Today, 25 years later, I find myself realizing how important the calendar is to me and so many of us living life in a society. I’m thinking of schedules, meetings, appointments, birthdays and all the other things it can keep track of to make our lives easier. Calendars have the great function of keeping people organized together with each other.

One problem I have with calendars on the computer and in smartphones today is the limitation as to the way I’m allowed to view the data. Most calendars only permits me to view events divided upon a day, a week or a month, and that’s about it. The possibility to view events in detail over a time-period of a year is uncommon.

But what’s the problem with this, you might think? Sure, most of us don’t care. We don’t question the way things work, because it simply just works. But I have had this nagging feeling that the calendar could be a much better tool, and it makes me think that it might be possible to improve it!

So, how can the digital calendar be improved?

The obvious answer is that there is a lot that can be done better. But I’m going to focus on the thing I would love to see realized in a calendar app.
In my profession, I use Google Calendar a lot, and I almost always view events in the month-by-month view. Every now and then I find myself getting a little bit upset with the month view when I’m trying to get an overview of events that happen close to the turn of the month. The flipping between months back and forth doesn’t give me the best experience for my purpose.

The digital calendar is designed around the same constrains as a physical calendar. In the physical calendar you view one month at a time, mainly due to the size of a calendar. (If you were able to write notes on a calendar with multiple months displayed the calendar would become quite large and we would be back to in history when we used scrolls!)

And here comes the problem. In real life you are in control of the page turn, and can quite easily go back and forth between pages. In the computer, the press on a button (or in some case scroll up or down) makes the page turn.

A solution to this problem could be an infinite calendar.

This design is based on Google Calendar. All the functions that you can see in Google Calendar isn’t represented here simply because I didn’t find that it had a purpose for me when I use my calendar. The design is made for showing so many dates as possible, based on the height of the browser. Instead of turning a page you simply scroll up or down to view events before and after the viewport. This could also work very smoothly and naturally on a tablet.

I’ve also added a list of upcoming events, positioned to the right of the calendar. This is an adjustment to the calendar that suits me personally. It gives me an overview of the upcoming events, but I don’t have to switch the calendar view to see them.

Just to be clear, this design is just a mockup and there is of course (always) more you could do to better demonstrate how this design could work. I hope you at least get a clue of what I’ve tried to convey, though.

While we’re on the matter of the calendar…

I should perhaps share some of my thoughts on the ugly duckling.

Apple is famous for lots of things and one part of that fame is because they are known for their attention to detail in design. Steve Jobs and head designer Jonathan Ive have been creating products and gui’s the last decade that really has moved GUI design forward and is often copied from other competitors. Altough Apple create magnificent things there is one exception – Apple iCal.

The design of the calendar application has been questioned ever since the release of Apple’s latest operating system, Mac OSX Lion. Most of this criticism concerns the graphic design, such as the leather texture and torn paper, details that are supposed to increase the authentic feel of the application. (Designers especially love to hate this skeumorphic design.)

Just as with Google Calendar you are restricted to viewing events per day, week or month. But wait, you can actually choose Year as well! That’s great! Or is it?
Personally I don’t have that many events in my calendar, but if we take a look at the Year view a couple of dates in January are yellow. So there is obviously something planned during those days. But what is really planned those days? Do I have several events on each day, or just one?

This view actually doesn’t say anything more than that there  is something happening on a date. I have to click on the date to see more, so for me, this view doesn’t do any good. My point here is that the information provided in this view doesn’t help me with my desired wish to ha a better overview of my upcoming appointments.

Conclusion

I admire both Apple and Google, I really do. I do like their respective calendar apps, but as with so many other things in this world, I would like to see some improvements.

If you were to choose perhaps you would say that I’ve missed some function that you would have changed, given the opportunity. Another person might say that we’re both wrong and there is another thing that should be changed to suit his or hers need.
We are all different and can’t always get what we want – but we can always strive to make a change.

