The Face of Interaction

As much as I would like to continue spending my time watching TV series and wasting my time on Youtube, I figured it was time I did some actual work. I looked into navigational systems and the actual navigation of , those systems to get a scope on how interfaces work. The first and most obvious place to start was with GPS interfaces;

Simple, clean, easy to follow. I like the checked flag representing the destination as it adds character. The icons that show points of interest is a good idea as well. Perhaps a system that recognises particular shops and such and is able to provide detail on them.

Not quite as interesting as the one before, nor as easy to understand. On a basic level it provides all the information it really needs to but it could be improved in many areas.

Provides quite a shallow view of the surroundings but gives the user a better representation of what they might actually be seeing with the 3D buildings. Perhaps a zoom option that allows swapping between an overhead view and this one?

I don't like this one much at all. It is hard to follow with the use of different colours for roads without a key. At a glance I'm not too sure what direction it's pointing me in which is something a gps needs to do. If you're driving you don't have time to study a map.
Now to look at interfaces from an interactive point of view. An interface doesn't just have to be functional, it can look cool and be fun to interact with too.

The i-phone fully utilized the touch screen in having an interface that had users playing with the screen with their fingers in different ways. This made the interface fun to interact with but it was logical too; stroke this way and the screen moves that way.

The consistency of style in this interface connects all the screens together, despite the significant difference in layout of each. This is achieved by the colour scheme and transparency of the icons and the background imagery.

Although this particular interface is a bit busy the colour scheme works rather well. The balance of colour is well done to show importance and to link everything on-screen.

All the interfaces so far have been rigidly structured but this one shows how it can be achieved with a more chaotic arrangement and still work. The transparency is key in allowing so many things on-screen in this manner, otherwise icons would be lost.