Flow is launching this morning. They're YC alums who have created a low cost, high precision wireless controller in the form of a dial. It's highly programmable and most designers and creatives will find this to be super valuable because that's where precision really matters.
When I'm in Photoshop making pixel-perfect mockups, or when I'm in Lightroom editing photos, I'm constantly making micro-adjustments on specific settings, whether it be brush size, exposure, etc. I have to acquire the target, then move my mouse, and then click-drag to the point where I'm happy. We're exercising one fundamental law of UX over and over again - Fitts' law.
Fitts' Law states that the difficulty of an action is determined by the movement time needed to complete that action, which is in turn defined by the size of the target to be acquired. Sliders are by nature long and thin. If I had to guess, a good chunk of the cognitive load of doing creative work is just moving a mouse pointer to a tiny slider bar.
Not only is it a tiny target to acquire, but there are finite number of steps in those sliders that can make a mountain of difference. For instance, photographers are always looking for that absolutely perfect exposure or temperature. With a slider, you're limited to the number of pixels that slider has on screen - 200px? That's only 200 gradations, and in my experience that perfect level is always in between two of those notches.
Enter Flow. There are over 3600 distinct values in one full 360 degree turn of the device. And since you can link them directly to specific values e.g. exposure or brush size, you don't have to acquire the target over and over and over again.
That's why I bought one, and that's why Flow is an important programmable hardware device that creative people should keep an eye on. They're accepting preorders now and are on Product Hunt, and if you get one early it's an extra good deal.
