Category — user interface designing

Apple’s iOS platform is famed for its usability, user interface design, and overall user experience. One area that could do with an improvement is the Notifications system. Not only does it drain the battery it can get cumbersome. An example of this is when you unlock an iPhone and have to go through all notifications just to get to the home screen. The user interface design of the notifications system is such that only one is overlay-ed at a time. Furthermore notifications on the lock screen do not offer much added functionality save for launching the app from where the notification came from. After-all double-clicking the home button when the screen is locked allows users to play/ pause and to skip songs.

One of the ways of improving the system is by re-imagining it as an app.  Andreas Hellqvist, a concerned netizen, took it upon himself to conceptualize an app from the ground up that centralizes all notifications. The user interface design of the concept app was built using existing iOS visual elements so it fits snugly. Since it is an app, users can decide how important notifications are and can place the app in the quick start bar or any other part of the user interface design. Open the app and all your mails, missed calls, Facebook posts, and software updates can be seen at a glance. The lock screen also displays numerous notifications and uses the same slide to unlock paradigm to access and act on notifications (such as kick starting the Mail app to reply) from the lock screen itself. The concept and user interface design is so completely formed it almost makes the current notification system appear outdated!

For years BMW has been using its iDrive computer system to control a  number of secondary vehicle systems (like entertainment, air conditioner, and navigation). The iDrive user interface design appears on an LCD panel in the dashboard and is controlled by a knob on the center console. The knob, known as the Controller, allows front and back seat passengers to manipulate the iDrive’s functions via rotate-and-press mechanisms. In other words one can think of the Controller much like the iPod’s click-wheel in terms of functionality. The user interface design of the system works very much like a GPS system with a dash of  the Symbian user interface design. Although the iDrive has been criticized for having a steep learning curve, other up-scale car manufacturers (such as Mercedes Benz, Audi and Lexus) have since introduced their own variants using screens in the dashboard to display the user interface design.

BMW has also developed better integration of the iDrive system with the iPhone. Downloading the free BMW Connected app and connecting a smartphone allows users access to certain apps through the iDrive’s display. This allows drivers to access these services through a user interface design and a controller designed to allow drivers to keep driving at the same time. This may sound alarming but if you consider all the time spent in traffic then it makes sense to be able to access iPhone services without having to pick it up only to put it down again to move forward a little bit. The App allows users to access music, web radio as well as Twitter and Facebook.  The news feeds are modified to fit the user interface design of the iDrive (i.e. less but bigger-sized text). The Controller knob obviously has no keyboard but instead leverages real-time data from the car to suggest pre-composed statements such as “it’s 32°C out and i’m driving around in my BMW” etc

Thus far Microsoft’s tablet strategy has been to cram the desktop version of Windows into a tablet. This has not proven to be successful as Apple, and Android to a lesser extent, have released tablets with a tailored user interface design that befits the smaller screens. Naturally the user interface design of Windows is optimized for use with a mouse and keyboard whereas  tablets like the iPad are optimized for touch input.  Take for example how right click is used to open further menu options, how exactly does one right click with one’s fingers? And speaking of fingers, ever notice how much fatter they are than a mouse point?! MS Paint would be a pain to use with a finger unless it was optimized for it. Early previews of Windows 8 reveal a user interface design that does have tablets in mind, but in the mean time one company has decided to take things into their own hands.

In order to solve usability and user interface design conundrums such as these the EXOPC tablet has taken a similar route as the likes of HTC and Motorola with Android. What those firms did was to create a custom UI design on top of Android to make it more appealing and usable. The EXOPC gives users the best of both worlds. On one hand users can run Windows 7 as is or they can switch to the EXOPC custom user interface design that is optimized for touch input. The custom user interface design combines the ease-of-use of touch with the true multitasking of Windows 7, not to mention full on Adobe Flash. The device is on the pricey side but considering that the iPad cannot run heavyweight programs such as Adobe Master Collection then the price becomes more palatable. Furthermore there’s an EXOPC app store where you can download a ton of content that is optimized for the custom UI design. Despite doing a great job in terms of hardware (i.e. USB ports etc.) and user interface design my main fear for the EXOPC is that Windows 8 will render it somewhat redundant.

Shortly after the iPad was launched Jakob Nielsen, the usability guru, released a study on the user interface design of the early iPad apps. His overall conclusion back then was that due to a lack of user interface design guidelines many apps had unique ways to wield them. A double-tap might do one thing in one app and quite another (if nothing at all) in another. As a result many users simply had to get lucky to truly understand the interactions that belie the various apps and their user interface designs. In all fairness it was more than just a lack of user interface design guidelines that was problematic but that developers only got their hands on the iPad at the same time as consumers, thus predicating a rush to ship apps.

