User Interface
This is where you will find all the pages tagged User Interface.
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)
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
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.
