August 27, 2007 4:00 AM PDT
Coming to grips with the iPhone's design
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For years, smart-phone designers have built products around the premise that people should only have to use one hand to look up a contact, scroll through e-mail, or answer a call. Think of a business traveler rushing through an airport, trying to check voice mail while searching for the gate and recaffeinating.
But Apple, as it is wont to do, headed in the other direction with the iPhone. If you've got long, flexible fingers you can use the iPhone with one hand, but most of us have to use two to do just about anything on the iPhone's touch-screen interface, as shown in the demonstration videos produced by Apple.
The smart-phone industry is still very young, relatively speaking, so it's not like these design goals have been set in stone. But the iPhone is forcing the industry to rethink the one-handed method, if only because sacrificing that piece of design dogma has allowed Apple to make a breakthrough with the user interface on the iPhone, according to several consumer electronics design experts interviewed for this article.
"Right now, we are going through this phase where it's really open-ended," said Mark Rolston, senior vice president of creative for Frog Design. "Nobody's talking in the traditional vocabulary, they are all thinking about what we are trying to accomplish in terms of usage."
The smart phones that most people are familiar with--the Nokias, BlackBerrys and Treos--only require one hand for basic operation. Obviously, typing on the QWERTY keyboards used by most of those devices is a two-handed operation, but navigating through the menu, looking up a contact, and using countless other functions only requires a single hand.
"Everyone is still trying to make a one-handed product," Rolston said. "It's the easiest way to distinguish a truly portable device from a workstation. Handhelds are about doing something else (while using the handheld), they fit within the context of people's active lives."
To achieve those goals, one-handed phones have to have real buttons--famously dismissed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs--that give people the ability to feel their way around a keypad, said Gadi Amit, founder and principal designer of New Deal Design. "People are getting so visceral with their phones; they can pick up the phone in the middle of the night and know what button to hit."
News.com Poll
Try doing that with the iPhone. The lack of tactile buttons--except for the home button--has forced Apple into a two-handed mode of operation because users need to have the phone directly in front of them, with their attention focused on the screen, to make sure they are hitting the right buttons, the designers agreed.
Apple declined to make executives from its iPhone group available for this article, so it's hard to know exactly what was going through the company's mind. But the designers interviewed for this story think they have an idea.
"What has happened is that as the complexity of phones and the multidimensional capability of phones has increased, the ability to have an easy interface with them has become more challenging," said Bryce Rutter, co-founder and CEO of Metaphase Design Group.
While all designers bemoaned the lack of physical buttons, they also said Apple's touch-screen approach is a breakthrough in terms of how people interact with their phones.
You don't need a button to move the screen on an iPhone. You just move the screen, dragging your finger across it to scroll around or zoom in and out. "Touch introduces all sorts of compromises, but you can directly interact with the screen," Rolston said.
One of those compromises is the need to use two hands to properly operate an iPhone. "Some fundamental ergonomic principles come at the cost of really cool-looking design," Rutter said.
Physical buttons would have required Apple to make compromises on the size and quality of the screen, and would take away some of the flexibility of the iPhone. Buttons drawn by software can be discarded when the user switches to another application, but on other smart phones, a healthy portion of the device is covered with buttons that only come into play when typing.
So, is this a problem for Apple? Will users be frustrated by the need to keep two hands on their iPhones at all times? Perhaps at first, but there are some likely outcomes.
requiring two-handed usage. Maybe we should be concerned,
especially with the boneheads who want to text and surf while
driving. My thoughts - "Your in a car not a phone booth you idiots,
pay attention to your driving!"
The dam_ed things should be turned off in a restaurant, and a theater and a meeting room and................... we are whining because it requires 2-hands?
Unbelievable. For once the mega ego Steve has made a good choice. More power to him. I would prefer a wireless device that would need three hands! Or be smart enuff to know when it was in a restaurant, theater, meeting, moving vehicle of any type and turn off or at least go into silent mode.
