- The keyboard design isn’t as slick as the iPhone keyboard design
It’s not quite a MacBook keyboard layout and it’s not an iPhone keyboard layout either. Commit actions like, done, go, search aren’t colored like on the iPhone. The dashes, dots, commas are hard to distinguish. On the iPhone a typewriter like key pops out so you can visually confirm that you hit the right key. On the iPad there is no feature to deal with occlusion. - How you hold the device really alters the user experience and how apps should be designed.
On the iPhone the design is done in such a way to accommodate the way you hold the device. For example in mobile Safari and in email the command buttons are along the bottom of the screen. This puts many buttons in thumbs reach. On the iPad key buttons in both email and Safari are across the top. This means that if you’re holding the device along the bottom you can’t reach many of the buttons without moving your hands. Since the home button tends to be along the bottom there’s no comfortable rest-state. - About my laptop
It starts out with just email and some web-browsing but pretty soon you realize that most of the things you do can be done on an iPad. Not all, and this gap is closing. In particular heavy typing tasks (blogging for me) and heavy editing, especially visual and graphics editing is still better with a laptop. That being said I am much happier bringing a light iPad to a meeting then a heavy laptop. - You don’t use this device like a giant iPod.
I’ve never read a book or a magazine before on either my laptop or iPod. I’ve never played a four person multi-touch game on either of these devices. The experience is different and fun. In a new way. Magazines and books are key here. This is the future of digital content. - Certain people could use this as a replacement computer but I can’t.
Email and web browsing without compromise. (Well maybe the Flash thing) Other then that you have a pretty nice device for doing the core things my mom uses her computer to do. For technical users the iPad doesn’t do enough to replace their laptop. - Screen orientation is flipping me out
When you hold the screen in vertical orientation you get 4 icons across and 5 icons down. When you flip the screen you get 5 across and 4 down. The annoying part is that the icons re-positions so you can’t use spacial memory to find an icon. Was that icon on the top right? Ohh, sorry now it’s in the middle left. - The web is not ready for the iPad (yet).
There are still plenty of sites with embedded video/flash and when I hit these sites I am likely to move on. I almost never stop what I’m doing to go grab my laptop. As the iPad sails past the 1M mark the tech-savvy sites will transition over to H264 video. The issue is primarily video although other flash goodness will still be missing.
Flash sucks but HTML5 is worse then Flash on many things, more on that in another post.
Subscribe to this blog to hear more on that.
- The battery lasts a freakishly long time
It’s nothing like a Kindle but compared to other bright-screen electronics. Wow. That’s all I have to say about that.
- A different user experience is fundamental to touch computing
I remember a program manager from Microsoft talking about the Tablet PC back in 2000. He said, in the history of computing there has never been a product category that has failed as often as tablet based computing. From the Alan Kay to the Apple Newton and even Windows for Pen Computing. The history books are filled with these ‘slate’ computers that have failed. He then went on to explain how the Tablet PC would be different because it focused on the input experience.The truth is that the tablet/slate experiences of the past were not that different. It was Windows with a great input editor. It’s too early to tell if the iPad will succeed or fail but the iPad user experience is so different in a fundamental way that it will change how people interact with computers.
How do I know? My two year old is now reached out and trying to scroll the screen on my laptop. If that’s not the future I don’t know what is.
Posts Tagged ‘mobile’
9 Things I didn’t know about the iPad
May 10
14
Mobile On-Screen Keyboards
Mar 10
15
It’s interesting to look at several mobile on-screen keyboards side by side to compare various design decisions. I’ve shown screenshots of the iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile phones.
- The iPhone is the only keyboard that always displays characters in upper-case. I believe this may help legibility as well as being consistent with desktop keyboards.
- All three make use of the entire region for hit-testing but the iPhone makes the buttons appear smaller giving the illusion of white-space between the letters. This may help users target toward the center of the button when typing.
- The iPhone is also the only keyboard to use color to both offset the modifier keys and the completion keys. This gives the keyboard a funnel style appearance.
- The Windows Mobile keyboard extends the A and L keys to use all available space.
- Android and Windows Mobile both tend to use the classic keyboard “Enter” key rather then the task centric command. This can be confusing when using the arrow symbol right next to a delete arrow symbol.
On a positive note the keyboard all use almost identical spacing so if you learn to “touch type” you’ll be mostly OK as you move between devices.
Mobile Ergonomics for those with two thumbs
Nov 09
23
You can’t easily tap every region of the phone with equal ease. Your hand isn’t designed for this. Yes your thumb is opposable but unless it’s double jointed there will still be parts of your phone that will be harder to tap.
When designing an application consider how it’s going to be held. In one hand, sometimes in the other, perhaps in your pocket? That’s why it’s so important to get the app out of the simulator and actually into your hand. The mechanics of how you hold your phone make it much harder to grip the device in certain orientations. It makes it particularly difficult to reach the lower corners by your thumb.
