It’s the User Experience, Stupid
Nokia has just announced their new phone, the N97. It’s a very capable phone that looks like a direct answer to Apple’s iPhone. If you just look at the feature list, it blows the iPhone away. Here’s the key ones:
- 3.5 inch, 640×360 resistive touch screen
- QWERTY slide-out keyboard
- 3G, WiFi and GPS
- 32 GB storage space
- 5 megapixel camera
It also has a nice design and looks pretty sleek. Here’s a promotional video of it:
However — all those features won’t mean anything if Nokia can’t deliver a great user experience. The iPhone isn’t eating away so fast on the mobile phone market-share because of its features. Indeed, the iPhone has, and always had, less features than many other smart-phones. No, the iPhone is so popular because of one thing it excels at: user experience.
The 3 stages of technology use
David Liddle, an interaction design expert, identified three stages of technology use: enthusiast, professional and consumer. Each stage has different requirements. For example, the enthusiasts are the early adopters who may not care so much about usability but more about the features. Indeed, they may take pride in knowing how to operate complex new technologies. Think Linux adopters.
The professional stage is one where the new technology is adopted for business use. Again, the features are king here because it’s the features that will differentiate product A from product B to the person in charge of purchasing it (they may not, and often won’t, even be using the product).
The consumer stage is different in that people generally don’t want to buy things which are hard to use. Consumers want devices which are easy to figure out and devices that are enjoyable to use. This makes the user experience part of a consumer product all the more important.
More features != a better product
But don’t all the extra features add up to a better experience for the user? Well… not exactly. More features means more things to figure out. More features means more complexity. The more features, the harder it is for the designers to make an interface that retains clarity and simplicity and yet gives access to all of the functions the device has.
But wait, what about the hardware features? The specs such as larger storage space and more megapixels on the camera — surely that only has a positive impact? Sure, it does. And that’s one advantage a company can push. But this advantage is much less important as the overall experience of using the product. This experience is largely dictated by how good the user interface is, because that’s the bridge that gives you access to all the product features.
I can already see two potential problems for the N97. First: the touch screen. It’s a resistive touch screen, meaning you have to physically push on it to get a response. The iPhone’s touch screen is a capacitive one which works by conducting electricity. This is much more accurate than touch screens which operate on pressure, as well as more responsive. Second: the N97 is thicker than the iPhone. I think being able to carry a phone comfortably in your pocket is important — and thickness is a direct result of adding things like GPS and a physical keyboard.
It’s the user experience, stupid
I think Nokia, and all the other phone manufacturers, need to seriously think about their interface design. The interface, and the user experience that it delivers, is what really matters — not the raw features which a device has.
Things like smooth transitions between applications, smooth touch scrolling, the little rubber band effect when you scroll too far, the effortless zooming in and out of websites, the elegant and uncluttered application and settings pages and the large, easy to push buttons and controls are some of the things that provide a fantastic user experience on the iPhone. If Nokia wants to challenge the iPhone at its own game they need to deliver a great user experience and that involves really polishing out all the details.
From what I’ve seen so far, it looks like a good product and I’m looking forward to some reviews to see if they delivered on the UX.
3 Dec, 2008
Good points. iPhone has already set the new industry standard, the other manufactures are playing catch up right now. Apple probably already started the process for next UI refinement and will continue to lead the game. I think Nokia or Moto need to come up with something better than the current iPhone fairly quick in order to stay in the game.
3 Dec, 2008
I’m sorry, but it is about the features. Apple turned user experience into a feature - a good one to have, but it still is just a feature.
3 Dec, 2008
Good UI doesn’t take away features, but shifts complexity into simplicity. The iPhone has plenty features, but it’s not overwhelming through the UI.
I’m curious what N97 is going to compete with. Even among smart phones, it seems they target different demo groups. The iPhone is popular among general public, while Blackberry is still more used among business people.
Good article Dmitry.
4 Dec, 2008
Interesting post, but I find Vadim’s reply even more interesting. User experience is now table stakes. It’s definitely NOT a feature. It’s a manifestation of overall design. A good design manifests as a good user interface; a bad design manifests as a bad user interface.
In the early days of computing you could say that user interface was a feature, because your target audience was as interested in tackling the problems inherent in computing as they were in doing useful things with computers. But now computing devices are ubiquitous, and good user interface is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity.
4 Dec, 2008
Did you see how zooming works in it’s browser? Check it out: 00:31.
OK, so I need to “tap” 2 times to zoom in a page. Come on Nokia, most of web sites don’t have a mobile site and they’ll need to zoom in. Why did you put zoom option 2 taps away?
We know that Nokia has a great market share in Europe. And we know that when a mobile device user tries to use another brands device, he or she thinks its really complicated and never choses the other brand again. But Apple, with its first mobile device, got most of the market shares in the US.
So, I agree with you Dmitry.
4 Dec, 2008
You’ve just touched on part of what has made the iPod so successful. It’s interface is clean and easy to use, and isn’t over-burdened with excess features.
4 Dec, 2008
[...] 4, 2008 · Keine Kommentare Sehr schön, sehr schön: Nokia bringt das N97 auf den Markt, als Antwort auf Apples iPhone sozusagen. Und es kommt, was kommen musste: es kann [...]
4 Dec, 2008
That’s funny - one of the biggest criticisms about the iPhone were that it sucks as a phone. In this demo video Nokia doesn’t show how to make phone calls with their device.
Yet already looks like they got some plus points:
* Real keyboard rather than the annoying touchscreen one.
