Posts Tagged: humanfactors

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16
Aug 08

Genesis of the TiVo remote

“Like any remote, the designers were adamant about keeping the remote’s button layout as simple as possible. But with the DVR’s numerous features, the designers needed to create lots of extra buttons. To keep things straight, each button needed to have a distinctive feel, giving the ability to control the remote without even looking at it, which Newby described as a “key Braille-ability” surprisingly helped by the “blank finger parking spots between keys” that were equally important.”

Link: Story of a Peanut: The TiVo Remote’s Untold Past, Present and Future (gizmodo.com)

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7
Feb 07

Text input, upside down

A design for texting with the device orientation inverted. This is just a patent application, and not a real product. It’s an interesting idea, though, because it doesn’t ask people to learn new input systems but rather just change the orientation of the device.

“Typing text messages in this manner is awkward, as the mobile is merely held pinched between the middle finger and the palm, while most of the handset extends unstably beyond the user’s palm. Furthermore, the thumb’s range of movement is restricted by the lower orientation of the keypad.”

Link: Mobile phone layout (iol.co.za)

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30
Nov 05

Usability v. Human Factors in Complex Mobile Systems

“During initial design of a system, a task list for the whole system is developed, and then tasks are assigned to a component: hardware, software or human based on a number of factors. The point being that access to the total system is always an advantage and why many times closed systems can deliver a superior user experience. Apple products offer prime examples of the advantage in design of having that control. The iPod has a unified user experience across components and it shows in the simplicity of the UI. Mobile developers aren’t so fortunate unless they’re also handset makers. However, the systems view is helpful in assessing what tasks are being handled by the hardware, software platform and then what’s left for the application do to on behalf of the human or vice-a-versa.”

Link: Usability v. Human Factors in Complex Mobile Systems (mobilejones.com)