A year later and Nielsen has revisited the user interface design of iPad apps. Naturally the user interface designs of iPad apps have improved but some findings are replicated in the new study.  The read-tap asymmetry still holds true. This is when text large enough to read is too small to tap thereby making the user interface design more frustrating. In the same vein touchable areas tended to be small and close to each other resulting in accidental activation. Navigation remains problematic though. Many users are not given enough indication of many of the tap-able links on the user interface design. The same goes for swipe-able areas whereby some users would swipe the wrong area and consider the app to be broken. On the positive side apps are now integrating back buttons, broader use of search, homepages, and other elements into their user interface designs. Considering how nascent the iPad is the signs are all-together promising.

Color plays an integral role in our lives. Literally everything we see and do is painted in color.  Thus, the vitality and importance of color should not be forgotten when you are designing a user interface; in fact, the use of color can help distinguish your user interface from all the rest.  Using color in the right way can brighten up a drab interface design, increase its popularity with users and improve usability.  In order to use color, it is best to categorize how and why to use it.

Natural vs. Unnatural Colors

When thinking about your interface design’s color palette, it is a good idea to decide whether or not you want it to be inspired by natural colors or unnatural colors.  Natural colors are colors that occur in nature: browns, blues, greens etc.  Unnatural colors are colors that could appear in nature (most likely in a tropical rain forest) but are probably man-made or synthetic: fuchsia, hot purple, neon yellow, etc.  Put simply, earthen tones vs. bright, bold tones.

This is part two of my blog post on the new iTunes’ Ping service.

After having taken a look at the pros and cons of Ping and how it may fare in the music market, let’s see what the application itself is like.

Setting up Ping, for those with an account already, is a pretty straightforward process. A click on the Ping button in the sidebar to the left of the interface design invites users to activate their account. For a service that aims to be about music I was surprised to be limited to a choice of maximum three genres. As more and more artists take to Ping the service should become more worthwhile. One of the biggest usability gripes I have with Ping is that the only way to change the language used is to change to an iTunes store from a country that speaks the desired language. This entails creating a new account, which incidentally is a breach of the fine print in Apple’s legal terms. Considering that the most popular social networks allow users to change language at will and in one step (usually via a drop-down menu) Ping appears a bit too rigid and, dare I say, a tad patronizing.

Visually Ping is not much to look at. The interface design comes across as a bit bland. It looks like a medium-fidelity wireframe that still awaits a paint job. I feel as though Apple is reaching an impasse with how far they can keep a walled garden. Finding friends on Ping is a nightmare. The use of APIs to source contacts for friends from Facebook, Twitter, Gmail etc. would go a long way in rectifying that. What is the point of a social network if you can’t network with those you wish to? At least the security settings are very simple, occurring in one step offering from three levels. Exporting is also impossible so one can’t, for example, share a recommendation over Twitter! Personally I believe Ping is more potential than finished product and I can see the social aspect spreading to the rest of the iTunes Store.

However considering that there were a million signups in two days and the inclination of users to spend using the iTunes, Ping will certainly be profitable for Apple. I fear that a lot of people will find other services more convenient to use. With Ping Apple is clearly going against the convention of opening up social networks more.

In case you are not familiar with the children’s story Goldilocks and the Three Bears it goes something like this: Goldilocks finds the three bears’ home abandoned and decides to go in and try out their beds and porridge.  There are three beds and three bowls of porridge and when she tries them they are either too hard or too cold, too soft or too hot, or just right.  So the whole message of the story is finding balance within polar extremes, finding what is “just right”.  Well this silly little story has engendered a scientific theory, the Goldilocks Principle, which can also be applied to user interface design according to John Sorflaten of Human Factors International (humanfactors.com).

The Goldilocks Principle

The Goldilocks Principle (also known as the Goldilocks Enigma) has its roots in science, specifically astrophysics.  Paul Davies, professor of physics at Arizona State University, coined the concept in his 2007 book “The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?”  In the book, Davies claims that certain universal fundamental physical constants are exactly in sync to make life on planet Earth possible. Thus, we have won a “cosmic jackpot,”— as Goldilocks would say, the conditions are “just right” for life.   This idea has spawned the Goldilocks Principle, which means “that something must fall within certain margins, as opposed to reaching extremes” (Wikipedia.com).  It is all about finding an equilibrium that avoids extremes.