Consider the built in Camera application that Apple provides. The application is simple and attractive but the buttons for the application are in exactly the wrong place. To take a proper picture you need to hold the phone perfectly vertical (unless you’re taking a picture of the floor.) The slippery edges of the phone require you to either grip the phone firmly with your hand making it difficult to tap the camera or alternatively balance the camera precariously on your pinkie finger.
I have dropped my phone at least twice attempting this and know of at least one person who has smashed their phone into little bits because of this.
There’s a principal called “Fitts’s law” that describes how clickable items are on screen. Said simply:
Items that are larger and closer to the mouse cursor are easier to click.
The mathematical details then explain that traditional screen edges are infinitely click-able since they have a virtually unlimited size. On a mobile device the same assumptions don’t hold true. The mechanics of your hand play a significant role. Not only do items have to be larger to be easier to click but they have to be easily reachable when holding a phone in one hand.
Going Mobile – Giving users the finger
Apr 09
29
Last month I gave a talk for UPA Boston, this is a summary of that talk.
Over the last five years we’ve seen a shift in mobile applications. For about 30 years people thought of mobile phones as an extension of traditional phones. They would make calls and that was the primary use. Over the last 10 years we’ve added features like voice mail, texting and even basic web browsing. It wasn’t until just the last 4-5 years that the next wave of mobile has taken off.
Mobile today
Mobile phones today are dominated by three classes of devices, 16 button, 60 button keyboard and new touch devices. There are about 1Billion 16 button phones, 50-100 million keyboard phones and about 20-40 million touchscreen phones. I’m mostly talking about this last category of emerging phones though some principals apply to both keyboard phones and 16 button phones.
The key difference between the phones of yesterday and the phones of today are a combined set of capabilities and technologies that fundamentally change the user experience. These include:
- Always connected – email/web/etc
- Adaptive input screen (control every pixel)
- Geo-location
- Touch/Gesture interface
- Accelerometer
- Apps you can download
A lot of these technologies existed either in isolation or in awkward implementations. Together they allow for a much richer application experience. This has become a platform that is fun, exciting and profitable for application developers.
Design for existing behaviors
When designing an application it’s key to keep scenarios in mind. A scenario is the basic story of how a person may use the application. The important thing when thinking about scenarios is that actions tend to stay the same but the way you complete those actions changes. Behavioral changes are difficult and rare. It’s much easier to design tools that encourage and support existing behaviors. Similarly it’s much easier for end-users to adopt your application or tool into their existing behaviors rather then changing established patterns.
Designing for Mobile
When designing for mobile remember that people are out in the real world. Your application needs to be a good alternative to the desktop/laptop. The factors for this type of design should include:
- Input methods – make it easy and minimal to get information into the device.
- Form Factor – Design for a smaller screen size and make it easy to read and get information back out of the device.
- Location – Take location into account
- Efficiency – A mobile application should be quick and efficient
Input Considerations
You can’t always expect that the user has both hands free. People are often holding something else in their hand, coffee, bags, railings, doors, etc. You should design your application to be usable with one hand. Consider scenarios where the user may have both hands occupied, driving, running, etc.
Opposable thumbs are great but they aren’t perfect. There are spots on the phone that are particularly hard to hit with one hand. Certain apps aren’t designed well for single handed use. Fitts law doesn’t work on mobile devices. Because of the mechanics of the human hand certain zones are easier to hit and this has little relation to the screen edge.
Output Data
Use large presentation size fonts, 14-18pt fonts are typical. Use large finger tip sized targets, 30-40px are easy to tap. Small targets are particularly hard to hit. Examples: Info buttons are tiny and sliders tend to be particularly hard to tap.
Touch Screen Language
The user interface language is being defined now. The desktop conventions of click, double click, right click. These conventions don’t always hold on a mobile device. A whole new interface language is being developed in rather an ad-hoc way. Certain conventions are becoming more popular:
- Tap – most similar to click
- Tap & Hold – magnify, copy/paste, selection/make dragable
- Swipe – scroll, secondary action/delete option
- Pinch – Zoom
- Shake – Undo/Refresh/Clear
Basic guidelines
1) Each screen should do one thing (well)
2) Minimize on-screen elements (quantity, not size)
3) Make things easy to tap
4) Avoid preferences
5) Design for the 80% case
The session covered other topics including Mobile Wireframe Design, Mobile Web Design. Mobile Usability, and Mobile Gaming. The variation of the talk will be given at this years Mini-UPA, an event put-on by Boston UPA. If your company or organization is interested in hearing it first hand contact me for additional info.
Application design for mobile phones
Jun 08
5
I love designing applications for mobile phones. It forces you to think about the essential features. Often times this is exactly the type of design you want on larger applications but it’s tougher to convince clients that the application gets better when you take away features. Many larger applications can learn from this.
- Do one thing, do it well
- Linear flow top-down
- Purposeful word choice
- Large fonts for readability
- Keyboard accessibility
- The details matter