A special thanks to @Henrik_Eneroth for discussing my calendar issues with me!

En enkel googling på telefonen ledde mig snabbt till stationens sida på Bilprovningen.se.

Inte särskilt mobilvänligt, men en inzoomning visade tydligt adressen i alla fall. Dessutom finns det en länk till en karta…

Kartan, som presenteras av Eniro, visar sig tyvärr vara totalt obrukbar.

Nu fick jag manuellt kopiera adressen, öppna telefonens kartapp och söka där. Inte en optimal upplevelse alltså, vilket känns dumt då det inte skulle krävas mycket för att göra det här bättre.

Enligt en rapport från Stiftelsen för Internetinfrastruktur använde 2011 38% av svenskarna någon gång i Internet i mobilen och andelen ökar med en rasande fart. Att servera en så pass trasig mobilupplevelse är idag inte försvarbart. Inom en snar framtid kommer det antagligen ses som helt otänkbart.

Bilprovningen skulle kunna göra sin webbplats responsiv, så att den anpassar innehållet efter skärmstorleken, eller omdirigera till en mobilanpassad sida. Eniro har en mobilanpassad kartsajt, men vidarebefordrade inte mig till den.

Jag har här skissat ihop ett förslag på en mobilanpassad sida för bilprovningsstationen och själv sökt  reda på rätt adress på Eniros mobila kartsajt för att visa hur mycket smidigare flödet skulle kunna vara.

Hur upplevs ditt företag från ett mobilperspektiv?

Recently I stumbled across a talk where physics professor Brian Cox explains the Pauli exclusion principle. I would never claim to understand even half of it, but according to Cox, it for instance entails that everything is connected to everything else in the universe.

I have heard other interpretations of said principle, e.g. that it applies to atoms and molecules but not the entire universe. Unfortunately I’m not able to contribute to that discussion in any way, but I really hope that Cox is right. Simply because that would give me the highly appreciated opportunity to use quantum physics to illustrate why I work the way I do.

Den 24 februari 2012 kommer designers, studenter, akademiker, affärsmänniskor, kunder, skådespelare, antropologer och andra som brinner för tjänster och användarupplevelser att träffas på mer än 40 olika platser världen över.

I en anda av experimenterande, innovation, samarbete och vänskaplig tävlan kommer vi ha mindre än 48 timmar på oss att utveckla och prototypa helt nya tjänster inspirerade av ett gemensamt tema. I slutet av helgen kommer alla dessa helt nya tjänster att presenteras för världen.

Vill du också delta i denna världsomspännande händelse?
Antrop anordnar ett lokalt jam i Linköping. Det är kostnadsfritt och allt du behöver göra är att anmäla dig på http://gsj12lkpg.eventbrite.com

Jammet startar 17.00 med mingel och uppvärmning i Antrops lokaler i Corren-huset på Badhusgatan 5 i Linköping. 18.30 avslöjas årets tema. Klockan 15 på söndagen redovisar alla lag sitt resultat. Vad som händer däremellan är helt upp till dig!

Det är som sagt gratis att delta, men vi tar ut en avgift på 300 kr om man anmäler sig och inte dyker upp, utan att avanmäla sig senast dagen innan.

Har du frågor kan du kontakta Victor Saradlic på victor.saradlic@antrop.se eller läsa mer på http://www.globalservicejam.com

Vill du läsa mer om vad vi gjorde förra året på Global Service Jam kan du läsa om det här och här.

Välkommen!

Antrop repre­sen­te­ra­des av Elin Axels­son, som under en längre tid har hjälpt Inera med inter­ak­tions­de­sign och kra­vin­sam­ling för funk­tio­ner och använ­dar­gräns­snitt för Pascal, ett natio­nellt ordi­na­tions­verk­tyg som i första ver­sio­nen är inrik­tat på dosor­di­na­tio­ner. Inera var också repre­sen­te­rade, i form av Marie Eli­as­son som är pro­jekt­le­dare för Pascal. Där­ut­ö­ver del­tog Kerstin Beck­man från OmVård.se, Jonas Söder­ström från inUse, Bengt Sand­blad från Upp­sala Uni­ver­si­tet. Moderator och ini­ti­a­tiv­ta­gare till debatten var Zay­era Khan.

