“Here’s a sampling of user interfaces across compact cameras from every major digital camera maker: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, Casio, Olympus and Fujifilm. User interfaces matter in these cameras more than ever because they’re increasingly the major way you drill down to change settings or switch modes—rather than manually cranking a dial, like on a pro DSLR. Some are pretty good (Canon, Samsung) while some are pretty bad (Casio).”
“And then there’s the matter of compartmentalization. A large portion of Japanese citizens live with only a cellphone as their computing device — not a personal computer, said Hideshi Hamaguchi, a concept creator and chief operating officer of LUNARR. And the problem with the iPhone is it depends on a computer for syncing media and running software updates via iTunes.”
“Instead of demonstrating its technical prowess and vast resources, Microsoft limped out a half-hearted rehash of an OS we’ve seen all too much of, and managed to blind most onlookers with a storm of big time partnerships and bloated PR. While their major competitors (and even some allies) in the mobile space seem bent on changing ideas about how we interact with our portable devices, the company proved once again that it’s content to rest on its laurels and learn little from its mistakes.”
“Ask anyone over 25 what digit they use to ring a doorbell and most people will pop up their index finger. But ask a youngster and they are much more likely to extend a thumb. “Where texting is happening they use the thumb,” Anand Chandrasekher, head of Intel’s ultra mobility group, told BBC News at CES.”
Google’s Andy Rubin thinks this of the future of mobile:
Smart alerts: Your phone will be smart about your situation and alert you when something needs your attention.
Augmented reality: Your phone uses its arsenal of sensors to understand your situation and provide you information that might be useful.
Crowd sourcing goes mainstream: Your phone is your omnipresent microphone to the world, a way to publish pictures, emails, texts, Twitters, and blog entries.
Sensors everywhere: Your phone knows a lot about the world around you.
Tool for development: Your phone may be more than just a convenience, it may be your livelihood.
The future-proof device: Your phone will open up, as the Internet already has, so it will be easy for developers to create or improve applications and content.
Safer software through trust and verification: Your phone will provide tools and information to empower you to decide what to download, what to see, and what to share.
Dave Gustafson pointed to a great Gizmodo post that looks at the absurd place the clickwheel iPod has gone over the years with all the functionality that slowly got added to something that originally was designed only to play music.
“To put this eyeball cacophony into perspective, the new menu system has over 60 places to click—nearly triple that of the original iPod version (and that’s not including Nike+ integration on nanos). Plus, the new system has five screens just for settings, all of which are unrelated to the main “Settings” menu. How did things become so complicated? The iPod went from doing one thing really well to doing a bunch of things pretty well. But the UI was never redesigned to accommodate the functionality…Right now Apple’s sending city traffic down a one-lane, unpaved road.”
It’s not specifically about mobile, but when Marissa Meyer of Google writes about the future of search it’s worth paying attention.
“So what’s our straightforward definition of the ideal search engine? Your best friend with instant access to all the world’s facts and a photographic memory of everything you’ve seen and know. That search engine could tailor answers to you based on your preferences, your existing knowledge and the best available information; it could ask for clarification and present the answers in whatever setting or media worked best. That ideal search engine could have easily and elegantly quenched my withdrawal and fueled my addiction on Saturday. I’m very proud that Google in its first 10 years has changed expectations around information and how quickly and easily it should be able to be retrieved. But I’m even more excited about what Google search can achieve in the future.”
Video from the Business to Buttons conference, with Hampus Jakobsson and James Haliburton of TAT talking about social connectivity on mobile devices.
“Mobile phones are some of the most advanced personal objects we have, but still there are just technical inventions or stylish skins. What can be done to improve personal communication and social connections? TAT Tenk researches social patterns around mobile applications and will present some of its findings during first half of 2008.”
Small Surfaces is a site about design for mobile technology. This site tracks articles about interaction design, user interface design, user experience, usability and social trends related to mobile devices.
