UI
This is where you will find all the pages tagged UI.
Apple Ushers in Era of the Fluid UI
The commonality amongst those three is their ability to bring into focus the feature or functionality that you want to use, and fading the rest in the background. The simplicity triggers usage almost intuitively. While these are three Apple products, they portend a new trend, the emergence of a more fluid and active user interface.The fluid UI is the natural evolution. In an era where hyper commoditization is part of doing business, UI and by extension the user experience is the crucial barrier to entry. Apple’s iPhone is a collection of commodity chips, hard drives and whatnot dressed up in a pretty shell. It is the UI that makes it intriguing enough to worth waiting for.
GigaOM - Apple Ushers in Era of the Fluid UI
Usability in the Movies
User interfaces in film are more exciting than they are realistic, and heroes have far too easy a time using foreign systems.The way Hollywood depicts usability could fill many a blooper reel. Here are 10 of the most egregious mistakes made by moviemakers.
Usability in the Movies -- Top 10 Bloopers (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
Apple moves to protect iPhone UI
It's been less than a week since the iPhone was announced and the product is not even expected to ship for another six months, but Apple is aggressively protecting its Mac OS X-like interface on the iPhone. A group of users has already developed a skin for Windows mobile that enables users to mimic the iPhone interface, but one website that posted screenshots and links to the hack has already been threatened by Apple and its legal team.
MacNN | Apple moves to protect iPhone UI
iPhone - now this is a revolutionary interface
This *has* to be the most lust-worthy device on the planet at the moment. I’d trade my Nokia N73 in a heartbeat for one of these.What’s so cool about it?
* it’s beautiful. When was the last time you saw a beautiful mobile UI? (I can hear you saying ‘never’ from here). The interface design is sexy. Lustworthy. Typical Apple.
* it’s gestural. There’s one button, a home button, and your fingers do all the rest of the work. Check out the ’slide to unlock’ in the image above. Forget millions of tiny buttons - you have the interface you need at the time to do the job you’re doing (because this puppy is a phone, an iPod and more!). Forget styluses - they’re a pain in the neck and get lost all the time. Fingers are the input device of the future.
* it’s aware. It has sensors that tells it whether you’re looking at in in portrait or landscape mode and it adjusts accordingly. It knows when you’re using it as a phone and shuts off the interface. How clever!
* It does all the work for you. Sometimes it’s the simple things that count. Having spent hours and hours configuring and setting up my new Nokia N73 to utilise all the stuff that’s installed on it and some of it’s capabilities. How much easier is the Apple approach where the device does all the work for you.
disambiguity - � iPhone - now *this* is a revolutionary interface
iPhone: Not touchy feely
There’s an interesting tradeoff presented by the iPhone. While the phone can do more, and it’s interface is fluid, in some ways it widens the gulf between human and computer.When you touch it it doesn’t touch you back.
That may prove to be a good thing. It may prove that what we think we need we don’t really need. The tradeoffs may payoff. But we’ve certainly lost the tactile feedback humans are used to when dealing with things that are right in front of us. Now the connection is simulated. Rich textures have been replaced with androgynous glass.
iPhone: Not touchy feely - (37signals)
Samsung phone gets a mouse
Samsung’s SCH-V960 features optical sensor button for user convenienceUsers can point the cursor and click directly on icons on MyScreen, similar interface to that on a PC environment, and gain direct access to frequently used menus such as photo album, messaging, and music menu. Users can also use the Optical Joystick to easily scroll through the play list while listening to their music.
The mobile user interface challenge
I'll admit to having been strongly critical over the years of user interfaces on many high-tech products. I'm a techie, yet I often have problems getting products to work. Counterintuitivity is the apparent order of the day, along with thick manuals that nobody has the time to read and ever-worsening (and ever-more-expensive) customer support.With so many of these products waiting under trees (and wherever they keep them in IT departments) this holiday season, I thought this might be a good time to make my annual New Year's appeal for easier-to-use mobile devices and computers.
I use literally dozens of different mobile computing products every year, and my general rule is as follows: If I need to read the manual, the product goes back. This may seem harsh, but being an experienced computer and mobile device user, I don't think it should be necessary to read a manual or, heaven forbid, attend training or buy supplementary books. After all, productivity is ultimately the reason we buy such items, at least in a business setting, and if a product requires reading, education, training or calls to tech support or the help desk, then I'm not being productive. Rather, difficult-to-use products are more properly aimed at a market consisting of engineers and others who like technology for technology's sake.
Sure, as an engineer, I like to tinker, experiment, try new things, and, yes, even read manuals when it is warranted. But it's never warranted when the product is aimed at a general consumer audience, as most modern computers and communicators are. Such products must be so easy to use that it's quite obvious, or come with documentation that simply and thoroughly explains how to use the product -- or both. In addition, devices should automatically direct the user to more information on the Web and automatically update themselves when required via transparent downloads from vendor sites on the Internet.
The mobile user interface challenge
Co-Design, China, and the Commercialization of the Mobile User Interface
The mobile user interface is becoming a key differentiator for mobile telephony devices and services. The increased focus on usable, emotive, and branded user interfaces is the result of three key drivers. (The term “device user interface” refers to both the “core” applications management environment and applications such as contacts, messaging, and call control, as well as third-party applications such as games.) First, standardization of mobile platforms, networks, and screen technology allows the production of more-powerful handsets at lower cost. Such handsets are capable of presenting complex and display-rich user interfaces (see Figure 1) that are more attractive to users and content providers. Second, competition for the loyalty of mobile users is intense. Both mobile operators and manufacturers see a well-designed and emotive user interface as a way to differentiate their otherwise “me-too” products from competitors. Finally, end users are demanding ever more easy-to-use services and devices especially as device/network features, and therefore complexity, increase.