Zayera Khan, Bengt Sandbladh, Kerstin Beckman, Elin Axelsson, Jonas Söderström och Marie Eliasson redo för samtal.

Diskussionen om coachande läkare berör egentligen synen på vård i stort. Tra­di­tio­nellt träf­far pati­en­ten vård­per­so­nal då och då, och där­e­mel­lan före­kom­mer myc­ket lite eller ingen kon­takt mel­lan par­terna (detta gäl­ler för­stås inte all vård, men en bety­dande del). Jour­nalsy­ste­men används för att förbereda inför, och doku­men­tera efter, ett besök.

Ett annat sätt att se på vår­den är att den ska fun­ge­ra som en kon­ti­nu­er­lig kon­takt mel­lan pati­ent och vård­per­so­nal. IT-systemen borde i sådana fall vara ett all­tid till­gäng­ligt stöd för pati­en­ten. Häl­so­vär­den kan löpande skic­kas från pati­en­ten till vård­per­so­nal som då kan moni­to­rera utveck­lingen i häl­so­till­stån­det, och ge rekom­men­da­tio­ner och stöd via digi­tala kana­ler. Läka­rens roll skulle i ett sådant scenario gå mot en mer coachande funk­tion och man skulle kunna dra nytta av för­de­larna med posi­tiv för­stärk­ning, det vill säga att ge posi­tiv åter­kopp­ling när pati­en­ten gör bra saker.

Samtidigt är det vik­tigt att det inte blir mer­ar­bete för vård­per­so­na­len, fokus ska för­stås inte vara att han­tera olika IT-system utan pati­en­tens hälsa. En för­ut­sätt­ning är såle­des att dessa mer moderna IT-system ger mer tid till att ägna sig åt patienten, till exem­pel genom att möj­lig­göra en effek­ti­vare dia­log, att eli­mi­nera besök som egent­li­gen inte behövs, och att använda de besök som görs på ett bättre sätt.

Grad­vis sker ett gene­ra­tions­skifte inom vår­den, där yngre per­so­ner som vuxit upp med inter­net och har en stor vana av och höga för­vänt­ningar på IT-system, ersät­ter äldre per­so­ner som inte är lika vana vid och med­vetna om vilka krav man kan ställa. Det är nog inte orim­ligt att före­ställa sig att den yngre gene­ra­tio­nen dess­utom kan föra med sig en annan syn på vår­den i stort som kan påverka ett sådant kul­tur­skifte (även om det givet­vis finns andra fak­to­rer som spe­lar in).

För vår, och övriga UX-branschens, del är det intres­sant att följa och för­stå för­änd­ring­arna i synen på vår­d, då de kom­mer att vara fak­to­rer som i olika utsträckning påver­kar vilka typer av IT-system som kom­mer att bestäl­las, utveck­las och använ­das inom vårdområdet.

Jag fick intrycket av att denna panel­dis­kus­sion kommer att bli start­skot­tet för en större sats­ning på UX inom vår­den från STIMDI:s sida, vil­ket vi på Antrop tyc­ker vore både väl­be­höv­ligt och väl­digt spän­nande att vara en del av.

