We're kicking off ux and design for an iPhone application at Roundarch, and I happened to come across a very insightful post by the infamous Jakob Nielsen on iPhone UI design.
Love him or hate him, he makes some solid points, some of which are obvious, some aren't. Here are a few that I dug:
A very strong conclusion from our iPhone study is that people install many more apps than they actually use.
If you're designing a "serious" business app that you think offers real benefits to your customers, you might feel above the fray of rude-bodily-noise apps. But you're not ... Your website is part of the Web ecosystem, and your site's usability is dictated by the overall Web user experience, which is dominated by the sum of all other sites people visit.
Registration can certainly provide added business value and added usage convenience to your customers. But this is true only if people actually complete the registration. Sadly, if you push registration at users before they're sufficiently convinced of your app's value, many will simply back right out of the app and never try it again. You've then lost the one chance you'll ever get at making a first impression (actually, any impression).
Continuing my thoughts from last month on the Unified Mobile Platform.
I've been thinking about standards and standardization, theory vs practice, and relevance.
Ok, first off, let's think what would happen if we took the premise of the Unified Mobile Platform (if you want to know what a world of 'unification' looks like, check out that beautiful site) and moved it to another industry, say - automobiles.
Suppose all the car makers in the United States banded together 'for the common good' in order to create a standard car-type and engine-type. An 'open ecosystem' in which all car makers could create cars that whose parts would be compatible with all the other car makers' parts.
Yeah. It sounds great but it's bullshit.
It's bullshit not only because it would never work, but it's also extremely boring and flies in the face of how innovation, art and expression happen.
Sure, a world full of 'Ferrari-types' sounds great, right? Everyone is driving different 'flavors' of Ferarris. That's the ideal scenario, but if this were to really become a reality, and if we know anything about US car makers, we'd most likely be stuck with a country full of Ford Escorts.
Do I really have to say this? Variety is the spice of life. (UGH)
The truth is, even if we lived in a world of Ferraris some people would still be unsatisfied. That's why we have Lamborghinis and Audis and Porsches and Bugattis and Toyotas and Volkswagens and Jeeps and Chevys and Fords and the dozens of other makes.
Even when we do have alliances and open standards, things don't always hold together like people envision. Case in point - WebKit. WebKit is the 'engine' that power MobileSafari on the iPhone as well as the browsers for Google's Android OS and Palm's WebOS.
Actually, here's a list of browsers that use WebKit. If you notice from that link, the only browser that passes the Acid3 test 100 percent is MobileSafari. So even when you have adoption of open standards, things still diverge and become customized. That's how humans work. Think about our workspaces. We surround ourselves with plants and lights and figures and pictures and books. At least those of use who are creative do that.
Depending on your point of view, open systems can fall victim to fragmentation, as some say is the case with Google Android ...
OR
Open systems can mutate and evolve into different 'flavors', as is the case with the open source operating system, Linux.
The only way to ensure a system neither fragments nor mutates is to have it controlled by one company. Case in point: Apple's iPhone OS as well as their proprietary DRM technology formerly used on music and currently still in use on their video content. Like it or hate it, Apple has succeeded in creating a completely consistent and stable operating system with iPhone OS because they control (and don't license) the technology as well as the hardware.
What we're seeing with the Unified Mobile Platform isn't a initiative done out of good will and progress, but one done out of fear.
A thought regarding to the news that Sony plans new mobile initiative to take on Apple.
First off, for the millionth time - don't tell us what you're going to do, if you're going to try to beat Apple, just do it. Pre-announcements have a bad track record of not coming true.
But my main point is this, Sony cannot even entertain the idea that it's possible to give Apple serious competition within the mobile sector when they're creating all sorts of peripherals and docks specifically designed for iPhones and iPod Touches.
This is like you and your neighbor trying to sell your houses at the same time, and you go over to their house every day to paint, mow their lawn and work on their landscaping.
Sony can't continue to feed Apple's product ecosystem if they want a chance at making a bigger dent in the PMP and mobile markets. I know, there's a ton of cash in the peripherals market for Apple products but that's something that Sony will have to sacrifice if they want to get back to the Walkman days.
Bloomberg has teamed up with MLB.com to create Bloomberg Sports Fantasy Tools.
I'm like a kid, if you want me to take interest in something, just turn it into a game. Like my addiction to Wii Sports, Push Ups Dojo is a another game to get me off my ass.
Case in point: Push Ups Dojo
The gist: put your iPhone on iPod Touch on the floor in front of your face and tap your nose to the screen as you do push-ups.
It might sound silly, but it makes the push-ups I've already been doing for 9 months that much more enjoyable. I don't have time to go to a gym, nor do I want to pay for a gym membership.
My only complaint is that there looks to be only 4 levels to unlock on this and not to pat myself on the back, but I'll have the 50 reps level unlocked by Wednesday.
I have to say, since they redesigned their site in 2009, there's absolutely no heirarchy on the homepage of CNN.com.
Apparently a spotlight on Facebook games is more important than the biggest recall in automotive history by Toyota.
Unless you were looking at the advertisement on the right first.
Giving a linkup to my boy Victor's impressive 2010 portfolio redesign. I first linked up to Victor's site in 2007 while I was working at Schematic. Two weeks after my linkup, by sheer coincidence, he's interviewing with my design team and gets hired. Fast forward 3 years and we're good friends and working together at Roundarch.
So what's so impressive about this redesign?
Well Vic has managed to tame the beast that is @font-face so you should see custom fonts throughout the site for all the headers, titles and global nav. Mind you it's real HTML text, and it's not being rendered with sIFR.
In addition, he's unified his blog and portfolio on a custom install of Wordpress. Sure, this trend might not be new, but he's taken the time to treat every section of his site differently, in a way that's appropriate for the content type so the only section that feels like a blog is the actual blog section. A lot of big agencies haven't even gone that far with their own sites.
...and, he's also working on some great generative art experiments in Flash.
Big ups.
I don't have the luxury of being able to write on as much as I'd like so many times topics and theses on my mind end up scattered into separate posts and tweets.
So back to my proposition that Adobe take Flash to it's logical end and have it function as the core operating system for their own mobile device(s).
It's important that Adobe make this move because the best examples of Flash are not mere videos players on otherwise HTML-rendered sites. The best examples are those that take over the browser and go fullscreen, where Flash controls the seemless experience from beginning to end. Take a look at the amazing commercial and personal sites on theFWA to see what I'm talking about.
The artists, designers and developers that make the most out of Flash don't treat it as a plug-in - they treat Flash as their medium.
It's been very easy for Adobe and the rest of the tech press to point fingers at Apple and their control freak tendencies, claiming that Apple is going to cause Flash's demise.
It's in times like these that companies like Adobe need to stop crying like fucking babies, strap a set, and change the rules of the game. Whether or not Steve Jobs called Adobe lazy, I'll have to agree. Adobe has great opportunities in front of it. Make no mistake that if Adobe does decide to build their own Flash-powered phone, they'll be taking a huge risk, but a risk well worth the time and money invested.
With so many companies still not understanding that it's all about having great software, it's Adobe's time to shine and not try to compete or try to beat Apple, but just to provide a great product and platform for people to develop for.
I just received this link from Nicolas Felton on the progress of the Annual Report I ordered.
I can't wait.
