UI / UX
User interfaces and “user experience” ideas.
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Background: Extremely large TVs have now become cheap enough to use as gigantic computer monitors. It’s possible to find a 55+” television with high enough resolution and low enough latency to work as an external monitor for even the most discerning computer-ologist. The issue: Most desks are not set up to accommodate a 55″ television…
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Background: The traditional flat-surfaced desk has been more-or-less unchanged for thousands of years. The issue: People often place a drink on their desk. However, this makes it very easy to accidentally knock the drink over onto (depending on the era) a stack of rolled-up papyrus scrolls, a Gutenberg Bible, or a laptop (Figure 1). Proposal:…
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Background: When typing on a phone with an on-screen virtual keyboard, the auto-correct feature is essential. Strangely, this auto-correct / auto-complete feature has never been monetized! Proposal: In order to bring great deals to consumers and new advertising opportunities to companies, we describe the following auto-correct enhancement. Currently, auto-correct is boring and predicable. For example:…
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Background: Humans frequently wear metal adornments that have a small chance of being caught on something. Under most circumstances, this is fine, but occasionally this may lead to situations with a high probability of disaster (e.g. operating a lathe while wearing a dangly necklace). The issue: Somehow, it is still the case that very little…
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Background: With the 2020 COVID plague, work-related video chats have become increasingly full of a large number of participants (Figure 1). The issue: Video chats have a problem that in-person office work does not: there is no convenient way for participants of an unreasonably-large video chat group to split off into subgroups. Instead, every discussion…
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Background: It seems that nearly every electronic device with a camera or microphone is now Internet-enabled and can wirelessly send video and audio to the world. The issue: Due to the preponderance of electronic hardware in a modern household, it can be difficult which (if any) device is spying on you at that exact moment…
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Background: In most regions of the world, gambling is regulated by government bodies. Unrelatedly, one of the criticisms of the stock market (especially the derivatives market) is that many participants use it exactly like a casino. Proposal: In regions where gambling is prohibited, but access to a stock market exists, a stock trading app could…
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Background: Occasionally, people get a gift or memento from a company after working there for a certain period of time, or, sometimes, when their jobs are outsourced to a much cheaper country and everyone is fired. Proposal: For programmers, what better way to commemorate their contributions to a company than a log of all their…
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Background: When traveling in a vehicle, a person’s intuitive sense of speed is partly determined by the feeling of air movement. For example, going at 30 miles per hour on a bike (enclosed cabin: no) may feel faster than going 600 miles per hour in an airplane (enclosed cabin: yes). The issue: It’s important for…
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Background: Sometimes, getting technical support from a company requires making an actual phone call. Like the audio / voice kind that people used to do in old movies! Typically, one ends up in an “on hold” scenario in which soothing music is intermittently interrupted by the message “representatives are busy, your call will be answered…
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