Where were we before these things invaded? Think person shopping in WalMart and talking on a cell phone; "Which isle are you in now?"
Enough.
The dam_ed things should be turned off in a restaurant, and a theater and a meeting room and................... we are whining because it requires 2-hands?
Unbelievable. For once the mega ego Steve has made a good choice. More power to him. I would prefer a wireless device that would need three hands! Or be smart enuff to know when it was in a restaurant, theater, meeting, moving vehicle of any type and turn off or at least go into silent mode.
Where were we before these things invaded? Think person shopping in WalMart and talking on a cell phone; "Which isle are you in now?"
Enough.
iPhone. I would say that at least 50% of my phone is poly-
chronic and the iPhone does really require your full attention.
One-handed operation and the overall discrepancy of scale of
the UI creates user challenges considering the tight cluster of
querty keys and then the giant easy-reader keypad. If I use the
phone with my right hand I can't really reach the "1" with my
thumb. A straight up palm grip renders your thumb useless so
you need to lock the phone into the flesh of your thumb.
The keypad could actually be smaller with the option for right or
left hand use and it could follow the arc of your thumb if the
keys had a slight radial alignment or just adapt to the user's
hand size.
I've been researching the use of haptic feedback and Samsung
has integrated this technology into a touch phone. Here's a link:
http://www.time4.com/time4/microsites/popsci/howitworks/ce
llphone_motor.html
I'd be interested in hearing why Apple didn't pursue this as it
"feels" like it could help.
I love the device overall.
As the author suggests, I think the iPhone is a step in the adaption
and development of a type of personal technology, but I can tell
you I'd much rather wrestle with the iPhones big virtual buttons,
that also have very good visual feedback that let's you know what
you just pushed, than the stupidly unuseable tiny buttons of the
Treo, Blackberry, et. al. I would not even consider a "smart" phone
for my personal use until Apple's iPhone got here.
system. What's lacking, and what would be a true KILLER APP for
the iPhone, is DICTATION SOFTWARE. (Like iListen, for example.)
This could let a user dictate an outgoing Email to be picked up on
a home computer later for filing or printing. Also, with one-button
initiation, there would no need for 2-handed operation, or even for
much finger work at all!
DOOMED! DOOMED! to a miniscule fraction of "the" market.
average person. Most people don't learn what all those tiny
buttons do, and don't "pick up the phone in the middle of the
night and know what button to hit." The average person are
stymied by the multilevel menus that those kinds of phone. They
never begin to learn all the functions of their phone because
they're too difficult to learn or access.
I'm extremely happy with the UI from my iPhone, and I've happily
discarded the "one hand" model designed for geeks who seem to
have nothing better to do!
NO cell phone (or PDA, or tiny device of similar size) is well suited for SMS and similar tasks. It is a matter of making a compromise. The iPhone's compromise is better than most (if not all) that is out there. The rest of the UI is a MUCH better improvement over the mess out there in the industry that passes for a user interface.
about half the time with just one hand, although I can type faster
on the virtual qwerty keyboard with two hands. I have no problem
scrolling through my contacts with a flick of my thumb up or down
the list, then tapping the correct spot on a contact to dial. The one
problem area I've noticed, and this is with one or two hands, is
listening to my top voicemail- about a quarter of the time I tap the
"greeting" button instead, and have to cancel out to get back to
voicemail...
This guy has completely missed the point of Apple products, from the iPhone and iPod, all the way back to the first iMac. This is the type of guy who still can't fathom why we're not all using beige computers with beige monitors and beige peripherals. Apple is not about utility. They're about style.
They're about making a product that looks so appealing that you don't want to hide it under the table at the restaurant. A product that the friend with whom you're having lunch would gladly stop whatever they're saying just to watch you use this utterly cool looking device for 30 seconds. Its been Apple's M.O. for years now. Its the reason they have fashion industry execs on their board of directors. Its what allowed Apple to take the mp3 player from geeky to chic in a matter of months. And its what will allow them to dominate the cell phone industry while the engineers continue to scratch their heads in their beige offices.
