Design Notions

The user experience and design musings of Paul Houghton.

[designnotions]

Microsoft Surface Tablet

With Microsoft's announcement of the Surface tablet they have finally entered the market nearly 2.5 years after Apple did.  More importantly, they did so after more than 67.1 million iPads have been sold (as of March 2012, according to Wikipedia).  We don't yet know price or release date but one would assume that it will be close in price to the iPad.

The good

The software is clearly not a copy of iOS.  Whether it is good or bad on a tablet remains to be seen but it is refreshing that Microsoft have a different take on a touch interface.

View two apps on screen at the same time.

The device looks great.

The integrated kickstand is a great idea provided it doesn't structurally compromise the device.  Or break.

The keyboard integrated into the cover is something I'd hoped Apple would do for a while now.

The bad

Does a 16:9 ratio screen work on a tablet?  Looks good with movies but anything else?  Would I want to use the tablet in portrait?  Does it even work in portrait?  If so, does it work well?

We don't know when this device will arrive and in what countries.  Is this a roll out equivalent to the iPad or the Zune?

We don't yet know about screen quality or battery life.  In a mobile touch device these things are key.

Apps are important and Windows 8 will be at a disadvantage for a while.  

The ugly 

My experience of Windows 8 on a desktop running in a virtual machine was very, very poor.  I hope that what is broken and confusing as an enterprise desktop OS works well as a consumer touch OS.

Do I want to use a device that reminds me how frustrating my work machine has become to use?  (Windows on my PC takes 5 minutes to start up and then 5 minutes to view my email.  Arrgghh.)

If the device is about as good as an iPad and costs roughly the same, is that enough?  Some very impressive Android tablets have been and gone without making a significant impact on the market.

[designnotions]

The Ikea Uppleva TV is looking impressive because they control the TV and the environment immediately around the TV.  The Apple TV could be the most amazing device ever conceived yet, beyond its boundaries, they have little to no influence.  Does this matter?  Probably not...

[designnotions]

Apple TV

There is "quite" a lot of buzz around a potential Apple TV at the moment.  There exists a strong possibility that such a device will be announced at WWDC 2012.  At CES this year, key TV manufacturers and Google tried to deliver a pre-emptive strike.

Take the new Samsung Smart TV, it has Apps, 3D, and four different methods of control interface.  Four.  Different.  Methods.  Instead of elegance and utility we have choice and complexity.  Why is the best TV that Samsung make also the "worst"?

Rivals to Apple seem focussed on second guessing the features Apple will deliver rather than solving the underlying problems we have with TV.

So what do I think those problems are?

When I get my new TV I have to wire everything into it.  Along with the basics like power this could include ethernet, a PVR, at least one games console, a DVD/Blu-Ray player and a home cinema amplifier.  That's a lot of wiring.  Yippee.

Out of the box, TV's are setup to look good in brightly lit showrooms.  I have to spend too long in the clunky settings menus trying to make the picture look okay.  If I'm really unlucky I'll have to do this for each input.  

Content discovery is poor through the on screen guide.  It's not too hard to find out what's on tonight but the more channels you have the harder this becomes.  I'm still better off with a separate weekly guide that provides listing lookups and editorial recommendations.

The more expensive my TV is, the more features it has and the harder it is to use.  Examples of this are the proliferation of inscrutable remotes, smart TVs, voice recognition, gesture recognition, online portals, and keyboards on remotes.  Keyboards.

Next year a new model will be released with lots of nice new software features. These features won't typically materialise on last year's model through updates.  I've just bought a new TV, I'm not going to replace it for at least 5 years.  Don't give me bad customer service throughout the ownership of my current TV.  I'll understand if there are features that just won't work a few years down the line but don't make my TV obsolete in less than 12 months.

Whilst watching my TV I'm always wondering who that actor is, what they've been in before, or what music is playing in the background.  Right now I have to go onto another device to find this information out.

So this is what I think Apple needs to do to make TV great…

Come with iTunes support built in and let me play games on the device.  (Although don't completely eliminate HDMI ports I'll want to plug in some of my legacy stuff.)  Give me a sound projector too so that it can serve as my home cinema/hi-fi without the need to wire up my house.  I want to lose the spaghetti.

Enable the TV to analyse my viewing conditions and optimise for those.  Allow me to make a few tweaks but keep it simple.

Bring the editorial nature of iTunes to live TV.  I want recommendations based upon what I watch AND what smart people recommend I should watch.  The guide alone could be the reason to buy the TV.

Keep the interface simple.  I need a simple remote with the ability to ask my TV something and for it to reliably respond.  A variant of Siri that is focussed on what a TV needs to do would be a good start.

Just let my TV download the latest software when it is ready.  Just like iOS devices do now.

Allow me to ask the TV for background information on the programme I am current watching.  Tell me who the actors are on screen and let me find out what else they have been in.  Let the TV tell me what the music is that is playing in the background.  Furthermore - let me know if I already own that piece of music or give me a link to buy it.

To make this a must buy the TV has to have a great picture and superb sound.  The basics need to be in place otherwise I'll pass.

So what do you think?

[designnotions]

Shy Car Indicators

When did form become more important than function for car indicators?  In the UK the car indicator flashes orange to indicate intended direction.  They are on the front and the rear.  Recently the design of cars has trended to minimise this facet of functionality.  So when a car is turning it is now very difficult to see the indicator.  

There are a number of ways to make them difficult to see:

On the front, put them beside the car headlights on the inside.  So at night I have to stare through the headlights to see the indicators.  (Of course this isn't a problem in the day unless the car insists on running headlights during the day too.)

Make them less orange so that they resemble either the headlights or break lights.

Make them unusual shape using LEDs.  So they are less bright and in unexpected configurations making spotting them difficult at the best of times.

Don't worry though.  Car manufacturers will sell you optional wing mirror indicators to make up for the poor visibility of the built in indicators.  Smashing.

[designnotions]

Introduction

With more than 15 years* experience in designing and developing web applications I felt it was time to put fingertips to keyboard and write a blog.

This isn't my first flirtation with internet commentary.  I once commented on a Forum concerning XML and was poo-pooed by a fellow forum user.  Thus traumatised I hadn't ventured into the brave new world of internet words until now.

So what can I simply not refrain from blogging about?

Design.  (Although I think we are meant to call it user experience now.)

In this blog I shall not restrict myself to the dominion of web application design.  I reserve the right to consider broader topics as and when the need arises.  

So without further ado I need to sit down and quietly compose my first post. 

*- I remember when web applications were in black and white and the web only ran for two hours a day.  Now those were days…