2009, Camera Interface

Back to Essentials:

This is the result of a 2-week workshop project, which is to design a GUI for a touchscreen based point & shoot camera. My goal was to design a minimalistic GUI that doesn't distract user from the actual task: shooting. Meanwhile I also want to bring back a little bit of mechanical sensation to this camera.

Icons? Buttons?

A challenge I found was, how different modalities of hardware would affect the metaphor and design of the graphics. People would expect totally different behavior, from a camera with hard buttons and a non-touch screen, than a camera with just a touch screen. In the former situation, the clear split of "buttons" and "icons" wouldn't confuse anyone, however in the latter, I was constantly confused about what's click-able and what's not.

Analysis:

I made a diagram for myself to reveal the overall picture of operating a camera. It helped me find the hierarchy of functions.

 

In this design proposal, I made one uniform behavior for all the icons, so that they're all click-able buttons. It not only clears the confusion, but also makes the essential functions more accessible. Besides, little details like the “stop" feeling while tweaking the shutter speed and aperture, if accompanied by haptic feedback, would surely recall the lost sensation of the analog age.