What is gained by having two screens? What user interactions are more suited to two screens rather than one? Form factor is an obvious advantage; two screens can be easily folder into something smaller. Physical separation of displays can help reinforce mental and interaction models. The two examples below have capacitive sensors on the lower screens – this helps focus user interaction in a specific spatial component of the user interface. When should you choose two screens over one?
Pictured: NTT DoCoMo’s D800iDS and Nintento DS
Comments 3
two screens for every boy? Wasn’t that a Beach Boys song?
Posted 23 Jan 2007 at 8:06 pm ¶My cousins were in town over the holidays and I had the pleasure to play the DS. I think two screens are great for separating user interaction. With the DS, it was to have alternating views of your place in the overall field of play, compared with your opponent, which contributes to overall understanding of the playing environment.
With phones and other handheld devices, there are plenty of times I wish I could make my keypad disappear…replacing that tool for interaction enables that. More often than not, the original rationale for having dual screens is probably to enable more screen/interaction surface while still keeping the overall unit compact. Nice to have both traits as benifits, though.
Posted 26 Jan 2007 at 6:23 am ¶Michael – I agree. There are many times when elements of the physical UI just isn’t needed (especially on high function devices like mobile phones). Gabe
Posted 26 Jan 2007 at 8:20 am ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
[...] only benefit NeoKeys offers above a dual screen configuration is the haptic response of the keys and the ability to easier target the buttons (but haptic [...]
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