emily conrad

I’m a little late to the party on this one, but Schematic (a company I worked for during 2007 & 2008) is developing a muultitouch screen for the Cannes film festival (I’m guessing 2010 since the 2009 festival has passed). The video is impressive, particularly in demonstrating the use of multitouch and RFID. They are calling it a “Touchwall” and my guess is that the interactivity is intended to be used by more than one or two people at once. The video shows two people, pretty much working together, so I wonder how this would behave with two or more people working (or playing) independently? Schematic is known for their great UX, so I’m sure this was thought through, but it’s still tough to deploy.

This is also on of those hyper-rational projects that just makes sense. Of course we’ll have huge multitouch screens in the future. And I like that this is one of the first iterations. It will undoubtedly be a paradigm shift, but perhaps unlikely, to use a multitouch wall instead of a paper subway map pasted to a wall in the station. Some may argue we have access to the same information on our phones, in a decentralized, accessible place. It’ll be interesting to see which paradigm is stronger, the experiential or the practical. Both have their own advantages, but this is one decision designers can’t make.