Smart phones that aren't

I have decided that society as a whole has settled for mediocracy in the department of mobile devices. We have the term 'smart phone' and believe our devices are augmenting our lives. True they keep calendars and contacts in order, let us check our email, and even write this blog. That does not make them smart. It does make them feature ridden.

I believe smart phones are more like trained dogs. Teach a dog a command and he responds. Sit and he sits. Speak, paw, roll over. Alarm, schedule, call. Are smart phones really that advanced? I see them as conditioned beings.

To side with Alan Cooper, I am the sole user of my iPhone. It should know I always want the device to turn on to the homescreen and should load the highest level of a feature upon load. That is what a smart phone would do. Instead I find myself following a series of actions to go back in hierarchy followed by hitting the home button so that the device is ready for my next encounter. That is not a smart phone. My need to take these steps are the same as needing to clean a dogs paws after taking him for a walk. The only difference is the dog might learn to expect this and wait while you put the leash up before tending to the animal. Smart phones have no memory of past events and dart into the house first chance they get, tracking mud for the owner and user to clean up.

There has to be a fundamental change in what users expect before technology will be updated. There has to be a movement for device names to accurately reflect their abilities. This change will not come from developers as it requires coding and learning on the devices part. Users don't know to ask or what doesn't exist. Which leaves the void to be filled by interaction designers. The only problem there is how to speculate on what should and should not be learned in a polite, wizard free manner?

I am open to ideas as technology becomes more pervasive innour lives.

And I am back

The last two weeks my iPhone app has not allowed me to publish. I am now enabled to mobile writing again.

Now I can post my gripes

An aside: u found a free blogger application for the iPhone. I can't tag posts or edit the tyeface but at least I can post and modify the appearance later.

To start, this will not be a very technical post instead a compokagion of some of my initial iPhone reactions. I am trying to publish where I stand on the battle for iPhone functionality and don't intend to uncover any new truths. Topics will be described byname, my awareness to them prior to purchase and my current feelings gowards the mater.

Copy and paste
Known
Agreed
Nothing new to add to what the Internet critics gave already said.

Notification LED
Known
Underestimated, disagreed
I thought this was a minimal complaint of balckberry converts. It would be great go kniwnif k have a missed call without interacting with the device and, perhaps more importantly, know if the device is evenin.

Better camera, flash
Known
Disregarded
Owning the device though, I wish it had both

Customization of hiding unused native apps
Unknown
Wanted
I have a sutuon for the application I am designing, why doesn't apple?

Landcape keyboard in more applications
Known
Disagree
I initially thought I would want this. As I peck at the portrait keyboard writing this post and autocorrect covers for the size of my finger, I was wrong. It works great as is. It might even be faster given the Fitts law sudd of life.

Battery life
Known
Underestimated
But this kachina needs it.

Customize dictionary
Unknown
Wanted
Why can I turn off autocorrect thanks to firmware 2.2 but I can't add my own shorthand? Rimm definitely has the victory here.

Multiple apps
Known
Agreed
Though in all honesty they need a better battery first.

Louder ring, better vibrate
Known
Underestimated
But if my phone is in my pocket on the other end if my short desk you might as well put up smoke signals.


So I said nothing
New but I felt obligated to post my iPhone wishes now that I am a full user for a week

Designing Products and Designing Cases

Industrial design has always had to fight the belief that designers are simply decorating a functional object. It wasn't until the early 20th century that designers started manipulating materials in a way that the world started looking at products as designed objects and not just functional tools.

Jump to the present day, corporations are hiring designers left and right to try to make their products on the cutting edge. Apple has been at the forefront of the market in computers, mp3 players, and recently mobile phones. Having just purchased my iPhone and joined the smartphone world, my post will focus on that.

Along with my iPhone, i purchased two items: a screen protector and a case. This made me think: Apple spent countless hours developing the iPhones interface and physical form. As the end user, I bought the phone for these reasons and feel that the device itself it an elegant piece of design. I do not want to scratch it, dent it, or in any other way hinder the design. So what do I do? I put the phone in a case. I no longer see the clean plastic back, the sharp edges or the overall form obssessed over by Apple designers for so long.

