Rollin Poe helps rework menus with ExNovo UI

The Scope A new Cross Platform Menu System

Menu navigation and tool use can be seen as fundamentally broken. Vastly different systems of interaction exist on desktop, touchscreens, and recently VR. Furthermore there is little connection between novice and expert use of a system, especially with regards to tool selection, navigation, and workflow. ExNovo UI is an exploratory interation system that seeks to work cross platform and at all expertise levels

Time: July, 2019 — Present
Status: Ongoing

A Couple Key Aspects

  • Grounding of new interaction methods in psychological, ergonomic, and usability research
  • Long term, large scale research project in Simon Fraser University's Cognitive Science Lab
  • Complex scripting in C# with the Unity Framework for muli-platform deployment

The Impetus A consistent interaction Methodology

RunGo

Background

Keyboard and Mouse. Touchscreen. Pen tablet. Video game controllers. Motion controls. Proprietary input devices. Dozens and dozens of methods exist as an interface between the human and the machine. Dozens and dozens more when you consider how experts whiz through a system with accelerators while novice users must search everything out. With the coming advent of VR, ExNovo seeks to create a unified interface that works both with a traditional mouse and keyboard as well as in virtual reality while allowing seemless transition between beginner and expert users.

Creation The Backend

RunGo

Under the Hood

ExNovo was built from the ground up in C# using the Unity game engine framework. Unity allows for simple transitions between platforms (desktop, VR, touch, etc.). With future growth in mind, ExNovo's menu strucutre is read from JSON files allowing quick growth and the slotting in and out of modules. Because an interface needs a system to test on, we created a Space Invaders type game for participants to play while using the ExNovo interface to select appropriate actions.

This Project is Locked

Locked

Due to academic interest, participant data laws, and ethical considerations, I cannot share any more information on the open web. Please contact me if you would like to know more about the project. Or checkout the narrative engine I built for the project.