Huvudbudskapet i presentationen var att vi måste lyfta oss från den nivå vi normalt jobbar på i projekt idag. Oavsett om vi kommer in i tid och får göra ett bra arbete är vi i ett projekt alltid bundna av projektets ramar. Dessa är ofta knutna till organisatoriska strukturer och ansvarsområden och berör därför ofta bara en kanal (t.ex. Web) och en begränsad fas (t.ex. Boka biljetter). I verkligheten är kundens möte med en organisation mycket mer komplext och sträcker sig över tid, rum och kanaler. Genom att lyfta perspektivet och arbeta med att undersöka och användningsupplevelsen över tid, rum och kanaler kan vi åstadkomma flera saker:

• Vi kan bidra med strategiskt viktig information för att prioritera budgetar och satsningar till där de ur ett upplevelseperspektiv gör mest nytta
• Vi kan innovera och hitta möjligheter till produkt– och tjänsteutveckling som grundar sig i verkliga behov men som inte är begränsade till strukturer som speglar organisationens uppbyggnad och ansvarsområden
• Vi kan förstå och förbättra användningsupplevelsen mellan faser och kanaler och skapa lösningar som sömnlöst följer med och stöttar kunder i hur de naturligt rör sig genom tid, rum och kanaler.

Slutsatsen är alltså att det bör finnas en övergripande upplevelsestrategi som styr utformning och prioritering av en rad olika projekt som berör kundupplevelsen — inte enbart en strategi för enskilda projekt utan kopplingar sinsemellan.

Jag satte i alla fall igång med att betala räkningar på min internetbank, Nordea. När jag skulle betala min bilförsäkring missade jag bindestrecket i Bankgiro-numret och möttes av följande felmeddelande när jag försökte gå vidare.

“Ange kontonumret med streck enligt följande exempel på format, för PlusGiro 1234567–8 och för Bankgiro 1234–5678 eller 123–45678.”

En tanke slog mig direkt: Varför använda exempel och inte de siffror jag faktiskt skrivit in och varför inte direkt berätta vilka mottagare som äger kontona?

Sålunda slängde jag ihop följande skiss där man får välja ett av de tre möjliga kontonumren. Information visas dessutom i direkt anslutning till det fält som anses vara felaktigt ifyllt.

Under arbetet med skissen märkte jag dock något intressant. Inget av kontona Bankgiro 534–79499 eller PlusGiro 5347949–9 existerar. Alltså måste det vara Bankgiro 5347–9499 jag menade när jag skrev mina åtta kontosiffror utan bindestreck. Så egentligen hade Nordea inte behövt besvära mig med ett felmeddelande över huvud taget!

När jag ändå satt med min hög med “viktiga papper” så passade jag också på att ansöka om föräldrapenning. Jag ska nämligen få mitt första barn vid årsskiftet, vilket känns helt fantastiskt. Det kändes inte riktigt lika underbart att försöka använda Försäkringskassans webbtjänster.

Det tar ett tag innan jag lyckas logga in på Försäkringskassan med min e-legitimation från Nordea. Detta fungerar nämligen inte på Mac, utan jag blir tvungen att starta en virtuell instans av Windows. Jag tror det här är Nordeas fel, men det är en annan historia.

Väl inloggad tar det ett bra tag innan jag lyckas hitta en fungerande väg in föräldrapenningsansökningsflödet. Några steg in möts jag av en del underliga texter. Jag får information om att jag måste skicka in mitt moderskapsintyg så fort som möjligt. Det skrivs också om min graviditet (i biologisk bemärkelse). Detta trots att jag är inloggad och att Försäkringskassan mycket väl vet att jag är av manligt kön.

Varför utgå ifrån att den som söker föräldrapenning är kvinnan som är gravid med barnet? Och ännu viktigare: Varför inte anpassa texten efter mottagaren som ni ju ändå har väldigt mycket information om?

Hur bemöter du dina användare? Frågar du dem om information du redan har? Ger du dem information som du egentligen vet inte är riktad till dem? Tänker du på att de antagligen inte är på sitt bästa humör utan bara vill bli färdiga så fort som möjligt?

(Bonusbuggrapporter till Försäkringskassan: 1. Första gången jag tog mig igenom det tämligen långa och komplexa föräldrapenningsansökningsflödet så krashade det på sluttampen, antagligen för att jag tryckte en andra gång på “Slutför” när inget hänt på tre minuter. 2. Det går inte att komma tillbaka till listan med sökresultat genom att trycka på webbläsarens bakåtknapp.)

