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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 (0) |
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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 (0) |
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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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| 21 February 2007 |
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Don Norman in his latest essay discusses the return of command line interface. I see things the other way – we are returning to Microsoft Bob. I mean not to the concept of UI hosted by animated characters, but to the UI containing representations of familiar physical objects and with which you can interact by intuitive physical movements.
Microsoft Bob “desktop” (left), Bumptop UI (right)
Call such interfaces fluid, active or live, they make interactions more alive, more real-world. And as in real life we can interact with a person by gestures/mimic and speech, the same applies to live interfaces. We interact with them by gestures (physical movements like rotating or tapping) and by text/speech (command line interface). So, I wouldn’t call command line interfaces the next breakthrough. It just evolves as a part of next gen interfaces supplementing and enhancing visual browsing. |
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| Posted at 07:16 AM | Comments (2) |
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| 30 January 2007 |
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Samsung just announced an i7 device with orientation-dependent UI which they call Physical User Interface (PUI). The i7 is equipped with a 3.0” touch screen LCD which rotates through 180 degrees allowing the user to quickly switch between features.
With the screen in normal position the user has access to integrated MP3 player; with the screen rotated 90 degrees to its Portable Multimedia Player (PMP) function and turned a full 180 degrees to standard camera features.
(Via dpreview.com) |
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| Posted at 07:08 AM | Comments (0) |
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| 12 January 2007 |
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Things started to move. Fakes of “iPhone killer” from traditional phone manufacturers began to appear. I think fakes express the general trend in user expectations. So, how much long now from fakes to actual products?
(Via Mobile-Review.com) |
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| Posted at 02:07 AM | Comments (3) |
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| 9 January 2007 |
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After watching all the interface videos I can say only this – wow! It’s a revolution we’ve all been waiting for. While some companies make futuristic demos and plastic prototypes, others make the actual product.
The interface is amazing. Got to love the attention to details like automatic landscape mode when rotating the phone, proximity sensor (I guess first since Ericsson R520) that disables the touchscreen when you lift the phone to the ear or thread-based SMS history. Too bad it’s a little big for an everyday phone. Guess I’ll have to wait for an iPhone nano.
Something interesting for the end - to the right is a concept screen of Windows Mobile 2005.
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| Posted at 15:42 PM | Comments (0) |
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