If you just look at the picture, can you guess what the squares are?
Rocker, crosshair, or PPT remote pen?
These black cubes - the whole black cube set, to be precise - are actually a new set of mice recently released by Microsoft.
Yes, compared to the classic IE 3.0, this set of black squares is nothing like the traditional mouse look.
The combination of big buttons and big joystick looks more like the cockpit of an airplane than the familiar little mouse in the palm of your hand.
The reason it looks so stylized is because it's an adaptive mouse component designed by Microsoft for people with disabilities to reduce the barriers people face when using a keyboard and mouse.
I'm sure you've seen the term "Adaptive (Adaptive) Design" in quite a few places before this mouse, and you may be wondering what exactly is the so-called Adaptive?
Adaptive is not 'perfect'
In her book Mismatch, Kat Holmes, former director of design for Windows, mentions that 'adaptation' is really about the interaction between the user and the product.
Most products in our lives are designed to fit the user.
For example, when you hold the phone, the power button is exactly where your fingers can most easily reach; the elevator button should be in a waist-level position that is easy for everyone to press; the more important the message the larger the font should be ......
Generally, users dynamically adjust to the product within their capabilities, but when they are not capable enough to interact with the product, a 'mismatch' occurs.
This happens in our lives from time to time, like the presbyopic elder who can't read too slim a font or the short child who can't press the button on the top floor of the elevator.
This is where the product needs to be reversed to accommodate users with different abilities.
So adaptive design is essentially about eliminating the mismatch that occurs when a person interacts with a product.
The definition of adaptive design doesn't sound too complicated, but applying it to actual product design reveals that nothing is as simple as it seems.
Taking the basic move cursor operation as an example, using a traditional mouse operation is not friendly to some people with disabilities.
Whether it is a gripping position requiring some hand strength or a small range of movement requiring some precision, it can pose a barrier to use for people with disabilities.
It is by no means easy to clear these obstacles, because 'obstacles' itself is only a general reference.
The 'mismatch' encountered by each individual may vary due to the vast differences between individuals.
For example, some users may not be able to grasp the mouse, others may not be able to press buttons, and still others may not be able to accurately position the cursor because of twitching.
Finding a 'maximum convention' among so many issues is a huge, if not impossible, challenge for any designer.
Even when a designer finds such a universal 'answer', it will inevitably leave out a small percentage of people's problems.
So don't think of adaptive design as synonymous with perfect design; it's just a guiding thought that drives design to keep getting better.
At this point, let's go back to this adaptive mouse component from Microsoft, and you should be able to better understand the design of it.
The seemingly assortment of mouse components can be divided into mouse, buttons and hubs (hubs), so let's start by looking at the more familiar mouse accessories.
Like a traditional mouse, the Adaptive Mouse Accessory has left and right buttons and a center scroll wheel, and is used in almost the same way as a traditional mouse - move, aim, then click.
The difference is that it's a size smaller than normal and can be moved and manipulated with just two fingers.
What makes it special is its rich expandability, if the user needs a similar palm rest as a traditional mouse, the mouse body can be attached to the back with different parts to accommodate different gripping positions such as grasping, lying down, left-handed and right-handed.
These parts can all be printed by 3D printing provider Shapeways, on which users can also customize the shape of the palm rest in their own hand size to find the best position for them.
Microsoft says that with 3D printing, users can get customized accessories in a more convenient way.
If these parts were to be officially molded and sold, people with disabilities would have to bear the expensive production costs, making it difficult for some parts to be popularized, which is clearly contrary to the idea of "eliminating barriers".
And for users who have difficulty holding or clicking the mouse, Microsoft offers an alternative operating scheme consisting of buttons and hubs.
The logic of its use is not complicated, the hub is connected first to a device such as a computer and then to up to 4 buttons.
This allows the user to manipulate the computer's cursor via buttons.
Like the mouse accessories, the buttons are also very expandable, allowing functions such as moving the cursor or clicking by replacing the rocker, cross button or double button on the head of the button.
Users can also 3D print additional accessories, such as an elliptical ring-shaped rocker with a larger force area instead of a column rocker, for easier operation.
In addition, each button also supports custom editing shortcut commands, users can press different keys to achieve copy, paste, open applications and other common operations, which is convenient for users to replace relatively complex shortcut keys and improve the efficiency of daily operations.
If these buttons introduced by Microsoft are not enough for some users, the hub also leaves a 3.5mm connector to connect more third-party accessories for users to expand upon.
If you remember Microsoft's Adaptive Xbox Handle accessory that was released in 2018, you'll notice that the two work similarly.
Once you've sorted out the 'complex', everything will be simple
Stylistically, the Adaptive Xbox Handle Kit also looks less like a joystick and more like an arcade operating panel, with a four-square flat panel holding the cross keys and two giant A and B buttons.
Although it looks rather oddly shaped, this is actually designed so that players can press the buttons with parts including elbows, feet, and heads for operational input.
The big buttons aren't all there is to the Adaptive Xbox Grip, there are 19 3.5mm ports on the top of the tablet, each corresponding to an operation including ABXY, Up, Down, Left, Right, RBRT and more, and users can combine them to best suit their grip scheme with different external buttons.
Youtube blogger Bradley has posted a video on his account All Access Life demonstrating how he plays games with the Adaptive Xbox Joystick Kit.
Bradley was born with spastic quadriplegia and has lived most of his life in a wheelchair.
His life assistant, Daniel O'Connor, installed four buttons on the head of his wheelchair, corresponding to the up, down, left, and right of the control handle, while the attack and jump buttons were installed on the sides of the wheelchair so that Bradley could control the character by hitting the buttons with his head and arms.
Since then, gaming has become a major part of the All Access Life channel updates, with Bradley playing popular games like Rocket League and COD by tweaking the different buttons, and in a way, the Adaptive Xbox Handle Kit has freed Bradley's soul that was shackled inside his body.
In 2019, Time magazine named the Adaptive Xbox Handle one of the "10 most influential tech products of the decade."
Designed for gamers with mobility issues, this joystick really focuses on the gamer experience that has long been ignored by the gaming industry, and is perhaps the most lovingly crafted gadget in 10 years and one of the most important developments in the gaming industry today, says Time magazine.
The success of the Adaptive Xbox Handle design lies in its highly customizable expandability, and happily, this has been carried over to the newly launched Adaptive Mouse Kit.
As stated earlier, adaptive design is not a perfect answer that adapts to everyone; it is supposed to adapt to the actual situation each person encounters, empowering each person to remove obstacles that are relevant to each individual human being.
According to the World Health Organization in 2020, more than 1 billion people worldwide have some form of disability, accounting for 15 per cent of the world's population.
As we age, the 6.4 billion people who are temporarily able-bodied also lose some of their physical abilities to disease and aging, meaning that over the course of a long life, everyone encounters a design that is 'mismatched' with their physical abilities.
When a solution is designed only for those with specific abilities, it naturally becomes a barrier for another segment of the population.
To change the rules of the game, designers need to consider adaptive or inclusive design early on before designing products, which will not only increase the efficiency of product development but also reduce the cost of development.
This means that manufacturers invest a lot of time and manpower into product research before product development, but put another way, if designers with the ability to change the world in their hands can't break the cycle, how can we expect the world to become a friendlier place in the future?
It's an ongoing effort, and tomorrow's design will be simpler only when the potential complexity of the present is understood, and 'simplicity' and 'complexity' are supposed to go hand in hand.