Warren M. Myers in the ACM magazine Ubiquity wonders about the effect the rectangularity of monitors has had on UI design. He suggests that if they were circular, instead of thinking about UI design in terms of a Cartesian grid, we be thinking in terms of polar coordinates and wedges. A snippet:

An entire system can be developed wherein the main interface, the buttons that allow you into different segments and levels of the system are based on concentric rings. The middle circle will bring you to the top level of the system. Festooned about the center circle can be wedges that describe the different segments of the system.

As he says, he’s definitely thinking outside the box. (Thanks to Kurt Starsinic for the link.) [Technorati tags: gui]

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