“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 [...]
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 [...]
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Posted 11 September 2008
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Also tagged: clickwheel, complexity, control, controls, interactiondesign, ipod, ixd, mobile, music, scaling, ui
The latest of the Economist’s Technology Quarterly has a survey of the history and state of touch technology.
“The double click does not translate terribly well to touch screens, however. This has led some researchers to look for alternatives. In developing his multi-touch screen, Dr Han found that there can be more to touch input than [...]
Smashing Magazine describes some future UI concepts, including several for mobile devices.
“Below we present 10 recent developments in the field of user experience design. Most techniques may seem very futuristic, but some of them are already reality. And in fact, they are extremely impressive. Keep in mind: they can become ubiquitous in the next years.”
Link: [...]
Aza Raskin write about avoiding modalities.
“What’s wrong with modal overlays? In a word, they are modal: You are either interacting with the content or the overlay. Modal overlays don’t allow you to refer back and forth between two sources of information, or move fluidly between two actions. The second problem with modal overlays are that [...]
Rachel Hinman’s going on a generative sprint for the next three months.
“For the next 90 days, I’m going to think about, sketch, draw, and prototype ideas about mobile design and post them here. Like folks recovering from any addiction, I don’t know what is at the end of these 90 days. I’m just gonna commit [...]
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Posted 23 June 2008
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Also tagged: adaptivepath, blog, carrier, concepts, design, handset, interactiondesign, ixd, manufacturer, mobile, phone, ui
Just came across a blog published by Kevin Arthur called Touch Usability. The blog tracks articles related to touch UIs, and has a great collection of content.
Link: Touch Usability (touchusability.com)
“With the new UI, we were able to use the entire screen for user input. This came really handy when we approached the workflow for envelope-free check deposits which allow much shorter processing times and the ability to print receipts with an actual image of the check. It also saves the bank processing costs.”
Link: That [...]
Aza Raskin demos a nice, simple concept for Firefox Mobile. My favorite quote: “Trying to type on mobile is like trying to remove a contact lens with a cotton ball; it’s just not fun.” It looks like a strong concept, though I’m not sure of the value of the ‘tab’ space like he describes – [...]
“However, the real reason in my mind that the iPhone wins is it’s ability to “stay in social touch”. The email, the SMS, the browsing experience has enabled much of the behavior that social networkers have mastered already on the laptop or desktop. It’s not about the technology, it is about how the device helps [...]
“It’s worth repeating that you should not design your software to be consistent across devices. You should design your software to be consistent with the device it runs on. Your users are unlikely to use your software on many different handsets. When your software runs on an old Sony Ericsson phone, it should use the [...]
Paul Golding writes that the idea of the mobile ‘browser’ is an oxymoron. I agree wholeheartedly; the strong activity / goal orientation of mobile devices keeps bringing me back to the idea of the networked micro-application, something that lives in the cloud but is delivered through a UI that is entirely appropriate to its function [...]
A few Android video demos have landed. The first one shows some nice details with a window-blind metaphor for accessing core functions, as well as a perplexing use of the ‘icons on a desktop’ metaphor.
The second shows a rather cool use of a compass in the hardware. I’m sure that there are lots of fun [...]
Published by Gabriel White.