[mmcpher]

Maybe this belongs in Crackberry's General forum, but it is relevant to the Playbook because of all of the concentration on the development of new apps. There is an upcoming article in Interactions magazine titled: "Gestural Interfaces: A Step Backwards In Usability" and there is a preview at the jnd.org site.

". . . the rush to develop gestural interfaces -"natural" they are sometimes called - wel-tested and understood standards of interaction design were being overthrown, ignored, and violated. Yes, new technologies require new methods, but the refusal to follow well-tested, well-established principles leads to usability disaster.

Recently, Raluca Budui and Hoa Loranger from the Nielsen Norman group performed usability tests on Apple's iPad (reference 1), reaching much the same conclusion. The new applications for gestural control in smart cellphones (notably the iPhone and the Android) and the coming arrival of larger screen devices built upon gestural operating systems (starting with Apple's iPad) promise even more opportunities for well-intended developers to screw things up. Nielsen put it this way: "The first crop of iPad apps revived memories of Web designs from 1993, when Mosaic first introduced the image map that made it possible for any part of any picture to become a UI element. As a result, graphic designers went wild: anything they could draw could be a UI, whether it made sense or not. It's the same with iPad apps: anything you can show and touch can be a UI on this device. There are no standards and no expectations."

[ssbtech]

I have to agree with a lot of what is in that document. I don't think touchscreens are a step backwards, but I fully agree with the consistency aspect of the touch interface. In fact, this is one of the reasons I didn't buy an Android phone - I picked it up and had no idea what to do with it.


When you are sitting at a computer you pretty much know what right-clicking on something does. With most touch OSs it's anyone's guess as to what cryptic gesture will bring up any sort of context sensitive menu.

It goes beyond tablets and phones, too. In-car computers (carputers) and their front-ends are worse. There's all sorts of gestures to bring up various apps, pause, play, fast forward music, etc.. More often than not it looks like the user is trying to draw in hieroglyphics.


Keep it simple: tap to launch the program/file you are tapping on, press and hold for a context sensitive menu that gives you more options to move, copy, rename, delete, etc...

The minute I have to start drawing feet and birds on the screen to work an app will be the minute I sell every touch-screen device I have

[X04D00]

One of our most promising abilities is our ability to adapt. While buttons may seem convenient, it must also be explained that a static button is restricting. With touch devices, "buttons" can easily be remapped with limited restriction.

Personally I prefer to type with actual buttons, but the fact that touch screen "buttons" can shift to meet the application is entirely amazing. Instead of having dedicated buttons, we can have a vast array of modular buttons.

It might seem slightly odd for us now, but in a few years from now people will likely truly appreciate the use of touchscreen devices.

There's a reason why all future-based shows incorporate touch screen devices.

[drethos]

what would be a step forward? the only thing i can think of is using mind control to control a curser. that won't happen any time soon. i've adapted well to my touch screen and can't stand going back to a desktop as a interface. a mouse as a interface device is a annoying, and i use gaming mice still. no its not a step backward or forward irs a side step. the touchscreen control has its issues like scrolling gives you accidental clicks, but its no different to a mouse. i've had it happen were my hand was sitting over the mouse and falls a sleep then i accidently click. meh it happens, but the tablet is a move forward in the portability range.

[Username5300]

what would be a step forward? the only thing i can think of is using mind control to control a curser. that won't happen any time soon.

What your not using mind control, that is how I am typing right now!

[drethos]

What your not using mind control, that is how I am typing right now!

no att is mind blocking me. but on that note i don't think that most people have the brain power to focus anoff for that. makes me think if the matrix was real the machines would be left a bit hungry.

[Username5300]

no att is mind blocking me. but on that note i don't think that most people have the brain power to focus anoff for that. makes me think if the matrix was real the machines would left a bit hungry.

Unfortunately agreed.....more people need to think out of the box!

[sleepngbear]

I kinda don't agree with this article. Per that line of thinking, if we had stuck with the most natural interaction 30 years ago -- which was text-based displays and a QWERTY keyboard -- we'd never have gotten a mouse or GUI's, let alone touch-screens. UI's are constantly evolving; but as with all evolution, not every new development is going to be the next standard. If we only stick with the tried-and-true, we'll never get to the next big thing.

Just for the record, I'm no fan of touch screen-only UI's myself; but we have to exhaust all options that don't work before we can positively define the ones that work best. JMHO.

