“The MobileHCI series provides a forum for academics and practitioners to discuss the challenges and potential solutions for effective interaction with mobile systems and services. It covers the design, evaluation and application of techniques and approaches for all mobile and wearable computing devices and services.”
Link: MobileHCI 2008 (telin.nl)
Microsoft Research is offering up a vision for computing in 2020. The very detailed document is thought provoking stuff, and even better it offers up some very specific questions about design challenges that fall out of that vision.
“Many new forms of mobile interaction are on the horizon. Mobile devices will allow us to connect with others in new ways, as well as to access information in the environment. For example, we will increasingly be able to use mobile devices to interact with objects in the real world, acting more as if they are extensions of our own hands, by pointing and gesturing with them. While travelling, we can gesture with our mobile device at a historic building and be offered up an audio or visual history of its architecture. Taking a picture of a product in the supermarket can send us back information about where the product came from, its associated air miles, and ecological credentials. Likewise, buying a piece of music by pointing at a band’s poster and then sending it as a gift to a friend’s music player can be as natural as a ‘cut and paste’ operation on a desktop computer. As we move toward 2020, mobile devices will increasingly offer flexibility in interaction and new kinds of connections to both our local and remote world.”
Link: Being Human: human computer interaction in 2020 (research.microsoft.com, thanks Stefan)
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 of hands and surfaces needed to control the device. Hence, a full-sized QWERTY keyboard is a two-handed device that requires a surface. We’ve included voice (speech recognition) as a separate category here.”
Link: Text Input on Mobile Devices (littlespringsdesign.com)
“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 tomorrow’s 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 or Helsinki already use touch-cards to pay for public transport? Probably. Will they have speech-to-text and text-to-speech functionality to enable varied, fast, and context-sensitive input and output? Probably. Will they use motion sensors to allow us to input data in new ways, using movement rather than key presses? Possibly. Will they have different modes, allowing users to prioritise different things depending on context (work / entertainment / personal / social / static / mobile)? Maybe. Will they require a clear understanding of user needs and behaviour in order to be successful? Definitely.”
Link: Mobile user interfaces – its time for a new paradigm (the3gportal.com)
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 mobile devices by taking advantage of local interaction, observations of the user’s behavior, physical input, and so on.”
Link: Designing relevant mobile interactions (tecfa.unige.ch)
Jan Chipchase’s blog is a wonderful source of visual and written inspiration. Working for User Exerperience research group at Nokia, Jan posts pithy and interesting stuff (such as this photograph of a trishaw driver in Lhasa using a RAZR).
(photograph from janchipchase.com – Unexpecting the Expected)
Link: future perfect (janchipchase.com)
What are the ethical considerations for interaction design? Slightly off topic, but an incredibly interesting topic. (I rarely get annoyed by the Great Firewall of China, but blogspot.com being blocked is often frustrating)
“Morality and User Interface Design are two topics that do not seem too closely related at first glance. After all, interface design is about “nice” and usable interfaces, but we as Usability Engineers and User Interface Designers don’t have to make decisions that have any severe impact on the morality side, right? – Well, how you design a user interface for a mobile phone may not be something Immanuel Kant would have bothered himself with, were he alive today. But what about such things as, e.g., user interfaces for weapon control?”
Link: Morality and User Interface Design (anotherusefulblog.blogspot.com)
John Siracusa takes an illustrative look at the (lack of) evolution of handheld game controllers.
“But let’s take a step back. These are handheld game machines. You hold them in your hand. How many years will it take before someone realizes that sharp-edged rectangular solids are not ideal for gripping? Again, I recognize the constraints here. All I ask is some sort of acknowledgment of the reality of “hands”—some sort of progress.”
Link: Waiting for the handheld revolution (arstechnica.com)
A short extract from the book “Designing for Small Screens”.
“Physical interaction Interaction with small-screen devices reveals the conflict of interests between creating the smallest physical size that will give the user unrestricted mobility and flexibility, whilst maintaining dimensions that are defined by the size and the motor functions of the human hand. The balance is not always achieved and some devices are already smaller than the minimum size that can be comfortably operated by an adult hand. There are two fundamental types of physical interaction that can be distinguished: one-handed and two-handed interaction. Some devices can only be operated with two hands, for example, the Game Boy, whilst other devices offer different modes that can be selected alternately. Smart phones, for example allow the user to dial numbers with one hand, but interaction for more complex applications such as using the calendar or accessing the internet is done with two hands.”
Link: Feature: Designing for Small Screens (usabilitynews.com)
“Our study revealed unexpected uses of location-aware reminders. We found that Place-It notes were often used for creating motivational reminders to perform activities that would vary in priority over time. This is similar to using post-it notes in highly visible areas for motivation. The locations for motivational reminders were often set at frequently visited places, such as ‘home’. We also found that a majority of the uses for Place-Its involved communicating with people through a variety of media (e.g. email, phone). Communication is typically not tied to specific locations, implying that location is being used as a cue for other kinds of situational context.”
Place-Its: A Study of Location-Based Reminders on Mobile Phones (700k PDF, intel-research.net)
Published by Gabriel White.