On a regular basis Antrop’s consultants get the opportunity to spend one day to work on an idea, one that doesn’t have to do with any of the projects we work with for our clients. The only condition is that at the end of the day, something tangible needs to be delivered, may it be a high-level concept, a prototype application, some nice illustrations or a written analysis of something. A while ago we spent one day working on an idea about how one could make our roads safer, and this is the concept we came up with after one day of researching, brainstorming and wireframing. Although the concept is developed for Sweden (and the research is based on Swedish data), we are quite sure it could be applied elsewhere.

In 2010, 249 people were killed and 2325 injured in traffic accidents according to the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket).
This is of course disturbing, and far from the vision formulated by said authority; nobody killed or seriously injured in traffic.

The tricky question is how we can improve traffic safety and lower these dreary numbers. Seemingly, the major part of safety improvement today concerns technology; construction of the car body, materials, auto-detect and auto-stop systems, crash barriers etc. Even though such efforts are important, all accidents cannot be eliminated by technology. Human behaviour is still a contributing factor, and, we might add, a significant one. We wanted to address this aspect.

One way of influencing our behaviour on the roads is the legal system with laws and sanctions. However efficient – and necessary – this may be, we believe another approach could be used in parallel to influence our behaviour even more.

We started to discuss how we could make people want to drive more safely.

First of all, what driving safely means and entails isn’t entirely obvious and easy to pinpoint, but for this concept we refer to following traffic rules, keeping speed limits (especially in dense areas and around schools) and not driving for too long without taking breaks (we are aware that this is a bit simplified, but we feel it suffices as a hypothesis in this case).

Since feedback loops are known to be a powerful method for changing people’s behaviour (see this great Wired article if you haven’t already), we figured that would be a great tool to help create the desired behavioural change.

Positive reinforcement when you do something good, as opposed to negative feedback when you don’t, is in our experience more effective if you want to increase the motivation for behavioural change. Many features of what is often referred to as ‘gamification’ are examples of such feedback. Although some regard the notion of gamification as over-hyped – and we agree that there might be some truth to that – there are some very interesting aspects of it that are difficult to dismiss. Positive reinforcement is one, playfulness another.

We have seen that movements like pedometer challenges, where companies and organizations compete against each other under game-like conditions, help improve people’s exercising habits. Services like RunKeeper and Nike+, also characterized by gamification features, have grown dramatically and people share their exercising results in various social networks. Volkswagen’s initiative The Fun Theory illustrates that people can be influenced to use stairs instead of escalators in the subway if it is more fun and reduce speed if positively reinforced.

Today, in many countries, the infrastructure (e.g. 3G-connectivity and GPS) and high penetration of smartphones and other mobile devices, enables quite advanced services. Nowadays modern cars register a number of parameters that can provide information about the driving, and they are also equipped with advanced interfaces where drivers and passengers both can monitor performance and interact with the car (see some examples from Ford below).

So, based on our thoughts and insights on positive reinforcement, gamification and the technical possibilities we came up with the following concept.
The overall goal is to make it fun and rewarding to drive safely. The concept consists of an app for mobile devices and a web site. You use the mobile app when you drive, and it keeps track of how you drive, and helps you drive safely along the way. For instance, it asks you to slow down when you are going too fast – but not by nagging but by encouraging you to drive slower in order to gain more points. It can also warn you that there is a school around the next corner or remind you to take a rest after every 100th or so kilometer. Your driving is rated and after every trip you will receive a score. You will also get cheerful messages whenever you make good decisions along the way. All information is given or presented to you in positive and playful ways. It will be a bit like playing a game, where you are the main character on a mission to drive safely.