[Thumbtyper]

<We urgently need to return to our basics, developing usability guidelines for these systems that are based upon solid principles of interaction design, not on the whims of the company human interface guidelines and arbitrary ideas of developers.>

I am sure the writer is a nice enough guy but he is totally wrong. He has spent his tenure writing books and papers about Computer to people interaction and he has an axe to grind because the Industry didn't bother to consult him in developing their products. He even has his own patents because he wants to profit from his own interpretations of what is the best way for people and devices to interact.

Sorry buddy, but I trust the free market over a stuffed suit from Northwestern to steer where innovation and technology goes in the future. It would be interesting to research his patents and books to see how wrong he was.

It reminds me of RIM CEO lazaridus who was dragged kicking and screaming into touchscreen.

[s219]

I think the authors are a bit grumpy and out of touch with reality. They are nitpicking stuff from a single perspective that is by no means universal.

I could give dozens of examples of customer feedback that sounds just like this, only the customers are complaining about stuff that *does* follow standard UI conventions that may have been around in the respective OS for a long long time (perhaps over a decade). Bottom line, if a user doesn't like or understand something, some will complain whether it's a new concept or an old concept, and many will only want to see things done their way, regardless of convention.

A good software developer needs to have a fair amount of patience and wisdom to be able to sort user/customer feedback into categories of "useful" or "self-centered". A surprising amount of customer feedback involves stuff that the requester thinks are the most important ideas in the world, but ends up being one-off concepts that just don't make sense for the user base at large. These guys seem to be coming from that camp. I think they need to relax and just adapt.

As Henry Ford put it, "if I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse". Sometimes you just have to let the technologists push things forward a bit for all of us to advance. We'll all work out the hiccups along the way.

[mmcpher]

It's a technical article with a hook - the counter-intuitive statement that the latest thing is actually a retrograde movement. Whenever I've used a touchscreen device for awhile and then go back to a static screen, its surprising how often I find myself gesturing without effect at the screen and how much and in many ways I've come to prefer the touchscreen. But we could do with some more standardized conventions as it has to be time-consuming to have learn so many variations of similar gestures and controls. And not all of the variations are improvements. There aught be some Darwinian design principle (assuming that IP law doesn't over-regulate "innovation") wherein there is a trend toward efficient gestures. Part of the problem is that at the same time that there are new apps with new variations of control, the developers are so caught up in the race to the market that they don't take the time to put out an intelligent set of instructions. I wonder how much of the productivity loss is tied to keyboard?

[slingxshot]

It is true. I picked up an android device, I barely turned it on and barely was able use the UI. On an apple device, it got annoying that I had to keep pressing home button everytime I wanted to go back. On the PB after watching some demo videos, the gestures felt natural. I think RIM's gestures should become universal. I don't know but they won in that department.

I know that you can manually enable apple ipad gestures, switching apps and going back home. They are not enabled officially. But with an ipad you have to use all 4 fingers to minimize an app. One finger from bezel to screen is just perfect.

[lnichols]

I think it's just different. Look at all the Android and Apple people who posted on here that they couldn't get the Playbook in a BestBuy to the home screen because it didn't have a home button (even though if Steve Jobs had gotten rid of the home button on the iPad2 like he wanted to it would have been the best thing ever I'm sure). If they had bought the device it shows you the gestures during setup.

I find the Playbook gestures very intuitive. They should just run a demo on demo Playbooks that shows the gestures, because just sitting one out will confuse people use to a button. I also want them to add more like multi-finger swipes from the bezels to do different things.

[Thumbtyper]

I think the variety across devices adds enjoyment and is a good thing. The idea that we need a universal standard is foolish. If the playbooks User interface is best, then the market will prove it. If xyz company designs a user interface that is no good then the market will make sure it becomes extinct.

[cfoxx]

Look at all the Android and Apple people who posted on here that they couldn't get the Playbook in a BestBuy to the home screen because it didn't have a home button

This is a major fail by RIM. The in store display models should have the gestures permanently writter on the bezel of the PlayBook. The sticker that comes on the PlayBook in the box is great, but something similar should be written on the display models.

How are people expected to buy a PlayBook if they can't work it out, and to somebody who's never used it before "swipe from bezel to centre of screen" is not an intuitive way to get back to the home screen.