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elfsLooking through a raft of timers, clocks, stopwatches and the like for the Android, I've come to realize that many of the great Human Interface Design lessons of the early 90s, of the original Blackberries and Palms, have been sacrificed to the "ooh, shiny!" of AMOLED screens and better CPUs. The Android "anything goes" guidelines have resulted in tragedy.
For example: it takes THREE gestures to get to the "last app" on your Android. It takes FIVE to get to the Home page. It takes six to get to a "frequently used application," seven to to nine for less frequently used applications.
Contrast that with the Palm: ONE gesture to the last app, ONE gesture to the home, ONE gesture to your top three applications, TWO to FOUR gestures for all other applications.
Another example: the typical timer application on the Android has a "tap-and-hold" method for setting a countdown. If you're trying to get to 45 seconds, you tap-and-hold the "up" button, a very non-tactile experience-under-glass in which you have to guesstimate when you're "close" to 45, then stop and tap to your target one second at a time, all the while your big hand may well be obscuring the input.
Contrast this with two different timers for the Palm. Big Clock had an individual tap for seconds and tens of seconds. 45 seconds is nine taps above the number, with big haptic regions of affordance and an easy count in your head-- no guessing there at all, and you can't make a mistake even if your hand is in the way. Pocket Doan, my meditation timer, was pure minutes-- in an in-page drop down! Tap for drop down, tap for 15 minutes. Or 20, or 25. If you needed something weird, like "17" minutes, the bottom of the menu was "Custom," which not only went to a pop-up for big haptic taps like Big Clock, but let you use the keyboard to input the time as well.
Hands do things. They hold, manipulate, touch, grasp, grab, push, shove. The Palm Pilot understood this, making initial contact tactile and fast, emphasizing reading over input, and making input absolutely simple when necessary.
Android phones with motion sensors can now tell when you're holding one up to your face. The SOAP project was an experiment in having the device automatically start some apps after certain motions, like the camera if you held it like a camera. More of that needs to be done.
But more than that, manufacturers need to not be afraid to put physical buttons on the outside of the phone. Why is "volume" privileged with external buttons, but "calendar," "note pad," "ebooks," and "productivity timer" not? It would be easy to set the buttons to all be "power" to begin with, and then let users discover, using a standard gamification & DITA algorithm, that they could program those buttons to go straight to their favorite apps.
Anyway, I'd like to see programs like Big Clock and Pocket Doan on the Android. I hate the Eclipse integrated development environment, have never seen the Android API, and haven't programmed in Java in 14 years. I understand a lot has changed.
This shouldn't take long.
For example: it takes THREE gestures to get to the "last app" on your Android. It takes FIVE to get to the Home page. It takes six to get to a "frequently used application," seven to to nine for less frequently used applications.
Contrast that with the Palm: ONE gesture to the last app, ONE gesture to the home, ONE gesture to your top three applications, TWO to FOUR gestures for all other applications.
Another example: the typical timer application on the Android has a "tap-and-hold" method for setting a countdown. If you're trying to get to 45 seconds, you tap-and-hold the "up" button, a very non-tactile experience-under-glass in which you have to guesstimate when you're "close" to 45, then stop and tap to your target one second at a time, all the while your big hand may well be obscuring the input.
Contrast this with two different timers for the Palm. Big Clock had an individual tap for seconds and tens of seconds. 45 seconds is nine taps above the number, with big haptic regions of affordance and an easy count in your head-- no guessing there at all, and you can't make a mistake even if your hand is in the way. Pocket Doan, my meditation timer, was pure minutes-- in an in-page drop down! Tap for drop down, tap for 15 minutes. Or 20, or 25. If you needed something weird, like "17" minutes, the bottom of the menu was "Custom," which not only went to a pop-up for big haptic taps like Big Clock, but let you use the keyboard to input the time as well.
Hands do things. They hold, manipulate, touch, grasp, grab, push, shove. The Palm Pilot understood this, making initial contact tactile and fast, emphasizing reading over input, and making input absolutely simple when necessary.
