Check out Jeff Chow’s (now funded) Kickstarter project:
What do you think? It’s great-looking, but I remain a bit skeptical about using touchscreens (which obviously lack the physical variation of a keyboard or dedicated hardware controller) in this way. If you’re a Photoshop user with an iPad, are you using Adobe Nav–and if not, why not? I suspect the problem is that one has to keep glancing over at a touch screen, whereas one can navigate a keyboard (or physical jog wheel, etc.) simply by feel. Yet the concept remains alluring, so I’m curious about others’ assessment.
[Via James Cox]
Good point. But, it looks like they may be addressing the issue of having to look at the ipad using gestures.
From their kickstarter description: “As an editor myself, I know that keeping your eyes on the video is not just important, but THE POINT of a good interface. This is where gestures, haptic and audio feedback become important.” They go on to list some example gestures.
For me, I can imagine the transport controls being useful. I’m actually pretty excited thinking about sitting back on my couch and using the Lightroom app to select, rate and flag photos.
Full disclosure, I’ve donated to the project already.
[Cool; thanks for pointing out those details. –J.]
I use adobe nav and love the idea of it. The program itself though isn’t really flexible enough for me, you either choose tools or you choose actions. I’ve ended up trying to get it to work better by setting up little actions for simple menu items which works for a few bits. my second biggest gripe is that whilst you do have to glance at it whilst working with it, there’s no clear graphical separation between buttons (colour placement etc.) I’d love to use something like this.
I agree, for pure efficiency from the muscle memory of physical keyboard/shortcut are hard to beat, however, the value of dynamic input interface is also very promising. I think it is worth exploring by experimenting.
For example, I moved from Mouse to Trackpad even for my photoshop work (also I am not a designer), and would not think to come back, even if there is an argument that mouse is more precise. That being said, I am using the trackpad because I am on Mac, on PC, the implementation is so poor, that I would probably use the mouse.