So my question is two fold:
When does an object become so well designed that people are afraid to use it in its natural form for fear of breaking it
and
When should a case be designed, used, and obssessed over as much as the form it supports?

Cases are by their very nature a protective service against the elements. But when we are dependent on a shell and that is all we see, the case should be attractive as well. There is a limit though - for if the case is too attractive then would we need a protector for our protector?

What are the limits on clean design and when is too much reached?

When does Feature Creep Hit?... the iPhone

Feature creep, the swiss army knife effect, Ockhams Razor. Call it what you will. They all discuss the same thing - simplicity - the fact that the simpler and more elegant solution probably wins.

So what is the threshold, or tipping point, for feature creep? How is it measured? When does a tool begin to lose its utility due to an overload of function?

When the iPhone was first launched is had 18 (?) applications. There was no third party application store and firmware updates were to fix first generation bugs. Jump ahead ~18 months and we have pages of applications and Firmware 2.2 releasing mere weeks after 2.1. Looking through the App Store, I see over half a dozen instant message applications, more RSS feaders than there would be sites in my own, and multiple applications offering the desired copy and paste function. The firmwar updates are now adding features to keep up with the market, on top of their functional advances. So when does this overabundance finally hit the point where the iPhone is no longer graceful in its function and it is instead another clunk tool? I recently came across the sit of http://pleasefixtheiphone.com/ Many of the requests are known and have been addressed, or at least acknowledged, by Apple(notorious copy and paste push, camera quality.) Others simply cause me to shake my head and wonder. Feature requests range from drop down menus to zooming into video playback, to being able to use the iPhone as anything and everything under the sun.

This makes me think of the story "if you give a mouse a cookie". Well, Apple has opened pandoras box with the AppStore allowing third party developers to fill the gaps Apple is leaving open. Some Apps have been refused only to appear in a Firmware update. That leads to the main question of when should a feature make the leap from third party development to a native feature? When does Apple daw the line and what will set the iPhone apart from Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices when that time comes?

So I do not offer a solution here. I only ask the question that feature creep is about as unavoidable as Kleenex being synonymous with tissues and when it happens, how do you keep your product separate from the mass?

RIMM, you convinced me to buy an iPhone

Anyone who knows me is fully aware I have obsessed over the pending release of Blackberry's first touch screen device (the Storm, scheduled to be released November 21) for the last 12 plus months.

This morning I had the privilege to play with the device at a 'first touch' event and, though it was still beta software, I got a good feel of the device. Overall, I was not impressed. That being said, I kept the words "not final release" repeating in my head but I think I did a good job of separating beta release issues from true technical and interaction issues.

The top ten reasons I am disapointed with the Storm, in no particular order:

1. Haptic feedback

Over the last year I was led to believe the Storm would provide haptic feedback similar to the Verizon Voyager with a grid of speakers and localized bounce upon selecting a screen item. Instead, the whole screen is a single button, in a similar fashion to Apple's new track pad on their notebooks. While I think this could work on a notebook (haven't had the opportunity to try it) I think it completely defeats the purpose in a mobile device. Users rely on physical feedback to blindly type and find buttons in their pocket but that is not possible with a single feedback source. The entire concept of haptic feedback is voided by the inefficiency of the solution.

2. Suretype - Keyboard

They still use multitouch or suretype (user controlled preference) as the input method in the portrait mode. Apple was able to fit a QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode, why cant you? Suretype does not work for a touchscreen, plain and simple.

3. Suretype - navigation

The Storm does a great job of separating TAP from SELECT. Being said, target areas in lists are too small at the default size and I tap at a force deemed a click. Now this, I will outright admit is a learned motor skill, and the sensitivity can be changed but I like to think some basic testing could have uncovered this. Also, the need to tap a selection, then click it again (yes, you can click right away but then there is no confirmation that I selected the correct field) adds roughly 60% more keystrokes to my workload. (That statisitc has a 40% error to it and was made up entirely for this post.)

4. Keyboard Access

The combination of a touchscreen and a physical set of keys is bold (blackberry pun intended.) To open the keyboard is more than easy: tap a text field or select the keyboard icon. To close it, I need three keystrokes and to switch between input methods each time.

