“What’s wrong with modal overlays? In a word, they are modal: You are either interacting with the content or the overlay. Modal overlays don’t allow you to refer back and forth between two sources of information, or move fluidly between two actions. The second problem with modal overlays are that they are disconnected and disjoint from other overlays—knowing how to access one doesn’t yield a physical sense of how to access another one; they do not scale to give a unified, cohesive interface. ”

Link: Mobile Firefox and Designing Without Modal Overlays (azarask.in)

Related:

• Nokia N800 evaluation and comparison
• Extract of “Designing for Small Screens”
• The iPod is badly designed

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Link: The right information, at the right time (littlespringsdesign.com)

Related:

• Mobile design patterns
• Norms of missed calls
• Mobile web design basics

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1. Our devices are an ecosystem.
2. Design for reasonable consistency.
3. For users, content drives convergence.
4. Intelligent discovery encourages adoption.
5. Don’t burden users with content formats, formatting and packaging of content.
6. Context, not just content, is king.

1. Redundancy is useful.

   Link: Convergent Experiences, Diverse Devices (idlemode.com)

   Related:

   • Mobile Devices as Pervasive User Interfaces and Interaction Devices (PERMID 2005)
   • Designing for Location-Based Services
   • Designing for Flash on mobile devices

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   ]]> http://smallsurfaces.com/2008/04/7-design-considerations-for-designing-converged-devices/feed/ 1 http://smallsurfaces.com/2006/01/the-soul-of-mobile-devices/ http://smallsurfaces.com/2006/01/the-soul-of-mobile-devices/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2006 06:45:27 +0000 Gabriel White http://www.smallsurfaces.com/2006/01/the-soul-of-mobile-devices/ A nice little vignette.

   “In recent years, the challenge in designing interfaces for mobile devices has shifted from finding ways around technological limitations to finding ways around technological overload. Consequently, more so today than ever before, it is important for designers and handset manufacturers to place more effort into first identifying the core purpose of any new product and then building everything else around it.

   “With everything from mobiles to portable game consoles becoming one blurred mess, it may be time to take a leaf from Apple�s iPod and design new products with strong, identifiable characters and purposes. It may be time to give new products their souls back.

   Link: Back to basics: searching for the soul of modern mobile devices (mobileinnovation.co.uk)

   Related:

   • Mobile Devices as Pervasive User Interfaces and Interaction Devices (PERMID 2005)
   • Usability v. Human Factors in Complex Mobile Systems
   • Designing for Flash on mobile devices

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