Designing for touch

App reviews. Musings and concepts for experience design, apps and etc. Design for touch Spring 2013

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Monument Valley's enchanting experience is over too soon.

This MC Escher inspired perceptual puzzle game is over too soon. There are only 10 levels. The visual design is really beautiful and the experience enchanting, you can’t help but want more. There isn’t many words in Monument Valley and that’s because you don’t need it. We follow Princess Ida's journey, through mind-bending gameplay and melancholy music. Her journey is certainly felt, not read.

Jaz Rignall of USgames.com writes:

It packs brilliant moments of discovery: smack-your-forehead situations where you're completely flummoxed, but then are utterly delighted when you figure out what you need to do. It has moments of wonder as something comes into view, or something unexpected happens, or when pieces of architecture literally click into place. And it all plays through an audio-visual experience that is of the utmost quality. 

HOW IT WORKS:

Guide the silent princess Ida through ancient abandoned cities, their twisted walkways turning at my touch to produce impossible paths. My job was to facilitate her journey, tapping the screen to manipulate either select bits of scenery or rotate entire stages. Broken roads, turned to the correct angle, became whole. (Source: Mike Fahey).

I will be re-playing Monument Valley from stage 1 as soon I hit the post button.

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Tidy App

Tidy organizes your photos with just a simple swipe. It's that simple. 

With smartphones becoming ubiquitous, the way we store memories and references change. We end up taking photos of everything, from things we find funny and want to share, to stuff we want to remember, to beautiful moments. We accumulate tens of photos everyday, all stored in one big mess in our Camera Roll. 

Tidy aims to help you reorganize your photos in one swipe. When you launch the app, the photos will be categorized as "untidy". You can organize the mess in a few different ways, by time (1 hour, 6 hours or day, week, month or year), by location (500m, 1km, 10km, 100km or 1000km), and by shape. This feature is the most unique compared to other photo apps, it will go through your photos an categorize them by squares, portraits, landscapes, panoramas and even screenshots. Needless to say, I start categorizing my photos by shape, I take tons of screenshots.

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Forget the Quantified Self. We Need to Build the Quantified Us | Design | WIRED

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The ‘Quantified Self’ is a thrilling prospect for some: Massive datasets about oneself can be a new route to self-discovery. But for most of us, the idea of continuous self-tracking is a novelty that results in shallow insights.

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Facebook's Paper Gestural Hell

Facebook's release of Paper yesterday on the App Store breaks a string of uninspired releases outside of Instagram, and has many believing it's a glimpse into the future of mobile interaction.

But there's one problem: if this is the future, it's going to hurt. And I mean physically.

There's no doubt that Paper is a fresh and innovative take on content browsing. But while Paper may not ask much of us when we sign up to use the app — it asks a lot of us when it comes to the app's default interactions. So much so that the Paper's heaviest users might need to start popping arthritis medication in a few years.

– Scott Hurff

Here's what users have to do when using the new app:

Source: Scott Hurff. Facebook's Paper Gestural Hell.

According to Hurff, it's because of the "Thumb Zone." 

THE "THUMB ZONE"

Coined by Steven Hoober, author of the O'Reilly book Designing Mobile Interfaces, the Thumb Zone is "the most comfortable area for touch with one-handed use." And while there are many variables at play here, he found that 49% of users held their phone in one hand and used their phone with one thumb.

Let's get specific. Paper was released only on iPhone. So let's look at the Thumb Zone on a 4 inch iPhone screen:

FIXING THE THUMB HOOK

It's fascinating how easy it is to solve this problem. The only realization it requires is that swipes don't have to occur on a strict X or Y axis; they can follow the natural arc of our fingers.

Let's take a look at how Hurff'd do it:

Easy. All it requires is shrinking the space allocated to the Topic section above and increase the space allocated to the story navigation (the swiping part that'll give us arthritis) by 50 pixels. DONE. 

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Facebook's Paper Gestural Hell

Facebook’s release of Paper yesterday on the App Store breaks a string of uninspired releases outside of Instagram, and has many believing it’s a glimpse into the future of mobile interaction.

But there’s one problem: if this is the future, it’s going to hurt. And I mean physically.

There’s no doubt that Paper is a fresh and innovative take on content browsing. But while Paper may not ask much of us when we sign up to use the app — it asks a lot of us when it comes to the app’s default interactions. So much so that the Paper’s heaviest users might need to start popping arthritis medication in a few years.