Step 1: Switch from typing to the physical blackberry menu key

Step 2: Switch back to the touch screen and scroll through the menu to find "close keyboard"

Step 3: Tap or Click my selection.

Now it was mentioned you can close the keyboard with a toggle. I couldn't find it and I had close to a half hour with the baby toy. Unfortunately, the representatives were too busy trying to sell the devices to help out a designer.

5. Browser

Simple put, I love the full html, alleged flash support (no time to see it but asked about) and the ability to switch to a mobile browser view. Being said, the overall interface is clunky and needs a touch screen redesign.

6. Icons, Animation, and Rendering

Tip of the hat to the designer who used color sparingly. This is a nice step from the single color gradient iPhone apps. Being said, the stroke on the icons is far too thin causing be to actually have to read labels. In the animation world, I am going to chock this up to BETA. I saw none of the advertised animation when switching device orientation and flicking was more a stepped jump than any type of accelerated/decelerating motion.

7. Predictive Type

Does not work in non-conventional fields such as URL input on the browser or where I need to put in my email address. Just shouldnt be there and it is.

8. SMS

Completing the TO field I switched to number mode in the keyboard (landscape mode).

1a. The numbers are ordered in a keyboard layout in cellphone order. Which makes no sense to any mapping technique. What happened to top row numbers?

2b. The numbers switch back to letters after each character. I am sure there is a way to change this but device: have the smarts to know if this can accept names OR numbers, and I type a number, the rest of the string will follow suit. I will tell you if the number is 412.867.530P

9. Zoom

Yes, I know Apple has the Monopoly on multitouch and hence the awesome zooming. Still, the zoom in zoom out toggle is a little too 1995 for me. See my final thoughts on that.

10. Paging

I realized this one a few hour after my initial notes. But every app for the Storm is listed on a single page that you must scroll though. This makes it difficult to know where you are in the list and how many you have. The iPhone offers a nice organization methods, so you can categorize applications any way you see fit... and they have those clever dots to let you know which page your on

11. Nickel and Dime

So not a design issue, but I feel Blackberry is really good at charging for every little feature. Granted they are a business centric not a consumer centric product, but they even charge for visual voice mail... a free utility in iPhones.

What I Would Like to See

Go back a few years ago to the blackberry without a trackball but an infinitely scrolling side wheel. Now use that to zoom in the website as you select.

Use that to navigate the Copy and Paste Function.

Use the accelerometer better... BRICKBREAKER... easily the selling factor for a blackberry user on the subway. Except I need to click and drag the bar across the screen. What happened to using the accelerometer to tilt the device? Or does Apple have the rights to that also?

Conclusion

So the Storm is innovative, sexy, and awesome. All true. I can't wait to see the second release though because as of right now, its lacking a lot of fixable functionality and interactivity. To use the Storm metaphor RIMM loves, they're at a Category 1 or Tropical Storm grade, far from the Category 3 Hurricane Andrew from 1992 or Katrina, or anything else.

-IMHO

mobile templates

as discussed earlier, i found a great psd file of the iphone and all its elements. I am much more an illustrator user/abuser though. here is my iphone element doc





download iPhone illustrator file
download iPhone pdf

and if thats not enough, i built one for the blackberry storm. the UI is a lot less developed as there is almost no consistency across blackberry apps and the device was not released when i made the rendering (and still isnt as of this post)




download Storm illustrator file
download Storm pdf

iphone GUI link

So i want to make my writing in the blog slightly more regular and documented. That means not just the once in a blue moon sitting on the toilet design idea (thats where all the good ones come, right?)but also just nice observations and findings in the design world. That means two things


1a. i am going to start storing links i like here for later use when i cant remember where i saw something

2b. i am going to start tagging these post! who would have thought someone invested in usability and interaction would not be tagging his posts to make it easier to find.


So to start, here is a link i found a few months ago

Great if you need to toss together screens for an iPhone interface. Mad props to the creators of this file and for publishing it to the net. I have a strong tendency to use illustrator over photoshop though and rebuilt all of the elements in a glorious .ai file. Soon to be posted though I havent placed it anywhere on my server yet.