The web site presents more information on your driving, for instance you can view relevant statistics as graphs and tables. The web site is also where you manage and monitor your challenges, regardless of whether you are competing within your company or with the entire nation. Of course you can share your driving information, if you so wish, with your friends and followers on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

We believe that this needs to be a broad movement in order for it to make any significant difference. Therefore we think that there could be challenges similar to the popular pedometer challenges, and winners could be given public attention in TV shows (imagine the lucky winner being handed a prize cup by, say, Kenny Bräck on Allsång på Skansen).

We believe insurance companies could have an interest in this and safe driving could be rewarded with lowered insurance premium. If this would reach a governmental level reduced car taxes or dropped congestion charges could be possible incentives. Also, obviously, some major TV network must be involved. For marketing and PR purposes there could be campaigns where you during limited periods of time compete with well-known people, like for instance Swedish racing celebrity Tina Thörner.

What do you think, would you use a service like this? Do you think it could influence how people drive?

But this is not the case when, for some reason or another, you are alone doing the research. Then you have to perform the interview by yourself, record the session, and write down notes afterwards by listening to the recording. Is that a time-consuming activity, or what?

In a recent project I had to pursue the latter approach, since somebody else already had made the interviews.

At first, I started off using the iPod app on my iPhone to listen to the interviews. But it was tedious listening in real-time during periods when nothing much was said … Then an idea crossed my mind – what if I use the Quicktime player on my Mac and listen to the recording in 2x speed? Unfortunately, it turned out to be slightly worse, since I couldn’t hear much of what was said.

I was ready to give up, so I had to tell myself: This is going to take a whole lot of time, Erik, BUT in the end it will be worth it. It will be worth it.

And then it happened! I realized that iPod has a special function for the audiobook format to listen to a book in 2x speed while still making it clear and easy to hear what is being said. Hooray!

So, I converted all of my mp3-files for each location where we had done interviews (about 3–6 files each) into one audiobook per location using Audiobook builder.

This worked so much better. I could focus my attention on getting the right insights instead of listening to every word the informants had to say. Relief!

4 smart advantages:

1. The format makes it possible to listen to a recording in double speed while still maintaining clarity (using the iPod app).
2. There is a button in the iPod app to jump back 30 seconds in the recording. This is ideal if you are typing and suddenly realize that you don’t remember what was said.
3. You can collect several recordings into a “binder” (an audiobook) and jump between files.
4. The app remembers your position in each file and lets you resume where you left off in each recording if you skip between files or books.

Now, what’s your tips for a streamlined user research? Keep the discussion going in the comments.

As you may know, Google has taken an (arguably) open approach with Android that makes it suitable for use in other domains than just mobile phones. About a week ago, I attended a full-day conference devoted to the use of Android beyond smart-phones and tablets that the Swedish Institute of Computer Science organized: Android-dagen. Several presenters from the industry and academia gave interesting talks and demos.

These are my 5 key takeaways from the conference:

1. Android is being used in more and more products, such as medical equipment, cars, airplanes and even coffee machines and point-of-sale systems. This is mainly due to demand for better user experiences than traditional embedded systems can deliver.
2. It is easy to create something and get it out there fast. There are a lot of skilled Android developers today, and unless you want to use the brand name Android on your product itself or in the marketing of it, there are very few restrictions from Google on what you are allowed to do or not with the Android OS.
3. Although Android doesn’t meet all of the industry demands with regards to e.g. performance and certification issues, it can be used to build attractive user interfaces on top of underlying systems that are built on some other operating system. It can also be used to quickly prototype and test ideas, by building on things like the Open Accessory Development Kit and Arduino.
4. There is a lot of off-the-shelf hardware, mainly phones and tablets, that can easily be stripped or modified, but there are also a lot of device manufacturers that will allow to you slap your own logo onto their hardware for a small fee.
5. Most of the patent disputes that are plaguing Android right now are related to mobile phones and multitouch, and several of the presenters argued that as long as you stay out of those areas you should be fine.