– Scott Hurff

Here’s what users have to do when using the new app:

Source: Scott Hurff. Facebook’s Paper Gestural Hell.

According to Hurff, it’s because of the “Thumb Zone.” 

THE “THUMB ZONE”

Coined by Steven Hoober, author of the O’Reilly book Designing Mobile Interfaces, the Thumb Zone is “the most comfortable area for touch with one-handed use.” And while there are many variables at play here, he found that 49% of users held their phone in one hand and used their phone with one thumb.

Let’s get specific. Paper was released only on iPhone. So let’s look at the Thumb Zone on a 4 inch iPhone screen:

FIXING THE THUMB HOOK

It’s fascinating how easy it is to solve this problem. The only realization it requires is that swipes don’t have to occur on a strict X or Y axis; they can follow the natural arc of our fingers.

Let’s take a look at how Hurff’d do it:

Easy. All it requires is shrinking the space allocated to the Topic section above and increase the space allocated to the story navigation (the swiping part that’ll give us arthritis) by 50 pixels. DONE. 

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Reporter. Nicholas Felton's latest project.

Designer Nicholas Felton has been reporting various metrics of his personal life since 2005 in the annual Feltron Report. In 2012 alone, he spent 79 hours collecting data. The avid self quantifier launched an iOS app, Reporter, with friends Drew Bruenig and Friends of the Web.

At random times of the day, Reporter asks you to fill in a mini survey, questions such as “What are you doing?, Who are you with?, How many cups of coffee did you drink today?, How did you sleep?”. You can also customize the questions. This allows for monitoring broad trends in your lifestyle. Reporter is an activity-tracking app that aggregates your responses into visualizations and charts of the user’s life. 

The app is really easy to use, intuitive and only 2 effortless gestures are needed: tap and swipe. Some of the questions are can be answered with a yes or a no, while others allow you to type in. Each time you report, the app also pulls in various pieces of information like the current weather, current location (FourSquare API), how many steps you’ve taken today (iPhone 5s’ M7 motion coprocessor), and how noisy it is around you (iPhone’s mic).

I am a big fan of Felton's, and I got the app at $3.99. Reporter requires plenty of manual tracking – the creator argues that it’s the best way to answer the most interesting questions. Part of me wishes for Fuely, the little Nike Fuel cheerleader who gives you a little dance when you completed your goal, and the other wishes for automatic data inputs. The no non-sense questions left much to be desired after a while, unless like Felton, you are a data nut. And yet, there’s something appealing about the simple, purist graphics with 5 customizable color schemes. 

Of course, you can export the data visualizations and print the 'posters' out for you to admire.

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Threes! Puzzle Game

Threes! is infinitely better than Candy Crush and Flappy Bird. Original game design. No in app purchases. Brilliantly simple but endlessly playable. Smile factors such as cute animations and sound effects definitely keep me coming back for more. 

Gameplay consists of sliding numbered blocks onto one another to form higher numbers, but some important rules turn an easy concept into a challenging puzzle. Only like numbers can combine together, for instance, 3 and 3, to form a 6, which can then only combine with another 6. 1 and 2 are limited to combining with each other.

Tis a simple game, but difficult to master.

Here're some suggestions for improvement:

Retry button. I don't get why the retry button is way up on the left. It isn't user friendly, the game is designed for a single gesture : swipe. I play the game with just one hand (which I'm sure many of us do). The stretch for my thumb to tap that button is quite annoying, it's in the OW zone (as written by Scott Hurff). Move it to the top right please, and replace that twitter button. I think the tweet/share button could be integrated with typing the player's name after the score. Having said that, I'll probably forgive the game designers because of the much enjoyment I derived from playing the game. 

Give me my score now. Please? Why do I need to swipe to see my score and swipe again to type my name in the scoreboard? I think a smoother transition without having to swipe would be nice.

Previous games. The other thing I don't really get is why would I want to see my previous games, they display only the last move on these boards. If I can tap on it and be shown what and where I did wrong, I wouldn't mind. All I want to do is to continue playing the game (start with a new board) and beat the game!

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Flapper Bird is dead.

Nguyen (Flapper Bird creator) has followed through with his threat. Flappy Bird is no longer available on the iTunes App Store or Google Play as of Sunday afternoon.

The notoriously difficult game gained popularity just a few weeks ago, which brought it to the top of both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store. What could have prompted him to take the game down? He simply said: "I can call 'Flappy Bird'...a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life." on Twitter.

Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen has said that he will take the game down — presumably removing it from the iOS and Android app stores — tomorrow for reasons unknown. On Twitter, Nguyen, whose surprise hit is making $50,000 a day in ad revenue, said that he "cannot take this anymore" and would remove the game 22 hours from now, or midday Sunday. He ruled out a couple of the most obvious potential explanations, saying that there were no legal problems, the game had not been acquired, and he had not quit making games.

He simply said this:

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"There's no doubt that Paper is a fresh and innovative take on content browsing. But while Paper may not ask much of us when we sign up to use the app — it asks a lot of us when it comes to the app's default interactions. So much so that the Paper's heaviest users might need to start popping arthritis medication in a few years."

Scott Hurff on Facebook's Paper Gestural Hell 

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Jony Ive redesigns Apple logo.

Credit @TiBounise

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LES by Locals Case Study

Last post of the semester. Everyone, thanks for a brilliant and memorable one. 

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Product Video

We set out to entertain with our video, mainly because LES by Locals is an app that recommends locally curated places and things to do, that will entertain or pique the user's interest. 

It was shot with the iPhone, to keep it real and gritty – street cred of LES. Enjoy. 

Video taking too long to load. Check the smaller version here. 

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New UX - fidelities

Video of UX flow

fidelity 4

adjustments

Feedback on fidelity 4 (3 participants)

Buttons are too small

Entering information is pretty confusing 

Pop ups don't work, it confuses me instead.

Love the big pictures, makes me want to go there

Card flow and comments are something i'll definitely read

Can i still read the stories of the LES locals?

I like the choices/categories

Feedback on adjustments fidelity 4 (same 3 participants)

Buttons are better

Entering information is so much easier now

I like the comments page, recommendations from LES Locals

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New UX - sketches

here're the sketches. 

Search engine + Discovery through personal stories (comments)

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Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design

This is a reading assigned for my other class, Designing for Usability. 

[It's] the 10 most general principles for interaction design. They are called "heuristics" because they are more in the nature of rules of thumb than specific usability guidelines.

- Jakob Nielsen

I believe it'll be really useful as a check list for app development. In this class, we were tasked to test a paper prototype, using these principles. The benefit is that I can spot usability mistakes earlier, before user testing. Don't get me wrong, we still need to user tests after. This is just a checklist. 

Here's a video. Made by David Lazarus, who was a student in the class. He broke it down nicely.

If you prefer the text version, you can check it out here.

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Best App(s) to explore New York with. Part 2.

Last week’s conclusion was to keep Urban Daddy: The Next Move App, and Wallpaper City Guide: New York. Let’s see how those compare with Scvngr, Gogobot, Sōsh and Spotsetter.

Here’s the updated Criteria.

1. Easy to use

2. Engaging and makes me want to use it over and over again

3. Accurate information

4. Beautiful

5. Bonus – using iOS touch capabilities

6. Data of the latest places to check out and travel to.

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This week’s contenders are:

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1. SCVNGR (pronounced scav·en·ger)

Unique Feature Check-ins and tasks are given. When you check-in, you get points. When you complete the tasks, you are given real life rewards. The more daring the task, the bigger reward you get. What makes this interesting is that you are pitted against your friends.

Features Check-in • Location • Tasks • Photo taking • Facebook integration • Friend’s Feed • Profile • Friends • Badges • Places • Rewards • Treks • Social Map •  Notification bar.

Pros

Clean, intuitive, easy to use. Loads quickly.

Imagine going into your favorite burrito shop, launching the SCVNGR app to check-in. You are being offered the challenge of turning the tin-foil wrapper into an origami sculpture for four bonus points. I totally just made that up. But it’s pretty close to the challenges listed on SCVNGR.

All the challenges are either user-created/inspired, or created by the businesses themselves.

When you choose a venue to check-in to that screen has three tabs: Challenges, Activity, and Info. The default challenges with every venue is: check-in, social check-in, say something, and snap a picture. You earn points by completing a challenge. The social check-in is a pretty cool challenge. You and another SCVNGR user can bump phones to get twice as many points for that check-in. The more challenges you do, the more points you acquire. Once you’ve gained a certain amount of points you can then create your own challenges.

It integrates with Facebook and Twitter. Makes it easy to see what you’re Facebook friends have checked into under the “Friends Feed” section.

You have an option to only share your check-ins with your friends or strangers on SCVNGR.

The Friend’s Feed displays a list of your friend’s check-ins. It has two sub-categories: Recent and Popular. The neat thing about the Recent tab is it mixes both your SCVNGR and Facebook friends.

