My Observations of the iPad

Last week, useit.com published a preliminary report on the iPad. I had to read the review as it was the first review of the device + I have been using the device myself.
I found the article to be too lengthy, too general and vague to be applicable. The article should be renamed to – Expert reviews for some iPad apps.

So here’s me on my take on the iPad and busting a few “myths” propagated by the study.

ipad is
1 a container for apps and 2 an input device (on-screen keyboard). It does these jobs pretty well.

+ves
1 There is one exit button for all apps- the big button on the device.
2 When you paginate through the apps and reach the beginning, app search appears. This feature integrates well in the swiping experience.
3 Any application breadcrumb can be found on the top left.
4 I dont miss mouseover. Or do I? Time will tell.
5 Watching movies is a great experience, mainly because of decent stereo speakers.

-ves
1 Volume slider on ipad does not tell you which way to mute or full volume.
2 The tilt lock is not apparent.
3 no consistent pagination behavior in some native apps (ex: ibooks).

Myths

1 iPad apps are inconsistent and have low feature discoverability-

All adobe air apps are made different, have different interface components and have ”weird interaction styles”. How can you blame Adobe or MS Windows for these completely different apps?

Even the web browsing experience on the pc is unique on different websites. Hovering over a picture could produce completely different results.

A bad example of a touch interaction is the scroll behavior in HTC HD2. You touch and drag the finger down or touch and drag the finger up to scroll!!. Two completely opposite paradigms for scroll. And thats a OS issue not an app.

2 Cant hit small targets on websites-

A netbook with a touchpad as input will have a similar browsing experience. I don’t need to see a pointer as a visual indication. The touch software in the iPad is pretty accurate in deciding what I want to click. As far as I am concerned, if you can browse on a netbook, you can browse here too.

3 Quoting Jef Raskin saves the research-

Did not see the name-dropping any useful to the review. His great insight on card sharks vs holy scrollers works for any type of screen- big or small. but I do not understand its need to be applied specifically to the iPad.

There were some strange tasks on which the study was based. For a comic book app, the task chosen was “Delete the copy that you have just downloaded.” Why would I throw away the book that I just bought?

Design Suggestions for iPad Apps-

1 would love to have a “most frequently used apps” page or button
2 quick access for apps (search)
3 “show hints” button on the top left of each app. clicking which will show an overlay about what is touchable or not.
4 have to rethink of the hover action for interactive objects
5 test apps for usability and then update them.

If you are interested see some great iPad UX guidelines at UXMAG..
What the article needs is to show the best and worst practices for designing apps. Following is great review for the iPhone. I would definitely want to hear what these guys find about the iPad.

How people really use the iPhone

Filed under: Ideas, Mind Musings

Twitter for the Masses?

Idea: What if Gtalk (or any other messenger) saves the status messages that we display, and then put it as a list like a twitter feed?

This way ‘twitter-ing’ could reach to a wider audience rather than just geeks/nerds. This page- lets call it “xxx’s Status Page”. As you change your status or put a new status, the page would update (see image). People following you will know what you were doing and you will be motivated to update your status more often.

Initial feedback for the idea was- “Why would anyone go to check your previous statuses?”.
Valid point. My point is- whats the need for twitter, then?

The motivation for the users would be-
1 No need spending extra on sms. People with gprs on their handsets can set their status on the mobile messenger and it can reflect on the page.
2 It works on the principle of “presence” on which twitter is based.
3 Some interesting link that you want to share with everyone can be displayed on your status page for later viewing.

Note: Oops! for the bad quality wireframe shot. But I think it conveys the idea.
Twitter Related

Filed under: Ideas

Gmail Feature Creep?

I Want Gmail to Let Me Separate the Mails From the Conversations.

Explanation- I was clearing my mailbox the other day, which is mainly filled with emails from InteractionDesigners mailing list IxDA. Now I had decided long back to read each one of these e-mails, specially the conversations that happen sometimes over interesting topics. I still want to, but- there’s no time!

So now I want to shorten my reading list from some 3500 unread mails to a decent number. Gmail search helped me there by filtering and deleting all emails with subject [Event], [Job], [Reminder], F2F, course, seminar, workshop (these become irrelevant after a few weeks anyway). Thanks to the members of the list who found this ‘usable’ way to separate mails!

What it did not help me with was filtering the emails which had no replies. I wanted to do away with those mails because they probably did not generate enough interest to start a conversation. It would have been a great time and effort saver if such a filter existed. I had to manually delete all those mails (about 10 out of every 50 mails).. phew!

Will the next gmail have this feature? Anyway, for now I am proudly sitting on 1875 unread IxDA mails :D

ps: I Want Gmail to Let Me Search for Posts That are not Tagged Yet
Explanation- Tags are the only way I can filter specific group of mails. Doesn’t that make untagged mails a unique group too? 

Filed under: Ideas

Avant Garde Mailbox

View this document on Scribd

Yahoo India wanted a concept on a web2.0 mailbox for hiring new UX designers. They came up with a fancy name for it too (forgot what it was..) This is what I came up with-

A web2.0 mailbox

Web2.0 is fresh market opportunities, mashups, virtual communities with intense self-expression, old /new technology with a desktop feel.
E-mail is the most popular activity on the internet. Then search and messaging follow. Both of these are gathering information for storing or sharing. Inbox is mostly used as newsgatherer, notifier..

Personal Features

1 Mail Yourself (kinda like a cardboard box for yourself to store files)- if you want people to actually use 2 GB
2 Favorite links, videos and other media should also be kept in one’s mailbox – most of the fwds are forgotten and lost in the unbrowsable column of cryptic subject lines (“you gotta see this !!!!!!”) attachment should have a preview
> embedded media viewer
> tagging and storage of other content in your mailbox
> sending audio messages – not as attachments but with like podcast conversations – there are somethings that cannot be written, only said – if everyone can voicechat, asynchronous voice-chat will also be fun. offline messaging

Social Features

1 Improve your personal and oldest social network – your address book :: your contacts are vital to you. there is a display of your “most frequently mailed” people, “less frequently mailed” people and “rarely mailed” people. you can be prompted to mail the less frequent ones. tag view for friends – all for encouragement to increase mail frequency. the idea is seeing someone whom you havent mailed in years – ok months.

2 Tag your contacts too – no more selecting which mail to fwd to which of your friends. tag friends according to their interests (techies, musicians). People with more than two tags will be sent mail once
> if there are lots of addresses in cc, that means the sender has no objection if others see to whom all he is sending the mail
> the mailing lists that you are part of

Gmail is my benchmark. Of course the ideas are at a nascent stage

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Filed under: Ideas