The Term Maverick Machines

I decided to look into the term "Maverick Machines" and how this name could have been conceived.

A quick search found that there was an exhibition called "Maverick Machines" in Edinburgh (http://maverickmachines.com/WordPress/). On this website it gives the description "machines that are a little unusual" which would fit what maverick means (independent, uncommon), but it does not give a description on what relation this has to interface, so I decided to explore further into what this exhibition was about.

On the website there is a video of the exhibition and the exhibits in action...



From this video it is clear that the machines from the exhibition were VERY unusual, and in fact not very useful in the public world (being as how they feature little interaction or function). However, this exhibition does show how experimentation and innovation gives us interfaces that we take for granted today.

So I decided to look into new interfaces starting to become successful in the public world. One of the biggest innovations (although not new) is touch screen technology. Touchscreen technology allows users to simply use the screen as a method of input. This technology, although it has been around for decades, has only started seeing major implementation in recent years, is now being included for a huge amount of different devices.

Touch screen is seeing particular success in the mobile market, where it works very well along other emerging technologies (such as motion and tilt sensing). These ways of interacting with a device are becoming a sort of "standard" for mobile developers (phone/PDA developers, etc.).

Touch screen is also being used to simplify common things we do in every day life. Microsoft Surface is a real milestone when it comes to the simplest device-free interaction.



As you can see this tabletop computer has been reduced down to the basic components needed for interaction, basically a screen. Another 'cool' feature of this development is how objects are immediately recognised when they are placed down on the table and act independently as a sort of 'Node' that can have files dropped from other devices by 'physically' dragging them.

Now although this development for making things simpler is very cool and interesting, it is also important to give users more in-depth control over their computers as well. Developers cannot forget that some users will want that extra bit of function coupled with the good usability of a device like this.

It is clear from doing this research that levels of interface are sometimes too revolutionary and perhaps come too soon to see real success (if they are actually any good).