You can also do a simple search for a user or invite friends 

The Leaderboard is where we get competitive. This is where you compare how many points/challenges your friends and you’ve acquired. It doesn’t reset every week like Foursquare, so it’s an overall score.

Badges are acquired after reaching a certain status or completing a number of challenges. They are quite nicely illustrated.

Places will initially load all venues within your intimidate area. If a venue doesn’t show up you can do a search to add it.

Rewards incorporates offers and discounts from vendors.

Trek lists challenges for you to complete.

The Social Map screen displays a map, with pins of avatars showing recent activities, maximum of up to 24 hours. It shows both mine and friends’ activities.

According to SCVNGR.com “Over 550 business are currently paying customers of SCVNGR including museums, universities, and businesses, who use it for things like tours, orientations, and team-building exercises.”

SCVNGR also has the more traditional check-ins, the ability to snap and post pictures, and write a quick little review about a location, if you aren't into challenges.

Cons

The only thing wrong with SCVNGR is that not all of my friends know about it.

You also can’t interact with the Facebook feed, but it’s at least nice to see where your friends have been to.

Smile factor

A check-in app with a fun twist. It gets me competitive with my friends, I enjoy beating them to a task.

The Verdict

It’s definitely fun and engaging, as I can compete with my friends. We do compare activities and the app constantly become a point of conversation. Now I just have to convince more friends to abandon foursquare for SCVNGR.

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2. Gogobot

Unique Feature You can create and share online postcards with filters and text, like Instagram, but this app is tailored specifically for travel photos.The Gogobot App also allows users to access the trip plans that they’ve created on their Gogobot.com profiles, including maps, reviews and others.

Features Explore • Share on Facebook and Twitter • Social Network • Plan trip • Postcard • Photos and preloaded filters • Follow friends.

Pros

Clean, intuitive, easy to use. Loads quickly.

You can create and share real-time digital postcards, find nearby restaurant, hotels and attractions to your current location, and access personalized trip plans.

Each postcard is added automatically to a user’s Gogobot Guide on the site.

You can navigate Gogobot by searching for places or things and see where a particular user has gone by navigating his or her passports. You can also, choose to discover either the top rated places or your friends’ recommendations.  

Lets you add friends from Facebook and Twitter, plus you can share your activities to your Facebook Timeline and/or Twitter feed.

Has “Explore” function to search by location and/or category

Users can rate and review the places they have been to.

The Gogobot App also allows users to access the trip plans that they’ve created on their Gogobot.com profiles, including maps, reviews and others.

Additionally, the ‘Nearby’ function lists the best restaurants, hotels and attractions automatically based on a user’s location, making it easy to find recommended places.

Cons

There are only 6 recommendations each time the app is launched, depending which friends’ activities are the latest.

Users can only see their friends’ recommendations, who you are following and who has Gogobot.

My friends are not using the app.

Smile factor

You can create and share online postcards with filters and text, like Instagram but tailored specifically for travel photos. You also acquire points as you share and interact with other members in the community. These points means you start off with a tourist and graduate as an expert, all documented in your “Passport.”

The Verdict

Gogobot is sort of like a Yelp for travel. It is all about big visuals and a social component thanks to tight Facebook (also Foursquare and other services) integration, which I really really like. I can see what my friends recommend, instead of asking them to recommend places to go to and check out. And instead of checking individual apps, toggling between Yelp, Foursquare and etc, I only need to check on Gogobot.

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3. SōSH

Unique Feature Sōsh models its recommendations off of human behavior. So its less about what’s the closest nearby, and more about what is cool about a place, in the way that you’d explain it to a friend. For that, it pulls in expert commentary from magazines, websites and the social media. These 3 sentences translate to: Sōsh takes all the guesswork out of finding really interesting and awesome things to do nearby, all tightly curated. It’s already big in San Francisco and just recently launched in New York.

Features Bookmark it • Done it • Review • Search • Curated categories • Follow friends • Share on Facebook.

Pros

Clean, intuitive, easy to use. Loads quickly.

Has “Explore” function to search by location and/or category

Recommended places comes with beautiful pictures to browse from and through.

There’s a short introduction about the recommended place, with a “More” option, where you can read write-ups from reputable magazines.

Connects to a recommended place website, Yelp and Open Table (your pick), so you can find out more information, read reviews and make reservation. Also you can get its opening hours at a glance and location. You can also call to make a reservation or get directions.

