At the Professional Developers Conference (PDC09) in Los Angeles, Microsoft developers from all over the world experienced the interactive point-of-sales application of User Interface Design GmbH (UID) live. The self-developed application won the "Touch First Developer Challenge". In this competition, Microsoft wanted to find the most innovative application for the multi-touch Surface table. A sensible use of simple and intuitive gestures, an attractive design, and the integration of all advantages Surface offers – the interactive UID portfolio convinced the Microsoft jury.
"We were especially impressed by UID's solution as they combined a cool design with a high level of usability", says Said Zahedani, Senior Director Developer Platform and Stragety Group at Microsoft Germany. "Awarding the price to a German company proves the innovative strength of our partners here and the high quality of their solutions."
In the "Touch First Developer Challenge", the multi-disciplinary UID team of 12 members around project manager and software developer Iris Wörsdörfer prevailed against 40 participants in a top-class competition. The prize: a Surface table!
Well prepared for multi-touch and more
"The announcement of winning this international competition spread like wildfire among our 65 employees. The entire team is very proud of this award, which supports our positioning as a leading user interface and user experience consulting and service company", says Franz Koller, managing director of UID.
Beside competences in Usability, Software and Design, another focus of UID is Research & Innovation. The company participates in international research projects and accepts the challenges of new technologies as well as of innovative developments in the field of user interfaces.
Touch, rotate and scale: Experience the interactive UID portfolio
UID designs intuitive and attractive interfaces – the interactive UID portfolio helps to experience this claim. The award-winning application is an interactive company presentation. Digital cards give information on reference projects, competences, methods, and contact persons of UID.
The Surface table is operated via gestural interaction. Apart from gestures that already exist such as touching, rotating, or scaling, UID also developed own gestures.
Recognizing objects was also a must: When laid on the table, they interact with the Surface, creating a connection between the real and the virtual world.
"The combination of an attractive design, clearly structured information, intuitive gestures, and the novelty of object recognition delights the users. This excellent result could only be reached by the close collaboration of usability engineers, software engineers, and designers", says project manager Iris Wörsdörfer.
