Sounds like ambient devices to me. A little pink blob on my desk tells me it’s time to check the weather, or some such nonsense. Now if only we could get these little devices into the $10 range, I might be able to plaster them about my room and provide all sorts of contextual information, without every really knowing it.

Sounds like ambient devices to me.

I think that’s one piece of the puzzle, albeit a small one.

Personally, I’m more interested in stuff like onscreen notifications that vary in intensity and level of interruption based on urgency and importance. So the “pink blob” is important, but the logic behind what triggers an escalation in attention-grabbing is really fascinating to me.

• “You’ve had ten new emails with the same subject in the last hour” (Crisis afoot?)
• “Your TiVo will be full by the time ‘The Daily Show’ comes on” (Will I lose the O.C.?)
• “You’re getting an unusual amount of traffic on port foo” (Hack attempt?)
• “Your site traffic has gone up 60% over the usual for this time of day.” (BoingBoing Link?)
• “You have an email that’s now been in your inbox for two weeks” (Am I getting slack?)

Having a system that can detect these kinds of patterns and know when to tap me on the shoulder would make it much easier for me to concentrate, I suspect.

Well look at that, a DIY Ambient Orb: http://students.washington.edu/natetrue/wlcolor/wlcolor.html

The last part should be /wlcolor.html

I’m a big fan of ambient displays. But for them to be useful, the effort needed to bring the detailed information to the foreground, and delve into the real information you need must be minimal.

Think of a (hypothetical, idealized) patient’s chart on the wall of a hospital room; it has a large, easily-read graph that can be taken in at a glance, and lots of little text that appears as a grey block from a distance. Then walk up to it, and you can read all the detail you need. Think of a project planning wall; lots of big text on poster-sized sheets, and you can scan across it and focus in on any detail you like. Think of a very good map. It bears both skimming and minute inspection.

The “Ambient Orb” annoys me, because it bears the same information from the corner of your eye as it does under scrutiny. So it’s about half right, and not the important half. If you want to know the details of the information indicated by that little pink glow, you have to look elsewhere, probably by navigating to it on your PC. And that’s a focus change. For over-stimulated, easily distracted people like …well, me, focus changes can act as a “hard reset,” and 45 minutes later, the emergency timer goes off and I remember, I was checking the weather because I was going to walk to the library… which is now closed, oops.

I believe that ambient displays and calm technology are wonderful parts of a new generation of interface concepts, but they’re not any kind of panacea by themselves, any more than a point and click GUI makes for a usable interface.