* Menus and screen objects change automatically depending on the way you hold the device (vertically/horizontally)
Either way, it’s about time someone competed with iPod and Apple on the user experience arena. Let’s get ready to rumble!
4 Dec, 2008
This post is right on target. It really is about the user experience. We live in an experience economy and it seems like most phone manufacturers that are trying to compete with the iPhone can’t seem to understand that. For some people it is about the features. Some people really do not care about how “slick” a UI is. But there are a lot of people out there who do, whether they know they do or not.
4 Dec, 2008
So true - thanks for making this point so clear!
I think you can’t please everybody and this also wasn’t Apples intent. The do it their way. Just compare it to products of 37signals - they haven’t all the features their competitors got. But they are still more successful because of their thoughtful UI and focus on solving this only problem.
I’d wish other mobile manufacturers wouldn’t just try to build “iphone-killers” but to innovate in areas Apple hasn’t explored yet.
So to conclude: If the user interface sucks, the vast majority of potential customers won’t use it.
4 Dec, 2008
Thanks for the comments everyone.
Jin: I agree, but adding more features makes the task of the designer much more difficult, because they need to make more stuff look easy :) Some stuff also adds weight and thickness, like the physical keyboard — which then also becomes a sacrifice in experience because you won’t be able to comfortably carry the device in your pocket.
Vadim: I will side with Erik’s reply here — he pretty much summed it up as I would have :)
Ido Schacham: I agree about the keyboard — a physical keyboard would be better than what the iPhone has, though they sacrifice thickness and weight by adding it.
5 Dec, 2008
[...] 来源:http://www.usabilitypost.com/2008/12/03/its-the-user-experience-stupid/ [...]
6 Dec, 2008
[...] beschäftigte sich Dmitry auf Usability Post diese Woche. Von der Ankündigung des neuen Nokia N97 über die Feststellung “More features != a better [...]
7 Dec, 2008
[...] в света, въпреки че има по-малко екстри !? Виж линка… http://www.usabilitypost.com/2.....ce-stupid/ в Любими преди 36 секунди edno23.com Начало контакти [...]
9 Dec, 2008
Dude,
First of all you can have all the features in the world, but if they are not connected or structured in a manner that is fluid, or ‘natural’ as a UI you are facing what many mobile companies encounter, customer resentment… and you DO NOT want that sentiment when it comes to your product!
Second, ANY company creating a handheld product that simulates a physical control system (the zoom toggle) in digital is doomed! WHy? Because just as I wrote, it is a HANDHELD device. The most natural, and intuitive manner of interaction will be the winner in the eyes of the user. SO many products beg for this, but the people involved in development continually revert to old thinking in terms of UI experience.
Personally I might not buy an iphone, but objectively it has won the current battle of UI which in this day and age of transparent Information access and manipulation is crucial.
16 Dec, 2008
I think the juxtapositioning the “user experience” and “features” is a bit off.
I feel that partially, features are part of the user experience, hence the term “user experience”, imho, needs refining. I’ll elaborate:
Features: what you can do
UI: how you can do it
Ergonomics
————-
= User Experience
To back this up a bit, I’ll point to the Dmitry’s comment. As he notes, the features put constrains(or creates possibilities) on the UI and on ergonomics, and therefore it contributes to the user experience.
When you think about the professionals in the article, they don’t usually give too high value on the UI-part alone as they are focused on products ability to perform special task(s). UI needs to be good enought for the task and the the feature set needs to be rich enought to cover rare special case situations in the task(s).
For consumers the tasks are mundane as they are something that a very large group of people shares (otherwise they would be professionals not consumers). For those tasks, the feature set is quite small and achievable by many product developers, which then shifts the emphasize more towards the UI factor(and ergonomics) in the overall user experience when differentiating products.
And features give new exciting ways to do things which affects the user experience.
16 Dec, 2008
Well, I’ll disagree a bit. User experience is definitely important, but not at the cost of stability.
I’ve been using Nokia phones since ages and also I love my iPhone too. And you know what, I’ve to switch between the phones due to bad reception quality of iPhone which is never there in Nokia.
Though, browsing as well as iPod(multi-touch experience) doesn’t allow me to throw my iPhone and switch to Nokia.
21 Dec, 2008
It’s a mobile, not other.
22 Dec, 2008
Good article, as so often. :)
But please be careful about “more feature is better”: More CPU power can easily lead to less battery runtime; a good UI can also work fluidly on a slower CPU if the hardware design is efficient. And more important: More megapixels will easily lead to significantly less image quality! More sensor size would be good but is not an option in mobile devices. 5 Mpx is definitely too much. 2-3 would be maximum. But those good ol’ times are over, sadly.
24 Dec, 2008
@Yves
Yes, better feature specs do not always equal better, but they definately do not equal worse either!
I wonder why 5Mpix is worse…atleast if I compare the picture quality of the better 5Mpix phone cameras to some of the better 2-3 Mpix cameras, I can sure you that 5 Mpix comes on top.
27 Dec, 2008
[...] Ce nu intelege Nokia, SE si prietenii Posted December 27, 2008 Filed under: IT | Tags: apple, design, dmitry, iphone, IT, n97, nokia, se, usability | O spune Dmitry. [...]
27 Dec, 2008
Бежал от волка, попал на медведя. :)
5 Jan, 2009
Крутая статья, кстати автору хочу предложить установить от яндекс.денег полезную фишку на сайт “Дай рубль”. Я бы дал, так сказать на поддержание. ;)