Newton is absurd.
I have no complaints other than EDGE-onlyt, and for iPhone to be
the first iteration and have this much success should silence critics
as to whether Apple knows what it's doing or not.
iPhone for any length of time. Most likely just for a few minutes
in order to write this.
Myself and two kids have iPhones. The 13 year old operates it
with one hand for goodness sake. Let alone myself and the 17 yr
old.
Being a cell phone user since 1985. And a hand held user since
1986 I do have some experience. And coming off a Motorola
RAZR, which I used from the day of release, using this one
handed was not easy. Manly because it took s many numerous
clicks to get anywhere. So the hand and fingers constantly
needed to be adjusted to accomplish something. The iPhone is
infinitely easier to operate one handed. One click and you have
what you need. Yes look at the screen for the icon, but then
done. And I don't have large hands or long fingers. Average. To
quote from the article, "People are getting so visceral with their
phones; they can pick up the phone in the middle of the night
and know what button to hit." That is just not true other than
answering. Unless a flip to open. Whether a Blackberry or iPhone,
a user hs to using the screen. The quote is just plain false.
Another quote, "navigating through the menu, looking up a
contact, and using countless other functions only requires a
single hand" This is simple one handed using the iPhone. One
hand to slide to unlock, one click on phone icon. Done. Why is
that so much harder on an iPhone than any other phone? All one
handed.
Through all negative articles written by people about the iPhone,
which I include this one, their largest complaint is the iPhone is
not the same form factor as current "smart" phones. All these so
called tech writers, deride innovation. They prefer the status
que. So strange.
This article no different. It's not really an opinion or review of the
iPhone. It's promoted as first and foremost a critical flaw the
iPhone was/is not a copy of current "smart" phones. So it's not to
be taken seriously.
Use the iPhone Mr. Krazit. If you can't operate most features one
handed after a few days, it's not the phones fault.
Or, it could just be that advertising dollars come into play once
again. I don't see any Apple ads on this site. It might just be RIM,
Blackberry, Moto, Sony ad dollars need to be protected?
really don't understand the premise of your article...
place with their BOTH thumbs a wagging!
- Still one-handed w/ important buttons on bottom...
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by oh4real
August 27, 2007 10:41 AM PDT
- True to the article, Apple made a design choice to not have buttons, but I would add that they didn't really compromise simple cell phone actions at all since most of the major buttons are along bottom which are (mostly) thumbable and since software derived, can be made more thumbable to suit each user.
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See all 89 Comments >>If you want to make a call, on home tap bottom left with thumb then choose favorites, recent or keypad. 'End call' is at bottom. All within thumb-reach.
While you would have to have pretty long thumbs to find contacts or even to dial keypad as it currently is, the beauty of the software button interface is that Apple can come up with options like alphabetical sort along bottom as an index, just like how to dial contacts in Verizon's interface where you 'spell' the name with numbers/letters and the OS autofills to find contact:
[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ]
space abc def ghi jkl
[ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 0 ]
mno pqrs tuv wxyz go
start dialing 2638 until 'cnet' contact is displayed, then click go. You can swap 1=go,0=space for lefties.
Again, the beauty is that with software keys Apple(or an ambitious developer) can redesign and offer this.
Or they could make the keypad more accessible by dropping it 'keyboard' position on the bottom with all numbers along bottom within thumb reach.
AND they can even make the size of the keys and placement customizable for lefties, righties, biggies, tinies!
AND for texting you can adjust the visual size of the letter keys on the keyboard based on frequency of use. And the software, once left/right preference is noted, could even morph the active areas to be angled toward palm on left or right.
Anyway, point is the article is right in indicating that Apple made a more flexible and ultimately personalizable design choice that enables 1,000s of future apps that DON'T depend on keyboard or keypad, developers can put buttons/keys whereever their UI designers decide.
ANd not enabling you to send text messages to your girlfriend while having dinner with your wife may not be a bad thing.
oh4real