Water power

I was working on two projects simultaneously, the first early designs for a Camera Obscura with specialist engineered lens system. The other,
an interactive alphabetic prototype designed to investigate the impact of the digital fusion of image and sound. I was struggling with ideas for the design of the prototype interface, which required navigation and interaction with the sound, drawing and image content in a simple way, and most importantly without the incorporation of text, icon, or instruction.

The dishwasher was already full so whilst washing up in the kitchen, I switched on BBC Radio 4, where ’In Our Time’ with Melvyn Bragg had just started. By chance the programme was about the history of the science of optics, and moved from the development of instruments such as telescopes, camera obscura and microscopes and how they transformed the world close at hand to the theory of optics. With such relevant subject matter for the Camera Obscura, I listened intently and whilst still washing up the guests on the radio began to discuss new ideas about how we see and what we see and how the brain makes sense of the information it receives.

Whilst looking at the last few glasses in the water, the discussion on the radio moved to the origins of optics in history, and the water filled spheres used by the Greeks and Romans to make lenses. I suddenly realized the properties of water, provided the perfect vehicle for the interface challenge and began to play with the glasses in the sink. A water droplet cursor could mimic magnification, to move through and reveal layers of hidden information, ripples could indicate touch and movement and sound could be created. Even the youngest user of the
interface would probably quickly understand the inherently intuitive metaphor of water. If these properties were successfully applied to the prototype interface, the interaction and navigation of the prototype would be simple and quickly understood, eliminating the need for explanatory text and icons.

Submitted by Mel