Show HN: Fluid iPad App Concept

Neat concept. The following behavior bugged me through the whole demo:<p>You switch to Lightning from IKEA FAMILY products and second level shows spotlights, ceiling lamps etc. But the third level stays at travel products (since nothing on second level is reselected). If I put the device away and come back later, visual representation won' help and I'll have to memorize where I am.

Sorry, dumb question, but why fluid as opposed to modal? iPad users are used to browsing products modally and there don't seem to be any usability issues with it: there is a clear navigation stack as well as full focus on the product pages.<p>You have a fascinating concept. Could you explain some of your thinking on why you think this particular paradigm is superior?

It's an alternative to overlapping windows, a fundamental of the desktop metaphor.<p>I seem to recall seeing a demo of something similar, that was also from PARC (or maybe just in the same era, i.e. the 60's). Of course, the desktop metaphor won, and work didn't continue on the other. I mention it not to preempt you, but because seeing that work would give you an extra perspective, and a bunch of experiments for free to see what works/doesn't work.<p>Or maybe it was an infinite desktop, where you could zoom in/out to find things. Would that count as "fluid"? Sorry, think I'm rambling.

Its interesting to me because the navigation combines with breadcrumbs to be a rather effecient hybrid. The design that allows that to happen seems to work very well with product based content (photos, square items etc).<p>But what about long flowing content like text? Little chunks of square text scrolling horizontally wouldn't exactly be the best reading experience. Have you come up with a different design to handle that?

This looks really cool, love it when people experiment with UI.<p>It's hard to judge from a video vs actually using it. The only issue I have is that I felt a bit lost a few levels in. It would be nice to have some reference of how deep you are. Instead of losing previous levels entirely is there a way to keep them (like the traditional breadcrumb used to do)

Trivia, if you are interested: "ø" is a Danish and Norwegian character. The corresponding one in Swedish is "ö". So I suppose you are scared of IKEA "shööting" you.<p>(Also, the Swedish "ö" sounds completely different from the English "o", so it's a bit silly if you know how to read it ;)

Sorry to break the stream of cheers, but I have my concerns about this design. Yes, it's a neat idea and already quite well-implemented. Looking at the video I can't help but feel confused. Sometimes things seem to resize randomly (at places where there is no cursor shown -- is there an input not shown?) and I have my doubts what "normal" users would do. I strongly recommend that you do grab a few people with medium technical background and ask them to perform a few tasks and then just observer (no helping). That should quickly tell you where (if) people get lost. Good work overall, but keep refining.

It is good looking. The easing should accelerate towards the end, in order to feel more like rollerblinds coiling up. When you select the individual items around 00:40 to 00:43 you should also work in a subtle animation so that it is just as fluid as the rest.<p>Overall, very well done!

Reminds me of the ZUI (zooming user interface) concept. I think the prototype is worth exploring further, maybe borrowing on some of the ZUI research to avoid any pitfalls they've already experienced.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface</a>

Very cool implementation. I'd suggest keeping the product panel (bottom-most panel) fully expanded when you're at that level in the hierarchy. Around 0:26 seconds it's awkward that it doesn't auto-expand to fill the available space as the rest of the navigation hierarchy slides up.

Neat! I'd love to see the code behind this open sourced. If you do, please either add it to <a href="http://cocoacontrols.com" rel="nofollow">http://cocoacontrols.com</a>, or shoot me an email at aaron@brethorsting.com with a link to the repo and I'll take care of it.

You can use a view controller for this concept. It would hook up to a XIB with the components you need.<p>In Interface Builder you would create the scrolling objects, then animate those objects in the code according to touch events.

Wow, this looks really awesome! It's like the Twitter iPad app but a step further. I wonder if it's also usable besides the "cool looking".

This is really Mike Mattas' "Our Choice" iPad App design, with n-degrees of freedom.<p>I think "Our Choice" limits the nesting 2-3 levels.

Is the video of an actual implemented app in use, or a mock up done in After Effects or similar?

It looks cool, I wonder if it is possible to implement something similar on Android devices.

This reminds me of Twitter for iPad, rotated 90°. Interesting idea, though.

What a great concept. I bet it would be great via the browser.

This is pretty neat. Reminds me a bit of Push Pop Press's app.

Really nice job! I like it a lot.