Morten Hjerde has taken a long hard look at text input field design.
“Edit-in-place is preferable in most cases. A person can see the context, and the visuals is consistent. Full screen editing is preferable when the user is likely to enter a large amount of text. Predictive text (T9, etc) may only be available in [...]
What’s new is old. Cre8txt has made a keyboard for PCs that uses a Bell Keypad-based predictive text input system that is “designed to capture the texting skills that so many young people have and allow those skills to be used to input words onto a computer”.
Link: cre8txt (creatxt.com, via)
“The single most important concept to master when designing mobile device interfaces is “context”. The context in which an application is used and the context of how information is input are both key issues; each must be understood before a well crafted design may be implemented. When these two notions of context are explored, it [...]
iPhone input-related articles keep rolling on in – this one from CNET is an interesting discussion on one-handed vs two-handed operation.
“The smart phones that most people are familiar with—the Nokias, BlackBerrys and Treos—only require one hand for basic operation. Obviously, typing on the QWERTY keyboards used by most of those devices is a two-handed operation, [...]
“If there is a billion-dollar gamble underlying Apple’s iPhone, it lies in what this smart cellphone does not have: a mechanical keyboard. As the clearest expression yet of the Apple chief executive’s spartan design aesthetic, the iPhone sports only one mechanical button, to return a user to the home screen. It echoes Steven P. Jobs’s [...]
I’m not sure whether to be excited or terrified by NeoKeys. They’ve removed the labels from the keypad and placed several rows of LCDs above an enlarged keyset. The benefit is that the key behaviors can adapt to context through very specific labeling (fantastic!). The problem is that the keypad layout is fixed for every [...]
A design for texting with the device orientation inverted. This is just a patent application, and not a real product. It’s an interesting idea, though, because it doesn’t ask people to learn new input systems but rather just change the orientation of the device.
“Typing text messages in this manner is awkward, as the mobile is [...]
Little Springs Design has put together a nice summary of different text input methods for mobile devices, including different hardware and software solutions.
“We have categorized various text input mechanisms for mobile devices based on usage scenario. We count not just the number of hands needed to press keys on the device, but also the number [...]
Little Springs Design have published a couple of short pieces on applying Fitt’s Law to mobile devices.
“Fitt’s Law (circa 1954) states that the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to the target and the size of the target. The further the target is away from the user’s current position, the [...]
A post-mortem of the creation of the mobile game “Tower Bloxx”.
“As we discussed earlier, the original idea came from a mock-up image which was later turned into a prototype, which led to our core mechanics. After production started, we also needed something to fill the long-term gameplay demand, so we had several ideas of how [...]
“Many of these issues are about solving the complexity problem: enabling lots of different features for lots of different users in lots of different cultures. Will tomorrows intuitive interfaces use RFID to allow us to interact with our environment in a more tangible manner, in a way similar to how people in cities like London [...]
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Posted 06 June 2006
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Also tagged: customization, design, future, hci, interactiondesign, ixd, mobile, mobility, multimodal, personalization, pervasive, phones, trends, ubicomp, ui, usability, userexperience, ux
Nicolas Nova comments on a column by Erik Holmquist on mobile interactions.
“Those who still worry about the limited interaction possibilities of mobile devices should note that all the applications mentioned above could be used on a standard mobile phone today (with small modifications). Yet at the same time they drastically expand the interaction parameters of [...]
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Posted 19 May 2006
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Also tagged: controller, design, handheld, hci, industrialdesign, interactiondesign, ixd, mobile, mobility, phones, ubicomp
From the first chapter of Mobile Interaction Design, by Matt Jones.
“Perhaps, though, the real issue is not whether mobile devices should focus mainly on communication or information processing. There is a broader concern should one device try to do everything for a user or should there be specialized tools, each carefully crafted to support [...]
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Posted 13 April 2006
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Also tagged: book, controller, design, emotion, ethnography, handheld, hci, interactiondesign, interruption, ixd, lifestyle, mobile, mobility, navigation, palm, pda, pervasive, phones
Published by Gabriel White.