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How People Really Use the iPhone
Create with Context did some research recently into how people use the iPhone, with the sample including both experienced and novice users. They’ve released their presentation slides which I found very interesting because they have a bunch of insights that you can apply in your own interface design, not just for the iPhone. Here’s a list of their main findings:
- Take advantage of learned behaviors.
“Oh, this works just like the calendar” - Avoid interaction inconsistencies.
“This is weird, cancel is usually over there” - Provide clear conceptual link across widgets.
“This button must be related to that box, they’re next to each other” - Put space between action widgets.
“Oh man, I didn’t mean to send that SMS!” - Plan for accidental overswiping.
“I keep accidentally changing to a different screen” - Don’t rely exclusively on multi-touch.
“It’s hard to do this while I’m holding something in the other hand” - Provide visual feedback for taps.
“Did I hit that button? I’m not sure” - Provide interaction affordances.
“It’s obvious that you’re supposed to swipe left-and-right”
Check out the full presentation slides here.
11 Nov, 2008
[...] brings news of a great presentation by they guys at Create with Context who have done a bunch of research into how people really use [...]
11 Nov, 2008
Thanks for the post. This is helpful.
11 Nov, 2008
This reminds me of
http://www.37signals.com/svn/p.....rom-bad-ui
The developer mentioned should really read this lol.
11 Nov, 2008
Oh I remember that post Jin and the discussions that followed (on Flickr I believe) with the guy who programmed it. For some reason he took the position that everyone who didn’t like it was wrong and that his software did exactly what it should.
I think he failed to see that while cramming all UI elements on one page sure will make the app do everything you want it to, it won’t exactly produce an easy to use UI. It’s very hard to admit your work isn’t as good as it should be, and rebuilding it.
I actually think the iPhone UI is one of the best around — both in simplicity and user experience — and found these findings very interesting. A lot of the things I never had problems with were still confusing some novice users. This just shows how difficult it is to make a usable UI.
12 Nov, 2008
[...] fo How people really use the iPhone though (another worthy read for the day). This latter link emanates from Dmitry, by the [...]
13 Nov, 2008
Jin,
That article is about UI, this blog post is about usability.
Also, the article on 37signals actually concludes by saying, an application doesn’t have to look pretty as long as it is functional.
13 Nov, 2008
@Jin: “beautiful” wins prizes … “usability” wins users ;)
I agree with most of the findings in the test that they did, but one thing that wasn’t mentioned was the “Element of surprise”.
Apple wanted people to discover how to do things on the iPhone, they wanted people to guess and take pleasure in their actions … right?! :)
13 Nov, 2008
hm blockquote doesn’t work Dmitry!
Anyways, I think there’s a misconception that UI is only about “aesthetics,” or making things pretty.
UI is both function and form. The developer mentioned failed on the usability aspect as well. It’s not about how “beautiful” or lack of his app design was.
13 Nov, 2008
Sorry Jin — I’m working on an updated design for the blog because this one was a bit rushed.
Sorin: This is actually interesting because I constantly find new little things in Apple’s UI, mainly on OS X, that I don’t think were even in the manual… but then again I didn’t really read the manual — who does? :)
15 Nov, 2008
[...] How People Really Use the iPhone [...]
21 Nov, 2008
[...] Usability Post » How People Really Use the iPhone Standard interface design decisions. (tags: interface ui iphone usability) [...]
26 Nov, 2008
I think the iPhone UI is great and most of the iPhone developers are using the standard framework elements. However it’s good to see that the user experience can be even better, check SmartShop from Bryton Media Group in iTunes!
2 Dec, 2008
[...] Create with Context did some research recently into how people use the iPhone, with the sample including both experienced and novice users. They’ve released their presentation slides which I found very interesting because they have a bunch of insights that you can apply in your own interface design, not just for the iPhone. Here’s a list of their main findings. [...]
2 Dec, 2008
[...] Create with Context did some research recently into how people use the iPhone, with the sample including both experienced and novice users. They’ve released their presentation slides which I found very interesting because they have a bunch of insights that you can apply in your own interface design, not just for the iPhone. Here’s a list of their main findings. [...]