Android phones with motion sensors can now tell when you're holding one up to your face. The SOAP project was an experiment in having the device automatically start some apps after certain motions, like the camera if you held it like a camera. More of that needs to be done.
But more than that, manufacturers need to not be afraid to put physical buttons on the outside of the phone. Why is "volume" privileged with external buttons, but "calendar," "note pad," "ebooks," and "productivity timer" not? It would be easy to set the buttons to all be "power" to begin with, and then let users discover, using a standard gamification & DITA algorithm, that they could program those buttons to go straight to their favorite apps.
Anyway, I'd like to see programs like Big Clock and Pocket Doan on the Android. I hate the Eclipse integrated development environment, have never seen the Android API, and haven't programmed in Java in 14 years. I understand a lot has changed.
This shouldn't take long.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 06:33 am (UTC)Only if you stick with stock android.
If you install https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.conduction.swipepad.android then switching to one of your 15 favorite applications takes a single swipe action (I've configured it to start at the top/right corner, you start the swipe, the screen changes to a 3x5 grid of freely configurable icons, you keep swiping over the one you want and release to start/switch).
If you add https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.calciumion.swipepad.addons.applauncher then one of the choices you have for the icons on the swipepad is for an app launcher similar in function as the one from the homescreen, with the addition of a favorites tap that gets dynamically filled based on which apps you start most often.
And if you add https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.conduction.swipepad.tasking.android then you can have a "recent tasks" pad (I've configured it so the swipe starts in the top/left corner) which shows all apps that you have run recently and switching between them is again a single swipe and release gesture.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 10:01 am (UTC)Previous app? You double-click the big hardware "home" button, then touch the icon you want from the row of four previous apps that just appeared at the bottom of the screen (in least-recently-used order from left to right).
Timer? That's built into the standard "clock" app. Select "timer" from the icon bar at the bottom. Then flick up or down in the "hours" or "minutes" verniers until they show the desired numbers. Because the verniers have momentum you just mash your thumb on them when they're close and then slide up or down. With acoustic feedback (one click per minute or second). Then tap the "start" button.
Physical buttons to start apps ... Steve Jobs didn't want them, said exactly why he didn't want them, and enforced the ban. You may or may not agree with it, but at least it was a coherent design philosophy. ("If we put hardware buttons on the phone to launch apps, then that forces us to provide those apps, and prevents us from adding new functionality. So we went for "soft" buttons instead.")
I know all the arguments against the iOS walled garden; but nevertheless, it provides a polished UI that is reasonably internally consistent and shows some signs of having been properly designed.
I think a chunk of Android's problems come from trying to ape the iOS user interface without (a) having access to the patents and (b) not really understanding the underlying design philosophy. (Oh, and (c) the lying shitweasel specifications on, for example, battery life -- but that's the OEMs.)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 11:25 am (UTC)Not sure about stock android, but in CM7: long-press home button -> same thing.
"Timer?"
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.openintents.countdown is a great timer app for android.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 04:52 pm (UTC)The problem is that android was originally designed to compete with Windows Mobile 6.0 (Eric's claim years later that they were trying to head off Apple at the pass is pure revisionism: the iPhone caught google as flat-footed as the rest of the industry), and was meant to run on hardware that was going to look like this (http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/google-android-prototype-487x500.jpg). The attempt to retrofit a palm/iphone-style UI onto it at the last minute was a desperate hack done without much (or any) thought about actual UI/UX considerations, and it's now a hole that they're still trying to dig their way out of.
Android
Date: 2012-03-16 12:03 am (UTC)Re: Android
Date: 2012-03-16 12:06 am (UTC)"Power on button."
"Slide to unlock."
"Home."
"No, really, HOME."
With the Palm, it's one button: "Home." There are also dedicated buttons for "Three most used apps" as well as "Last app." Such forethought is missing from most modern smartphones.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-18 07:49 pm (UTC)