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| 27 November 2008 |
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For almost half a year I'm working for ustwo - a very talented design team, focusing on the innovative mobile experience. Site only features some fun side gigs like games and content for now, but the really interesting projects already implemented and upcoming ones are under NDA. Game-changing things are coming to mobile phones, hope will be able so show some of them in the future.
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| Posted at 02:51 AM | Comments (0) |
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| 25 November 2008 |
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Apple is slowly doing it's correction work on iPhone interface. In latest firmware the click on the Home button takes you to the main Home screen from any Home screen. Strange it wasn't there from the start. It's still strange that you can't lock the screen by pressing the Home button on the main screen. It's still more of the "back" button even if you call it "Home".
And even better call it some "universal" button and let answer the call/end the call by clicking on it. Remember old 3110, 3210, 3310 Nokias "navi" key?
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| Posted at 04:04 AM | Comments (0) |
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| 2 September 2008 |
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Lately I see the evolution of the phone as the evolution of the screen size and resolution. Trying to browse websites/multimedia on tiny screen reminds me of astronauts underwater trainings where they have to perform simple tasks like tightening the screw in awkward rigid diving suits. Up to now most of the phones still borrow design from old Texas Instrument’s pocket calculator: small screen at the top, numeric keypad at the bottom. The screen was one of the main factor of phone transformation from a pocket dialer to a multimedia device. And the screen will determine the future of the device (flexible, projection etc).
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| Posted at 03:25 AM | Comments (1) |
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| 25 March 2008 |
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A lot of good points and a spot-on remark that everyone now is trying to reach iPhone interface simplicity and “wow” factor within existing non-touch UI/hardware solutions. Two distinctive interface trends stand out.
First one, let’s call it “one layer UI” is basically a copy of the iPhone interface – just the list of application icons in one layer. Sort of a computer desktop stripped of menu bars.
Other is “two layers UI” that has some basic simple interface on top of advanced menu. This solution follows the 80/20 rule (80% of the effects comes from 20% of the causes) so in most of the cases the user won’t need to go deeper then the first interface level.
“One layer UI” is seen mostly on touchscreen phones, though it can work with non-touch setup too with the help of additional hardware buttons. Its unbeatable simplicity suffers when the number of application icons are bigger then the home screen can fit.
The main drawback of current implementation of this UI is the lack of the overview – you have to launch the app to see what’s going on “inside” it. To see a missed call you have to launch a phone application, to view upcoming events you have to launch the organizer etc. Also no overview screen could create problems when the need for easy app switching while multi-tasking will appear. Would be interesting to see in what way Apple and others will solve these issues in next interface iterations.
“Two layers UI” appeared more as a desire to make current interface layout that almost didn’t change since the introduction of Ericsson T68 in 2001 much simpler. A simple basic interface sits on top of the “advanced” one. Nokia multimedia menu and Sony Ericsson upcoming G700/G900 menu can be an example of this approach. Although appeared as a compromise solution, the idea of dividing interface in several levels of complexity I think has a lot of potential, sort of menu complexity adaptive tessellation. Software application use “basic” and “advanced” modes for a long time and this approach could be taken further.
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| Posted at 05:32 AM | Comments (1) |
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| 17 September 2007 |
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Upcoming Samsung's T10 player has an interesting menu – an animated character runs from one menu item to another. Another example of interface personification.
(Images from Mobile-Review.com) |
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| Posted at 06:36 AM | Comments (1) |
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| 3 July 2007 |
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Very entertaining, but in light of latest interface trends it doesn't look like a joke to me.
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| Posted at 07:32 AM | Comments (1) |
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| 15 June 2007 |
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The new announced Sony Ericsson W910 has what's called "Shake control". You can change tracks by flicking the phone and shuffle the playlist by shaking. Nice.
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| Posted at 04:16 AM | Comments (0) |
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| 11 May 2007 |
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À new kid-oriented mp3 player from SanDisk has an interesting way of changing songs. You shake the device to jump to the next song.
I’ve always thought shaking would be great for returning to main menu in phones. It’s a natural gesture: if something doesn’t work right, you shake it. Lost in menus? Shake the phone. |
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| Posted at 07:51 AM | Comments (0) |
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| 19 March 2007 |
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Your life consists of series of events. So can be the interface — a single array of events. Events like calls, photos taken, messages sent and received, applications launched, albums listened, birthdays etc. You can view the events from the past and from the future. As every event is no more important than the other, there’s no hierarchy. Needed information is obtained through filtering and sorting like viewing only calls in timeline (recent calls) or alphabetical order (classic phonebook).
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| Posted at 04:04 AM | Comments (13) |
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