Fourface Exposes New Interface Paradigms
Thanks to a tweet from the @foursquare team and a post from TechCrunch, I have a new app for checking in to foursquare, Fourface.
Yeah, I know foursquare and location generally have been getting a lot of ink here and other place. Get used to it though because heading into SXSW later this week, location is expected to be all the rage.
Before you move on, this post isn’t really about foursquare. It’s about interface paradigms.
Fourface uses foursquare’s API and OAuth to present functional data visualizations. By functional, I mean you can use them to checkin to venues, not just browse data. Although, like any good visualization, Fourface does an elegant job modeling the checking data, and is reminiscent of Digg Labs, one of my favorite data pr0n sites.
This is interesting to me because normally data visualizations can’t be used to create the data they model. So really these are new interfaces based on visualizations.
For example, here is the foursquare iPhone app’s checkin screen, or rather a leaked image of how it will look in their upcoming redesigned version.
Makes sense to you right? Probably because it follows paradigms you’ve seen in the past.
By contrast, here is one of the Fourface checkin screens, called arcs.
Fourface uses your location to build the visualization. In this case, arcs lists the five venues closest to you ordered as layered circles with the venue at the center being the closest. To checkin, you touch and hold the venue, or load more to get a new set of arcs.
Three of the four visualizations offered by Fourface allow you to checkin to foursquare using similar models. The fourth shows a heat map-like grid of venue checkins (current and historical).
Fourface also uses audible cues to help you, which I’m not in love with, but make it a bit easier to get over the usability changes.
So, who cares, right?
Even if you’re not into foursquare, this is an interesting study in UI because it removes all the usual trappings, e.g. buttons, labels, selection widgets, form fields, and substitutes a visually attractive, moving visualization that also happens to be functional.
I’m not saying I’ll be using Fourface exclusively to checkin; frankly, I’ll probably mess with it for a bit then forget about it, like many apps I download.
Still, the next time Rich and I have an interface to build and want to do something cool, I’ll remember Fourface, and maybe we’ll try something similar.
What do you think? Would an interesting interface make your favorite app more enjoyable, or would it just force you to relearn functions?
This is bordering on the simplicity and stupidityarguments, so I’ll leave the rest for comments.
Find them and leave one.Possibly Related Posts:
- Checkin to Foursquare by Taking a Picture
- I Still Heart Data Visualizations
- Foursquare for the Holidays
- Foursquare Launches an API
- I Don’t Care What You Say, Foursquare Rules









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