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Dimensionality
Invention
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Discoverability
Temporality
Accessibility
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Period
THE PERIODIC TABLE OF THE INTERACTIONS
Nearly 50 years after the personal computer revolution, our ways of interacting with and within computational mediums, the actual atomic gestures like clicking, scrolling, dragging-and-dropping, have barley evolved. As Alan Kay, whose work at Xerox PARC instigated that revolution more than anyone else, put it, “The computer revolution hasn’t happened yet.”
Innovations like Apple’s MultiTouch and pseudo-spatial virtual reality mechanics are progress, but by-and-large we remain trapped within a web of very low-common-denominator gestures, unable to make use of the vast majority of our physical, sensory, mental, even emotional facilities. How did this bottleneck of interaction come to exist, and what can account for its tremendous staying power?
Did we simply get graphical user interfaces right the first time, and to keep pushing the envelope is to make an error in the vein of Chesterson’s Fence? On the contrary, what new affordances might we implement that raise our bedrock abstractions to new heights, ones that trade discoverability and familiarity for scope and efficacy?
To reference computer history once more, would the contemporary version of “dealing lightning with both hands” look like?
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Future Enhancements
1. Continue Research of Individual Elements
With the first version of the table now completed, the table itself is designed and functional, and the whitepaper has been written. As planned, work on the written content for all 118 elements will continue to be researched and compiled in time.
2. Interactive Examples
Create interactive examples of all possible elements for demonstration purposes. These would live on each element's individual page.
3. Element Composer
Add a "element composer" to allow for you to combine elements into molecules, into compounds, to discover new kinds of interactions guided by the table.
3. Open Source the Table
Make the project's source repository public, allowing for everyone to contribute both information and new sources to individual elements as well as improve the design and function of the table.
4. Exapnd Scope of Research
Writing the current version of the essay turned up dozens of new directions for fruitful research that will be explored in time.
5. Mobile Version
Create a mobile version of the experience so as to be more accessible to more people, as well as take advantage of multi-touch smartphone gestures.
6. NFTs
Create an Non-Fungible Token for each element, if only to support continued work the project by me, and soon others.