SemTech conference session notes: semantic user experience
Notes from Semantic User Experience, Ross Centers, James Huckenpahler, Rob Bauman. General discussion of user experience design. Claim: semantic technologies will make it easier to maintain a brand more consistently. Web 2.0 - perpetual beta is a value. Constant updating and development, faster release cycles. So what’s the role for interaction design? Designers will need to think about how components/widgets will fit in other contexts. Claim (not expanded): semantics will make it easier to build mashups.
Tags vs ontologies (built by anyone/crowds vs. built by “teams of dwarves locked in mines”). Could wiki bridge the gap? Semantic wiki as a way for crowds to refine a shared ontology. E.g: Semantic Assistants - Research Assistant (screenshot of an apparent product, but not visible via google).
Wish list for designer:
- ontology of visual representations
- ontology of user interaction
- semantically-enabled design tools - label the affordances of designed elements (“this button does this … “)
- a detailed model of the user to relate semantic products to
Rob Bauman - “world’s first semantic game”. Treasure Hunt. Built on ontologies, 2FTE for 13 months (1 engineer and 1 modeler). Budget CN$300M CN$300K (thanks for the correction Rob). Built a reusable game/simulation platform. Ontologies for game play, economics, 3d modelling, game resource, … others. Technologies: visual knowledge, open croquet. Built a model of croquet using an ontology representation, so that the game engine can drive the 3d engine. The user interface shows connections between concepts and “agents” representing active behaviours. Includes decisions and inference steps. Claim that it will scale to tens of millions of agents.