User Interface Displays

User Interface Displays

by Dr. Bob Bailey

November, 1999

What direction are we going with user interface displays?

I frequently get asked what the future holds for usability. More specifically, what will the interfaces of business systems be like in the future. One of the best places to see trends in user interface design is to attend major computer shows (like Comdex), and evaluate the new products. This provides a good idea of what to expect in the near future (the next 3-5 years), and helps us decide how best to use these advances to create high quality, professional user interfaces.

It will not take long for the new flat panel screens (those that are 1 or 2 inches thick) to replace the older cathode ray tubes (CRTs) in many offices. But what is of even greater importance to practitioners is that desktop screens will continue to get larger, and the aspect ratio will change. Currently, 17-inch screens are the most used size ( www.gvu.gatech.edu , 1999), but the size of “basic” monitors will continue to increase up to 21 inches, and for many business applications, eventually up to 40 inches.

Also, the familiar 4x3 aspect ratio will be replaced with 16x9, as digital television becomes more popular. There is little doubt that the screens that we will soon be using for business-related graphical user interfaces and Web-based systems will be much larger and much wider. This provides considerably more usable screen space, and provides many new opportunities for user interface specialists.

We should also watch what happens with the newer visual technologies that allow the screen contents to be projected directly onto the retina (cf. Pryor, Furness and Viirre, 1998). This display technology, referred to as “Virtual Retinal Display,” scans modulated low energy laser light directly onto the user's retina. Currently over 300,000 spots of light (equivalent to 640 x 480 pixels) can be produced on the retina. Users perceive brilliant full-color images, with a range of color even greater than CRTs or flat panel displays.

No doubt there will be significant advances in the use of sound displays. This includes improved use of both speech and non-speech sounds. The use of sound displays has been hampered by the lack of sound cards in all desktop computers, and relatively low bandwidth available on most networks. There are also problems related to the low-privacy “open” offices that are used in many companies. The high use of cubicles means that sounds can be heard not only by the intended user, but by many others as well.

As these problems are dealt with, the use of sound will become much more common. The effective use of sound will be both direct and indirect. One of the best uses of background sounds is with “audio aura” (Mynatt, Back, Want, Baer and Ellis, 1998). This new technology provides sounds that are on the edge of background awareness (e.g., footsteps in the hall, spinning disk drives). These peripheral sounds, when effectively provided by user interface specialists, can enrich without distracting, and add value without invading privacy.

To summarize, prepare yourself to make effective use of big screens and lots of sound!

References

Mynatt, E.D., Back, M., Want, R., Baer, M., and Ellis, J.B., Designing audio aura, CHI 98 Conference Proceedings, 566-573 (1998).

Pryor, H.L., Furness, T. A., and Viirre, E., The virtual retinal display: A new display technology using scanned laser light, Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 42nd Annual Meeting, 1570-1574 (1998).