User interface primitives are components that capture the motion and rhythm of user input based on the information given by input devices: mouse, keyboard, and touch.
Each primitive listens to a specific behavior, such as a back and forth motion or a sequence of inputs across time.
In the long term, user interface primitives are meant to be tools for artists. They should help express emotion through motion, by composing the result of many primitives together as fast as possible and with minimal abstraction from the artist’s first person perspective.
User interface primitives as tools for artists can only work if 1) they are freely composable, and 2) if the world they control is rich enough for interesting behavior to emerge.
Work in progress...
Links
Influences and similar projects:
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Fermat’s library, visualization of the tangent function (Twitter):
The animation feels visceral. It makes the body tick. Maybe user interface primitives are behaviors that speak to the body, and are in fact incarnations of mathematical building blocks. See also Math GIFs (imgur).
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Plant arithmetic (Wikipedia).
The mechanism by which a Venus Flytrap catches and starts digestion involves waiting for enough hair stimulation within a determined time range, which is conceptualized as "plant arithmetic". User interface primitives are low level gizmos (they speak to the body) that can be conceptualized as high level analytical patterns.
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Goro Fujita, VR Quill livestream (Facebook).
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Jeremy Ashkenas, Introduction to Mutable State (Observable).
Check the last interactive where we can change the speed of the balls by moving the slider. Moving the slider left and right creates interesting ball motion.
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Punches Bears (website):
I built a physics animation engine inside Unity. I apply force directly to the ragdoll's rigidbodies & stabilize movement using drag/angular drag.
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Fei-Fei Li, Introduction to Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition (YouTube, at 11:46).
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Simple machine (Wikipedia).
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Johnathon Selstad, Constraints, 2019.
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Jason Brennan, Scott Farrar, Natalie Fitzgerald, May-Li Khoe, Andy Matuschak. Playful worlds of creative math: a design exploration, 2017.
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Chording (Wikipedia).
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Alan Kay, Engelbart 5 fingers chord keyboard (Quora).
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Mike Overbeck, Joysticks 'n Sliders.