[games_access] A catalog of 1 switch interface patterns?

[Tim Holt]

Thanks for the tips! One caveat I should have added is that I'm talking about one switch purely from the physical access point of view. Adding cognitive disability issues (the area I work in) brings up a whole different set of design challenges. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 19, 2011, at 9:41 AM, Tim Chase <agdev at thechases.com> wrote:

> On 01/19/2011 08:38 AM, Tim Holt wrote:
>> I'm wondering if there are any studies or design
>> patterns/templates for effective 1 switch interfaces. I don't
>> mean hardware but rather software and specifically user
>> interface design.
> 
> The first place I'd start:
> 
> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2316/one_button_games.php
> 
> being one of the best collections on the topic I've seen, including Flash demos of several aspects.
> 
>> For example, suppose I want the user to enter a number from 0
>> to 9.  I can certainly make one up, but has anyone sat down
>> and looked at how it's most effective?
>> 
>> Another example would be highlighting of the current
>> selection. A thousand ways to do it, but is there a "most
>> effective" way?
> 
> While I don't know of any catalog of "most effective" ways to do these things, some lend themselves better than others.  For picking letters/numbers/menu-options, many of the games I've seen use a timed rotating selector.  This could be a pointer rotating around a dial, a highlight skimming from top-to-bottom (or left-to-right), etc...once the highlight/pointer is over the desired item, the button-press chooses.  It may also be good to include a cancel/back option and an "I'm done"/okay button with longer dwells (and for text-entry, a backspace).  One of the other things I've liked with the rotating-highlight in a menu is having it actually slide over the blanks-between-options too so that there's a bit of space between them to assist you in choosing the option you want, rather than being off by a fraction of a second.
> 
> I hope this gives you some good leads/ideas...
> 
> -tim
> 
>