Why did Shopify of all companies do this? Who would give Random Joe’s Shopify Store the permission to use their webcam? This looks like an absolute waste of time and money and a very impractical thing to use in general.
Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?
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Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?
#102I have a somewhat related question/thought regarding daily desktop use: is it possible to have the sound from the speakers follow the browser or window that's playing it? For example, having a podcast playing on the top right corner while a different website on another browser tab also plays sound, but with the sound source corresponding to its location, making it easier to distinguish between the two. It would also…
glue together web audio spatializaton and the coordinates of the window and you've got it.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A...
Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?
#103Why did Shopify of all companies do this? Who would give Random Joe’s Shopify Store the permission to use their webcam? This looks like an absolute waste of time and money and a very impractical thing to use in general.
There are niches in e-commerce based around specialized tools which require more permissions and user engagement than a basic store site. In some cases, such tools account for a significant portion of the total revenue. It's not surprising at all to me that Shopify would invest in this type of technology, and I would assume that other big players are doing the same.
Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's why minimalism has such staying power. Fundamentally, pleasing design is about repetition and consistency. Brian loves patterns, that's all there is to it. Good graphic appeal isn't a seasoning like salt which you can just sprinkle on by paying for a few better "designed" assets. Its possible to make really pleasing design out of parts that are individually seen as cheap and low quality. Its also possible to m…
I'm going to pull a print/graphic designer card and say that "minimalism" isn't actually a style. I think I understand how it's being used in this conversation as a shorthand for "2002-2012 Google UI", which had a massive impact on the way people thought about web design. But I don't think it's fair to say that the reason for the staying power of that particular type of minimalist design is simple repetition or consi…
Saying that designers are lazy and its their fault is a weak argument. For sure not all of them are lazy. Most of the time they are told what to produce.
What you are talking about is economics. Its possible to deliver good results faster/cheaper and the result is more timeless. Also clean interfaces are putting function and content in front. Thats why companies choose this.
So dont blame the designer but the boss/manager. Its like saying that app is slow because devs are lazy.
Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?
#105One potential life-changing application I haven't yet found for eye tracking is to train monocular people to align their blind eye properly. I don't know if it's possible, but if it is at least partially successful for a monocular person's simulated depth perception, it could improve their eye contact with others and benefit their social lives immensely.
Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?
#106Can't help but notice that we keep wanting to make content that should be flat more 3D (e.g., animated 3D backgrounds, scroll filler on corporate pages, the entire metaverse), and content that could benefit from being 3D more flat (like UI buttons losing their pseudo-3D bevels and not looking like interactive widgets at all).
Exactly, it violates The Toilet Principle, which states that most of the time, the user of your app wants to do the thing they came to do, then get on with their life.
Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?
#107I'd really like to see this combined with photogrammetry, so that in video chat you could see the other person with this kind of 3D effect (and maybe also adjusting the eyes a little bit to allow for eye contact). Could be great for work meetings and online tutoring.
I think this has been achieved on Google's research project Starline: https://blog.google/technology/research/project-starline/
Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's why minimalism has such staying power. Fundamentally, pleasing design is about repetition and consistency. Brian loves patterns, that's all there is to it. Good graphic appeal isn't a seasoning like salt which you can just sprinkle on by paying for a few better "designed" assets. Its possible to make really pleasing design out of parts that are individually seen as cheap and low quality. Its also possible to m…
I'm going to pull a print/graphic designer card and say that "minimalism" isn't actually a style. I think I understand how it's being used in this conversation as a shorthand for "2002-2012 Google UI", which had a massive impact on the way people thought about web design. But I don't think it's fair to say that the reason for the staying power of that particular type of minimalist design is simple repetition or consi…
I think we agree on a lot of things which aren't vocabulary. Well, that and jewel box full of Easter eggs. I have no idea wth you mean or why non designers would care. But you've touched upon one of my biggest gripes, the difference between simplification and reduction. A simplification organizes information into useful patterns so that it can hide away redundancy. A reduction cuts information for the sake of presentation. Reduction can feel like simplification because the end result is a nice crisp aesthetic, but the difference is apparent when you try to use it. Its like the difference between tidying your room and throwing all your stuff out.
My go to case and recent obsession is the NYC subway map. Here is the 1970s Vignelli map. https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/massim... Here is the map that has been in use for the last 40+ years. https://new.mta.info/map/5256
Designers tend to love the Vignelli map, but everyone in the city hated it and it was short lived. To this day you can still hear condescending remarks like the Vignelli map was "to abstract for NY". "NY choose the worse map". But its exactly like you said, first and foremost the point of design is to download information into brains, and by that metric the current map is far superior which is why it won.
Consider the background geography. Ardent supporters of the London Tube / Vignelli style insist surface streets are clutter full stop. Maybe that reduction of information makes sense in London and Europe where streets are a mess anyway, but in a grid city that reduction doesn't make sense. The present map simplifies the streets down to just a few representative examples so you know the local orientation of the grid and have a few reference points. Simplification, not reduction. The information is still there.
The coloring system is another massive example of simplification. The Vignelli map seems to hate information compression, insisting every line have its own color and own dots. The current map reduced clutter by organizing lines by where they run in Manhattan, denoting the express/local difference with black/white dots. Personally I think that symbol could be less arbitrary, but most people have no trouble figuring it out quickly. Its a simplification down to a single line which makes everything fit in a tight space while being easy to follow. There have been changes in service patterns which have ruined parts of the current map, but the very original version had some nice symmetry to it (and mostly still does). Even though the rule is technically "color by Avenue in Manhattan", that rule lined up with certain repeating "color zones", eg both South Bronx and Flatbush being Green/Red, Upper West side and New Lots being Blue/Red etc. You could sort of count on certain colors to be associated with certain broadly defined endpoints.
Perhaps, this example, being so utterly detached from the modern web design world, is one you might use simply because no one has any personal stake in it. Its a lesson designers should learn more often. Hiding and removing != simplifying. Good != pretty. Organize information well and its often close to pretty on its own.
(I have plenty of gripes with the present map but that's for another time)
Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually did use Compiz+Beryll for a fairly long while. Admittedly, the bugs were annoying, but after switching off the most gimmicky bits or at least making them less pronounced (like Wobbly Windows, lol) I found it to be quite nice to use. It felt a bit like if you were using WindowBlinds but supercharged. I later switched to i3wm and threw away desktop effects though. I wouldn't mind them, but I don't miss them…
Oh wow, wobbly windows. I miss them. https://youtu.be/nbCg9_YgKgM For a blast from the past
Oh good times. With Firefox 2 (or maybe 1.5?) no less!
I remember spending a lot of time trying to get Compiz to work. The rain effect was my favorite, it even had windshield cleaner!
Edit: here's the rain effect - https://youtube.com/watch?v=1ZKmQS_MNAg
Re: Could we make the web more immersive using a simple optical illusion?
#110That idea has been around for years, for "virtual windows". This is from 2010.[1] The illusion only works for one person at a time, so, as a window, it's not too useful. For games, as someone pointed out, it works fine.[2] Although it hasn't gone mainstream. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqu9NuINKbc [2] https://www.trackir.com/
I replicated Jonny lees demo to see how it looks in person but soon learned the problem is one of optics. Without presenting the content at the right focal depth you don’t get past accommodation and binocular convergence conflicts. Without shutter or polarized glasses you also don’t get past binocular cues - so it looks great on a video where there is one camera view but once you add a second human eye it stops looki…
Hats off, not only for the product but also for pursuing and solving the problems that you mentioned! Really cool! Just curious, is the technology prohibitively costly for individuals? If so, do you have any plans to make it accessible to mainstream public?