Sosh also recommends similar places to the one you are viewing.

Categories can be filtered by time - This Week, Tonight, This Weekend and Anytime, also by neighborhoods, and other categories such as Date Night, Food & Dining, Good for Groups, Under $30, Nightlife, Get Active, Arts, Classes & Workshops, Sweet Treats.

The categories above are displayed on the Homescreen, giving you information at a quick glance.

Discovering the latest places is quick and easy.

Cons

None that I can see so far, except that it has the same name as another app that improves social skills for the autistic.

And the fact that I have only 2 friends who are using this app.

Smile factor

The best thing is that you can bookmark an item and add “done” and “loved it” buttons. I am always reading about a great new place in a magazine and then forgetting about it.

The Verdict

Not having as many friend who’s using the app doesn’t hinder me from accessing information. Although Sōsh doesn’t have the sass or personality as The Next Move by Urban Daddy, discovering all the new and exciting places is easy and quick. The recommendations are tightly curated too.

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4. SPOTSETTER

Unique Feature A Facebook account is required to login, the app’s recommendations are prepared and personalized, by pulling data from your social networks. It takes a while, but it gives you the confidence and/or illusion (your pick) that it is personalized. Here’s the really promising official description:

Spotsetter provides personalized recommendations for places to go. "Where to go" is socially relevant and we help answer that through the vast amount of content your friends have already created across all social networks.

These friends set the standard for the best spots and we call them Spotsetters. Not only do they explore all these great places, they also love to share opinions about them.

Spotsetter helps you find these amazing spots and what your friends have to say about them. Find friendly tips, reviews, and photos about these places, no matter where they’ve been shared.

Features Fast map navigation • Integration with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Foursquare  • Bookmarks • Search • Browse friends’ activities

Pros

Clean, easy to use.

Home screen provides a quick glance at friends' latest photos/places they’ve been to.

Recommendations are entirely based on your social network friends, from the places they have been to.

You can set up filters by time frame, who the posts are from (two categories: me or friends), and which social networks to pull data from.

I like that there’s the map view that shows friends facebook profile pictures in the “pins” dropped on locations. As I can quickly glance through which places and which friends have been to which places. From there I can delve deeper and see their comments and pictures.

Auto-complete tool helps you find all the places, friends, and things they've said.

Cons

There are only 4 recommendations, every time the app is launched, depending which friends’ activities are the latest.

You can’t choose which friends’ travel or places you’d want to feature.

There isn’t a pull down or refresh feature, which for me can be confusing. I’d want to constantly update the recommendations.

As of now, it seems that my featured recommendations are dominated by instagram users that I follow. I wonder what happen to my Facebook friends who constantly check-in.

There is no way to deactivate the networks in the app, you have to email to request for disconnection.

The map feature only works on one city, the more you zoom out, the less friends you will see.

Smile factor

Entirely friends’ recommendations and comments of a place.

The Verdict

I’m constantly wondering if the places displayed are the most up to date, but i love the map view, with little “faces” on it. Makes it easier too, to scan and find certain places. I don’t like the fact that I can’t automatically de-activate certain networks. As of now, it seems that my featured recommendations are dominated by instagram users that I follow. I wonder what happen to my Facebook friends who constantly check-in. I’d like to see more improvements in the app. I feel like I’ll get bored of it easily, though the premise and concept is brilliant.

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WHICH APP(S) AM I KEEPING?

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Is it of no surprise that I am only keeping The Next Move by UrbanDaddy, because of its entertainment, engagement and anticipation values? Besides I have confidence in the recommendations because of the app’s supposedly tightly curated places.

I am keeping Sōsh as I get the latest and cool ideas on what to do this weekend with a quick glance.

I am also keeping Scvngr. What can I say, I am competitive. This app gives my friends and I another activity to bond over.

I dropped Wallpaper City Guide, as like what my friend Young said, “If it’s interesting, I’ll read and remember it. To allow an app that you don’t use occupy the megabytes of the iPhone memory is a sin, especially if your goal is to discover and learn from as many apps as possible.”

Spotsetter has the most potential but I deleted it, as the UX irritates me because of lack of feedback and what happened to photos or recommendation from my Facebook friends? Having said that, I’ll redownload it if they are updated and improved. Hear that Spotsetter?

Gogobot had too much information for me, besides currently there are only 5 of my friends who have the app. I can’t benefit from that.

Phew! The end. Thanks for reading.