From the “Information Visualization” Dept.

I was chatting with some designers today and we started talking about next generation interfaces. One designer was thinking about 3D User Interfaces and how that would be a cool way of abstracting information display.

I disagreed. My argument goes like this:

Humans don’t see in 3D, but rather something like 2.5D—we see a 2D image with an instinctual understanding of the concept of depth (the 3rd dimension). Only after we move within a space do we start to understand three dimensional spaces (try walking in a maze of mirrors). Among women, spatial cognition is also not a typically strong skill (and I would say that is probably correct in most humans as well)—so thus you’ve just handicapped 50+% of your potential user base. Therefore the thought of using simulated 3D, without a real simulation of optical depth just doesn’t make sense to me.

Alas, I don’t think we’ll ever see that 3D Unix interface in from Jurassic Park used in Windows.

It also goes against one of the most basic design rules: simplify as much as possible or KISS.

Cheers,

Tai