Here is a very short write-up of the presentations that I listened to:

Android on Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Robert Niemi from Enea highlighted some of the advantages with Android: large developer base (400,000 Android developers according to Google), and cheap hardware, that is possible to buy off-the-shelf and customize if necessary. He also spoke about how Android is sneaking into the automotive and aerospace industries, with the Android-based in-flight entertainment system on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner as one prominent example.

Check Your Blood Pressure

Nur Yilmazturk-Andersson from the Wind River Android Centre of Excellence talked about Android in the medical industry, and did a live demo of a tablet application that gathered information from a pulse oximeter and a blood pressure monitor in realtime. (She also took the opportunity to bash poor Robert Niemi for his high blood pressure and prescribed rest and relaxation…)

Robot Operators with High Expectations

Tomas Lagerberg from ABB Automation Technologies talked about the challenges of industrial automation (including equipment lifespan and requirements of real-time monitoring and reaction down to millisecond levels), and concluded that Android currently might not meet the requirements as a basis for automation industries, but could be a viable option for thin clients running on tablets or phones as a part of a larger IT infrastructure. He also highlighted the importance of an attractive user experience, since the smartphone-swinging, tablet-touting kids of today are tomorrow’s robot operators and process engineers. They will have very high expectations on their workplace user interfaces as well.

A Platform for User Interaction

Olavi Kumpulainen from Prevas talked a lot about the legal and certificatory challenges of using Android in the medical industry. He concluded that Android is perhaps best suited as a platform for user interaction, while the critical underlying systems are built on something else.

Snowball – Not Quite a Mobile Phone

Björn Ekelund from ST-Ericsson talked about how to leverage the mobile phone development when innovating around Android in other industries. He stressed the fact that the mobile industry is way ahead of all other industries when it comes to components. There’s nowhere else you can get components with such high performance and low power consumption for such an attractive price. He also presented Snowball, basically a kind of mobile phone hardware without the telephony radio features, but with GPS, accelerometer and all the usual sensors. It is intended as a convenient way to quickly get up and running with Android-based innovation and ST-Ericsson is also building a developer community around it.

The Importance of User Experience

Vladan Jovanovic from Freescale talked about how industry interest for Android is growing, with the user experience as one of the main drivers. However, there are currently a lot of hardware issues around Android. There are a lot of devices out there, but typically they don’t meet industry requirements in terms of long life span, temperature resistance and ruggedness. There is also a lack of support for for peripherals such as Ethernet ports and more. These are problems that Freescale aims to solve by providing custom Android hardware that fits the industry needs.

A Nice Development Environment

Patrik Lindergren from Chargestorm pointed out that there are a lot of similarities between a mobile phone and embedded systems in e.g. modern excavators: touchscreen UIs, 3G connectivity, GPS and more. Thus, Android is a good fit for industrial applications as it also has advantages like a nice development environment and simulator. It is also possible to write C/C++ code than can run natively on the device if high performance is required.

Linking The Digital World with The Physical

David Cuartielles from Arduino and Malmö University talked about the Internet of Things and what is missing for it to really take off. Apart from lack of usable design tools and viable subscription and roaming models for 3G connectivity (which makes it hard to manifacture devices with built-in SIM cards in one country and ship them worldwide), David pointed to the need of more mobile configuration user interfaces. Currently too much has to be done on a PC instead of mobile phones and tablets. He then demonstrated how Android Open Accessory Development Kit can be used together with Arduino to quickly prototype devices and services that can link the digital and the physical world.

User Interfaces Made by Antrop

To sum it up, we can expect to see Android being used in more and more different devices and at Antrop, we are of course ready to take on the challenge of designing their user interfaces. Personally I love designing for more “odd” products and have experience from UI design for appliances of all sizes: from professional ovens and humongous inserter machines for printing presses to one-button Bluetooth bracelets with minimal displays.

Actually, one of Antrop’s first major projects was designing UIs for programming industrial robots. Perhaps we will soon come full circle, but this time using Android?