December 20, 2007 Interface Depth of Field

All this attention put into so-called usability and OS developers still aren’t taking advantage of depth of field. Why not, instead of changing colors, borders, and shadows, use a blur technique for inactive windows? It’s already built into Mac OS (ala Core Image) so why not utilize it? I’m not a developer, so maybe I’m missing something.

Interface depth of field example

It wouldn’t have to be much. In the example above I used a value of 0.5 (of Photoshop’s “Gaussian Blur” effect) — and it’s almost too much. The effect is visually appealing as eye-candy, yes, but is also useful in determining focus more immediately. Of course, it could even be provided as a user preference, allowing for greater or lesser blur for inactive windows. It could even be applied to the desktop and its icons.

And while we’re on the subject of the desktop, another question: Why not allow for a user to evoke Exposé’s “Desktop” state when clicking on [an unoccupied spot on] the desktop? (App idea?)

Comments

The problem with using depth of field to identify the active/inactive status of windows becomes clearly visible when you’re using multiple images — e.g. XHTML/CSS source code in an editor on the left, a browser window for testing purposes on the right.

In this scenario, I wouldn’t want to have a blurred code window while checking out my demo in Safari — the same can be applied to many different scenarios, there’s very little situations in our daily computer use where we do not use multiple applications at once. And very often we need to work in one application while we still need to be able to read texts in another application’s windows.

Julian Schrader
December 20, 2007

Yeah, basically the same thing Julian said. I often have multiple windows open that I need to reference and that I’m paying attention to that aren’t the “single active window.” Having them blurred out would really harm usability.

As for your desktop request, I know its not quite the same thing but have you thought about using a hot corner for it? I’ve been doing this since expose since first came out and its amazing usability wise, quick access to your desktop instantly. Now with stacks, there’s another way, but I still love placing easy to reach stuff on my desktop and using the bottom right hot corner to grab anything right when I need it.

Josh Bryant
December 20, 2007

First off, your design is pretty, but barely usable. The light grey on white of the comments (body text isn’t so bad, but could do with a slight bump too) is unreadable at your default size – I had to increase size three times in my browser (which, by the way, broke the commenting form to an extent, if you care about that kind of thing) and I by no means have bad vision in the slightest. 20/14. Just a friendly tip, other than the lack of contrast, it’s quite beautiful (-:

On the topic… I would love to see an app like you speak of. Maybe take it past that – clicking on desktop does desktop Exposé, clicking empty space on menubar does all windows Exposé, command-clicking the app name on the menubar does all application windows Exposé… and so on. (Command+Click the  symbol for Dashboard, perhaps?).

And maybe the depth of field thing could be an app too – very simple implementation, it’s simply a full-screen window that blurs everything behind it. Then, you activate it, then activate in turn every app you’re going to use. Still not perfect (quite complicated to setup such a workspace, that’s multiple keys and even mouse clicks possible to get it into a usable configuration for any given time you want to use it), but it’s better than nothing, no?

The other reason blur is a bad idea in general, is that even if it’s not a secondary window that you need active view on, it could still display information that needs to be absorbed. Text could appear, notifications, flashes, whatever – in any case, an app should be able to get information to the user in it’s window, whenever it’s there. If that made any sense d-:

elliottcable
December 20, 2007

This effect helps usability in multiple window workflows. Yes, inactive windows are blurred, but not to the point of hindering readability. (Actually, based on my example, the blur effect leaves even very small text legible.) The benefit is that you’ll never mistake which window has focus.

Maybe I’m the only one who’s ever began typing only to realize (via error alert or lost keystrokes) that the wrong window was active.

Sean
December 23, 2007

I wouldn’t mind seeing this feature as an option. I, for one, would enable it if available. I get confused when there are multiple apps open and the windows are a layered mess. With so much desktop real estate available these days this would help, in my opinion. To me any option available to the user to custom tailor their work flow/experience is a good thing. A per app option would just ice it for me.

Disclaimer: Commas confound me.

Jamie
December 23, 2007

like jamie said, it would be a nice feature as an option. and a creative solution for multiple windows would be to simply just option click (or some combination) on the windows you don’t want to blur.

Ptah Dunbar
December 30, 2007

There are applications that allow you to adjust the transparency of the windows behind the active one. This is a more stylish and eye pleasing version of this. I like it and would use it if it was an option.

Anthony De Rosa
December 30, 2007

The depth of field thing would be a welcome option. I often have to interrupt my workflow for a few tens of milliseconds to find the “stop lights” to figure out where the focus is. I intuitively agree w/ the folks who complain that it would be a problem when they really want to focus on more than one window, but I still think it’s worth experimenting with.

PS I think the RSS feed for this site has a problem. I’m not seeing this post in Google Reader.

Bill Burcham
January 1, 2008

Love your site!

You must blog more frequently…

paul merrill
January 9, 2008

Your idea is awesome in theory. But we don’t work like that.

The concerns mentioned above are very real, especially for people like me who are running multiple monitors. I have Adium and to do lists in the left monitor, Photoshop and Firefox in the center monitor and Twitter, RSS and Calendar in the right monitor. Having any of them blurred would just give me a headache at the end of a 12 hour day.

I think perhaps black and white or slightly dimmed would be a more welcome indicator. Actually, what I would love most of all would be to have the opacity of non-active windows set to 30%. One of the things that plagues me most working with so many windows is that it feels cluttered. Sure, I can hide them all, but then I’m lost. But whatever the solution, you have to remember that people still need to reference other windows, whether or not they’re active.

Jesse Gardner
January 16, 2008

I like the blurring idea. It could be a preference for people who preferred not to use it, but many people would probably benefit from it.

As an alternative, how about darkening the background windows, rather than blurring them? Discussed further with screenshots at http://watchingapple.com/2008/01/interface-brightness-of-field/#more-271.

John Blackburn
January 19, 2008

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