A must read: :: mobiface :: next gen mobile interface thoughts
Thomas Menguy | December 3, 2006:: mobiface :: next gen mobile interface thoughts
Be sure to read the three quoted links:
- UI “cruft” : …wow refreshing to see why our OS are so counter intuitve … ouf, I’m not completely dumb
, check also from the same author: Why Free Software usability tends to suck. - The Monkey Experiment : no way, read this one…and get free!
- This Is What Happens When You Let Developers Create UI this is sooooo true…:
from Mobiface also: Interfaces as art that links to a great design site pingmag
with a very nice article about art and phone UI Here are some examples:
Look at the contrast between the four above images and the first one…no comment.
It should be forbidden for a Software Designer to design any UI! To do that Designing UI MUST be done with non dev tools, but authoring/design tools … Seems obvious, but really not the case in the real world .
Well, I wanted also to react to mobiface article...
Thomas Landspurg | December 3, 2006Well, I wanted also to react to mobiface article…
I agree, but partially.. Designer tends to do art – or would like to do art. But they sometime forgot about the inital goal of the underlying product…That’s why so many web site designer are beautifull, but not useasable. And on the original site showing these flash animation, you have plenty of exemple of this: good looking screen, but not usefull….
A typicall example, is the “discovery” approach: “my website is so great that I do not give any clue to you – the user – on how to use it…Just press all the button and see what happens…”.
It start to improve on the web, but I am afread that we will see a first generation of mobile UI, very creative, but absolutely not usefull.
Yes, in fact I agree too, the right word is
tmenguy | December 3, 2006Yes, in fact I agree too, the right word is not artist…but designer or ergonomics specialist (ergonome in french
). In designer there is a sense of usability: what Philippe Starck is doing is beautiful and above all usable.
What is beautiful is not always usable or useful, but by definition a UI means interactions, so usability.
For sure we will see barely usable UI … but we have it today, check the latest Linux Phones, or WinCE phones…it is already difficult to use. On the other side of the spectrum “real phone companies”, like Nokia or SonyEricsson have a real thinking around ergonomics, their brand value is based on usability, etc…
Anyway with more and more “creative friendly” tools like flash, we will see more and more phones looking like the first Flash websites in the 90s…as you said cryptic