Imagine a person in a wheel chair using their eyes to control a robot to help them around the house or to steer their wheelchair?

Martin Tall has recently developed software to harness someone’s eye gaze, as captured by an eye tracker, and communicate with a small robot constructed with LEGO.

In Martin’s words, “The concept allows for a human-machine interaction with a direct mapping of the users intention”

Imagine if you could link this up with the Emotiv software, that I blogged about previously, and use your thoughts to control the robot too!

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 Joshua Ledwell has it right with his short post on iterative user interface design. 

In my words:

Someone once said Fail early, fail often… Early means UX people should iterate wireframes over and over again!

It is very important to communicate this to partners and clients clearly at the start of a project. It can take a while for them to understand that your wireframes are not going to be perfect straight up! This is particularly true of rich applications - the possibilities of interface design are infinite!

At the early stages of the project the wireframes lead to innovation, they trigger ideas and requirements that were not previously considered. This is particularly for new products.

Iterated wireframes also allow each member of the project team to ’show’ us their perspective. You know, many minds are better than one (UX) person!

Jye Smith insights into conversations recently prompted me to wax lyrical on his blog. I couldn’t let you miss out!

Jye Says:

(nice pic Jye, had to be reposted!)

We all have conversations every day.  But why? What inspires you to do so? A lot of people I know are introverted and shy away from new conversations but thrive on conversations with old friends.

Are customers friends we haven’t met? How are you going to start this conversation?

When I talk to someone, when I blog, when I respond: I want to learn.  In fact, in all facets of my life right now, I’m looking to learn as much as possible.  I don’t want to do what I can do, I want to attempt something I haven’t done yet — and use what I’ve already learnt. That, to me, is what I’m trying to do here: here’s what I know so far, now what do you think?

In order to learn, we need to fail.

Whether its coffee mornings or teapots at World Bar — I want to learn more.  What inspires you?

I responded:

Conversations are awesome! I hunger for them. Sometimes they generate inspiration, however, that inspiration is often fleeting, forgotten in a busy work day, stressful moment or a great wave.

Only when I continue to ponder that inspiration does it actually change my perspective. Then I learn and maybe even turn it into and insight that improves my life in some way. But how do I do this?

I leverage conversations by blogging. When I get inspired I think, ‘I’ll blog that’, then I write the inspirational nuggets down on a beer coaster, serviette or a pad. Maybe I’ll even use my phone to Tweet about it, that’s like writing a note to self. Then, when I get time, I enter the nugget into my blog and start writing my thoughts down free form. I might even do a bit of research!

I may complete a post then and there or I might finish it in a year. Doesn’t matter, the inspiration is safe. When I actually write the blog post, tighten it up, worry about what other people will think and publish; I process the inspiration and turn it into an insight. But that is not it. The process is only part way there!

Once blogged, people read about the insight and comment. They might criticise me or praise me, either way, I learn. Only then is the conversation truly leveraged.

Thanks Jye!

Check this out!

I used a Tobii T60 eye tracker to track my son looking at some Facebook pictures. See how he always focuses on human eyes and mouths. He ignores Belinda and our doggy because they weren’t looking right at the camera!

Oh, and it was so easy to do! He’s standing on my wife Kylie’s lap and bobbing around all over the place.