“The goal is to clearly direct end users to the content they want. Metro interfaces are supposed to embody harmonious, functional, and attractive visual elements. Ideally, good UI design should encourage playful exploration when interacting with the application and people should feel a sense of wonder and excitement. A clear, straightforward design not only makes an application legible, it encourages usage.”
Link: Windows Phone 7 User Experience Guidelines (microsoft.com)
“With the iPhone, Apple put together an extremely simple modal interface that works, one that people of all ages and backgrounds understand right away…Microsoft’s approach is completely different. Instead of becoming another me-too cellphone, like Android and the rest, the Windows Phone 7 team came up their own vision of what the cellphone should be. In the process, they have created a beautiful user interface in which the data is at the center of user interaction. Not the apps—specific functions—but the information itself. At some points, in fact, it feels like the information is the interface itself.”
Link: Windows Phone 7 Interface: Microsoft Has Out-Appled Apple (gizmodo.com)
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)
“This article explores the practice of “beeping” or “missed calling” between mobile phone users, or calling a number and hanging up before the mobile’s owner can pick up the call. Most beeps are requests to call back immediately, but they can also send a pre-negotiated instrumental message such as “pick me up now” or a relational sign, such as “I’m thinking of you.” The practice itself is old, with roots in landline behaviors, but it has grown tremendously, particularly in the developing world. Based on interviews with small business owners and university students in Rwanda, the article identifies three kinds of beeps (callback, pre-negotiated instrumental, and relational) and the norms governing their use. It then assesses the significance of the practice using adaptive structuration theory. In concluding, the article contrasts beeping with SMS/text messaging, discusses its implications for increasing access to telecommunications services, and suggests paths for future research.”
Link: “The Rules of Beeping: Exchanging Messages Via Intentional “Missed Calls on Mobile Phones (indiana.edu, via)
“Windows Mobile 7 will use motion gestures…it will use the camera on the phone to detect motions and create appropriate actions. You will be able to shake, twist and otherwise manipulate the phone and get things done. The phone will be able to perform actions when placed face down on a surface, and it will know when it is in your pocket or bag.
“Windows Mobile 7 is designed to use the finger, not the stylus, though many devices will be required to include a stylus. It is designed to be easy to use with the hand, including one-handed, and to be fun to use and easy to understand. It is designed to be used on devices with no buttons, few buttons, lots of buttons, full keyboards, and devices without touch screens.”
Link: Windows Mobile 7 To Focus On Touch and Motion Gestures (blognewschannel.com)
Link: Windows Mobile 7 Walkthrough… (mobilitytoday.com)
Microsoft’s Shift uses call-outs to deal with the problem of fingers covering targets on touchscreen devices.
“Retrieving the stylus of a pen-based device takes time and requires a second hand. Especially for short, intermittent interactions many users therefore choose to use their bare fingers instead. Although convenient, this increases targeting times and error rates. We argue that the main reason is the occlusion of the target by the user’s finger. We propose a pointing technique we call Shift that is designed to address this issue. When the user touches the screen, Shift creates a callout showing a copy of the occluded screen area and places it in a non-occluded location. The callout also shows a pointer representing the hotspot of the finger. Using this visual feedback, users guide the pointer into the target by moving their finger on the screen surface and commit the target acquisition by lifting the finger. Over large targets, in contrast, no callout is created and users enjoy the full performance of an unaltered touch screen.”
John Carroll argues that Microsoft’s approach of having a consistent UI across Windows Mobile devices is hampering adoption and innovation in the mobile space.
“Does this mean the UI should be completely replaceable? I think so. There are smart UI designers outside of Microsoft, and I don’t see why arming them with the ability to create innovative UIs would harm the brand. Microsoft could still create standard UIs, and people could choose to use them, but flexibility would enable third parties to drive the product into more niches than Microsoft by itself might manage with its rigid UI structure.”
Link: Free the Windows Mobile UI (zdnet.com)
Jonathon Donner has published a survey of research approaches to mobile use in developing countries. An interesting survey with loads of references. See Jonathon’s site for more of his publications.
“In particular, a few kinds of studies seem most popular: those which focus on the mobile as a tool for new forms of instrumental communication and information processing; those which examine mobile’s diffusion ‘by proxy’, comparing cross-national or crosscultural attributes; those which look at the success or failure of particular initiatives to deploy and encourage mobiles adoption, either at the level of an individual project or at the national/policy level, and; those which examine the mobile as new a mediator and enabler of older complex social interactions, mixing global and local, individual and collective in new ways.”
Link: Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature (168k PDF, jonathandonner.com)
Microsoft’s licensing the Office 2007 UI. Not at all related to mobile devices, but very interesting because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone talk about licensing UI systems. Microsoft is being very liberal with the licensing terms, but are they really able to require people to obtain a license? (On the upside, getting a license gives you access to a 120 page guidebook for designing Office-like UIs).
“Today, we’re announcing a licensing program for the 2007 Microsoft Office system user interface which allows virtually anyone to obtain a royalty-free license to use the new Office UI in a software product, including the Ribbon, galleries, the Mini Toolbar, and the rest of the user interface.”
Link: Licensing the 2007 Microsoft Office User Interface (msdn.com)
“The user interface guidelines for Windows Mobile-Based Pocket PCs assist you in developing Windows Mobile-based applications that provide a good user experience. The guidelines are based on extensive usability research.”
Link: Pocket PC User Interface Guidelines (microsoft.com)
Published by Gabriel White.