is gone. The bringing the now, to the nearly now, to the ancient versions of now into one magical space.

Swan Song's AR Design and Creation

I have a serious soft spot for the movie Swan Song (which stars Mahershala Ali and Glenn Close that is set in the near future in the Pacific Northwest. I was a fan of its soft and deep thought invoking exploration of life and replication, but also its near future view of technology. While others have been excited by the Minority Report’s manic augmented reality (AR) interface, the design and use of near future AR as part of work and personal life was really good. To say I was fascinated, may be putting it lightly. Swan Song (2021 Benjamin Cleary film) - Wikipedia was released in 2021 and Apple had yet to have announce Apple Vision Pro with its visionOS and really good graphics and workable interface. The visual and interaction design of what the main character (Cameron) worked in was incredibly good. Once Apple Vision Pro was out it felt like Cameron’s interfaces and interactions were part of the future road map.

The Design Studio Behind the Digital Interfaces and Interaction Design

Being that Swan Song movie was part of Apple Studios - Wikipedia I was believing Apple had a part in the creation of the user interfaces and interaction design of the AR in the movie. But, poking around in Vimeo I stumbled on the design reel for Swan Song - Territory Studio, so I finally found the studio that created the AR and digital design elements in the film.

Territory Studio’s Design Overview

Territory Studio’s page for the high level design overview of what they created for Swan Song is really good. I had been feeling like Swan Song’s design and AR team were more closely tied to Apple as their AR interaction design is very much like Apple’s sensibilities, with a more muted palette from a calm future. A lot of things that are in Apple Vision Pro’s user interface and interaction design patterns seem to have been hinted at, if not felt like they were previewed in Swan Song. But, I’m not so sure of the connection or how specious it may be.

The Territory Studio page has highlights of their visual / virtual design language, personal UIs, home office AR, AR home gaming, speculative hardware, smart watch UIs, and virtual mimoji. I really would love an even deeper dive, as this is much of the virtual interactive world I’ve been waiting for, and been hoping to see come to life for years prior to the film.

There is a whole lot in Swan Song that I loved from the time it was released, which was a couple years or so ahead of Apple Vision Pro being released. The headset-less AR and interaction design is one piece. But, I also was deeply taken by the whole story, cinematography, and feelings the film evoked, but also the keep thinking and consideration it evoked.

Swan Song Demo Video from Territory Studio

The show real from Territory’s work on Swan Song is in Vimeo: Swan Song Breakdown Reel - Vimeo

Animoji Trains Future Interaction Interface

In the September 2017 Apple iPhone 8 and iPhone X announcement Keynote they demonstrated the Apple ARKit driven face emoji, Amimoji. This is similar to other platform’s and service’s offerings.

But, there is something I think a little different about what Apple is doing. One piece is the face identification system that Apple has in the iPhone X and the 30,000 dots it uses on people faces to ascertain an identity, which makes it difficult for someone to use a photo or mask of a person to gain access. The other piece is people interacting with their screens and the live face scans of muscles and facial features moving.

It is this second piece, the live interaction where I have a strong hunch Apple is seeding things for the future. People are learning to interact with a facial scan interface for fun and learning the capabilities so to be comfortable with it. This seems very similar to Microsoft’s using the Solitaire game in early Windows to provide a fun interaction as a means to train people how to use a mouse and get comfortable with it.

Look out a few years and start to see not Animoji, but people talking to Siri to bring up an app on their wrist, car heads-up display, or (rather banal) iPhone and use facial interactions to swipe, scroll, sort, etc. feature options and light contextual information options for simple / calm interfaces. A raise of the eyebrow could scroll up options, a side smile left moves to preferred options and side smile right moves to next screen.

I know nothing other than a hunch, but playing around with this idea for years, I’m seeing the potential could be around the corner. Finally. Maybe. Come on Apple, lets take that step.