Myside's Spew - Blog of Spontaneous Combustible Spew

Baby Interaction with Computers - 1 Year Old Observations

21 September, 2011 11:48 CST6CDT

Taking observation to a 1 year old male child interacting with a computer - its keyboard and monitor, I noted some interesting interactions that I will attempt to depict that may be a viable progressive design mechanisms for modern computer hardware.

The child was sitting on a lap positioned at the same median height that an adult would be, waist to a lower vertical position of the keyboard.  Because of his shoulder width, he naturally used both hands to interact with the keyboard keys not having to adjust any length between his arms or forward his shoulders.  From my experience with keyboards, I often have to tighten my arms and shoulders inwards to position my fingers on the QWERTY keyboard layout adding stress to the wrists, elbows, shoulders, and chest.  I have been pondering how a split keyboard, not necessarily a curved origami design, might help with with a more natural typing posture and possibly increase productivity.

An interesting note with the keyboard interaction: when pressing two keys separately with both hands, each hand separated by the QWERTY keyboard dividend, the child would look at the monitor for feedback.  However when pressing just one key, or two keys on just one side of the divided QWERTY keyboard, there was no interaction with the screen.

Smartphones and touchscreens for computers can be a wonderful tool for many interactive applications.  When the child wanted to interact with the screen, he would be moved to a position in reach of the display.  Interestingly, he made the decision, or of naturally, would not physically touch the screen display but instead tried to find a response by movement of the arms and hands.  Wow, that XBox 360 Kinect looks tempting now.

These were not intentional observations.  These observations just happened to be interestingly noticed and forwardly mentionable.  To end the description of the observation, once again, like many parents or parties have noticed, the child navigated to features and pages of Firefox and the desktop that I had not used nor known existed.  All in good fun, cheers!

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Main Entry:   spew   Pronunciation:   \ˈspyü\
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English spīwan; akin to Old High German spIwan to spit, Latin spuere, Greek ptyein   First Known Use: before 12th century

intransitive verb
  1. VOMIT
  2. to come forth in a flood or gush
  3. to ooze out as if under pressure : EXUDE
transitive verb
  1. VOMIT
  2. to send or cast forth with vigor or violence or in great quantity <a volcano spewing out ash> —often used with out —spew·er noun
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