What TouchFLO 3D Could Have Been

The latest Engadget Show featured Drew Bamford, HTC's director of user experiences. He had a big part in the incubation of TouchFLO 3D (first shown on the HTC Touch Diamond), and now is doing a lot with HTC Sense, found on the HD2 and HTC's latest Android devices.

What's interesting is that from the video we get a peep at some sketches from 2006 when Bamford was conceptualizing the new interface. We can dissect these drawings to consider what TouchFLO 3D may have been.



Here we see a framework for TouchFLO 3D with a listing of possible tabs to be used in the interface. Tabs that didn't make the cut? That would be RSS, Video/TV, TiVo/Slingbox, Navigation/Traffic, plus a few others that did indeed make the cut, but not as dedicated panels.



In this sketch we see see the envisioned hierarchy of TouchFLO 3D which is comprised of several sub-panels, such as those for contacts. We also see Bamford introduce the idea of x-y-z (or three dimensional) controls, which was indeed implemented on the Music and People tab (with the 3D-like flipping effect).



Here is the wireframe design for TouchFLO 3D. It's clear that HTC was relying heavily on hardware controls through D-Pad movement. In today's devices, everything is controlled with on-screen gestures.

Also of note here is that HTC envisioned having extra tabs that you'd find in each contact layer that could be used to play a game with the person you're viewing, see their present location, view RSS from their personal blog, or to view photos on Flickr. Most of this functionality did indeed show up (excluding the game and RSS tab) but not until 2009.



Here we see a more finalized wireframe that again shows the evolution of the contacts layer which we didn't see until several years later, starting on the Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2.

To see the full video, click on to The Engadget Show.