Small Surfaces

User Experience Design in the Developing World

Gabriel White — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 21:45:32 +0000

I spoke at UX Australia a few months ago, and the audio from the presentation is now online. So here is both the slides and the sound.

Listen to audio

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Paper still survives in a device-centred world

Gabriel White — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 01:36:07 +0000

“The spatial memories seem to translate into more immersive reading and stronger comprehension. A recent experiment conducted with young readers in Norway found that, with both expository and narrative works, people who read from a printed page understand a text better than those who read the same material on a screen. The findings are consistent with a series of other studies on the process of reading. “We know from empirical and theoretical research that having a good spatial mental representation of the physical layout of the text supports reading comprehension,” wrote the Norwegian researchers. They suggested that the ability of print readers to “see as well as tactilely feel the spatial extension and physical dimensions” of an entire text likely played a role in their superior comprehension.”

Link: Paper Versus Pixel (nautil.us)

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A world without mobile

Gabriel White — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 09:54:34 +0000

Link: The World Without Mobile (youtube.com)

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Misleading and deceptive UX: a primer

Gabriel White — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 08:12:31 +0000

“Let’s start with a little game. In iOS, there’s an ad tracking feature that allows advertisers to identify you (albeit anonymously). It’s turned on by default. Let’s see if we can work out how to turn it off together. Go into your settings and scroll down. There we go! Ad tracking must be in “Privacy”, right? Oh. That’s strange, ad tracking isn’t in the privacy menu – so let’s keep looking. Let’s go back to the main settings page and go into “General”…But wait, what’s this at the very bottom? Advertising. Well I never – let’s tap it and see.

“We’ve found it! Even better, it says “Limit ad tracking off”. So ad tracking is off already. I’m not being tracked, thank goodness. But wait a minute. It doesn’t say “Ad tracking – off” it says “Limit ad tracking – off”. So it’s a double negative. It’s not being limited, so when this switch is off, ad tracking is actually on. Off means on! This is actually a great example of what I define as a Dark Pattern. It’s a user interface that uses manipulative techniques to get users to do things they would not otherwise have done.”

Link: The slippery slope (90percentofeverything.com)

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Human body as touchscreen surface

Gabriel White — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 10:48:05 +0000

What if our body surfaces could be used as computer control inputs?

“In addition to offering nearly fail-proof feedback, using body parts as input devices also has another distinct advantage: the device is literally always with you – because your body is you. Yes, people often carry their mobile phones, but they’ll never be without their hands or their ears. Thus they’ll never be without system functions that have been assigned to their hands or ears…Although these technical obstacles remain to be solved, it’s reasonable to expect that user interfaces might be at least partly body-based in 20 or 30 years.”

Link: The Human Body as Touchscreen Replacement (nngroup.com)

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Kinect fails to reinvent lounge-room computing

Gabriel White — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 08:29:46 +0000

How redefining the “console” is something that many have failed to achieve.

“There’s some kind of smart-TV idea trying to be born at Microsoft, an interesting technology which seems just out of reach. There’s something to its Minority-Report-esque idea of swiping, swishing and talking to your television. There’s some notion in the middle of that with tablets and interactions and second screens. But to get there needs a deep reinvention, and the road toward it does not lead through changing everyone’s minds about the meaning of “console.” Instead it needs to be a new product, even a whole new category, and its adoption has to go slow.”

Link: What Games Are: Reinventing The Games Console Half Way Won’t Work (techcrunch.com)

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Designing for waiting

Gabriel White — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 10:44:52 +0000

“…One of my favorite Gmail Labs features showed a static shot of your inbox with all your mail while the page loads, so you can start mentally processing emails right away. And some content-heavy apps like Flipboard and Pulse often load titles and leading paragraphs to enable fast scrolling, then load images and full text once the user pauses or chooses an article. The lesson here is to present useful content, even though it might not be fully interactive, so that the user can get a jump start and not feel like time is unnecessarilyÂ wasted.”

Link: Waiting stinks: How to redesign your product’s dead time (gigaom.com)

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Mobile devices will die like the PC

Gabriel White — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 07:43:18 +0000

“The personal computer is dying. Its place in our lives as the primary means of computing will soon end. Mobile computing-the cell phone in your pocket or the tablet in your purse-has been a great bridging technology, connecting the familiar past to a formative future. But mobile is not the destination…I’m talking about a diffuse and invisible network embedded in our surroundings. Chips and sensors are finding their way into clothing, personal accessories, and more. These devices are capturing information whose impact is not yet meaningful to most people. But it will be soon enough. The question we need to answer is: how will these intertwined systems of hardware and software be designed to meaningfully add to our lives and to society?”

Link: Why Today’s Mobile Devices Are Doomed Like the Dying PC (technologyreview.com)

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Designing meaningful notifications

Gabriel White — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 10:47:17 +0000

“The biggest problem with many app notifications is that the benefit doesn’t outweigh the cost – the information they offer isn’t worth pulling your attention at that moment. So, I appreciate apps that help you silence the stuff you don’t care about and filter down to what you do. For example, I like that I can limit Twitter notifications to interactions from just people I follow instead of the whole world. Gmail lets you enable new message notifications for just a particular label or priority. I like infrequent but useful notifications like the occasional email I get from Mint.com, when a bank charges a service fee (boo) or when a deposit hits my account (hooray).”

Link: A Conversation with Gina Trapani: On Designing Meaningful Notifications (adaptivepath.com)

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How to design for Android’s navigation drawer

Gabriel White — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:13:34 +0000

Want to learn more about the Android navigation drawer paradigm? Google’s got the 47 minute (!) video for you.

Link: Android Design in Action: Navigation Drawers (youtube.com)

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Mobile Information Architecture: 4 different models

Gabriel White — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:07:03 +0000

“Mobile devices have their own set of Information Architecture patterns, too. While the structure of a responsive site may follow more “standard” patterns, native apps, for example, often employ navigational structures that are tab-based. Again, there’s no “right” way to architect a mobile site or application. Instead, let’s take a look at some of the most popular patterns: Hierarchy, Hub & spoke, Nested doll, Tabbed view, Bento box and Filtered view.”

Link: Designing for Mobile, Part 1: Information Architecture (uxbooth.com)

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Defining a language for touch

Gabriel White — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 11:11:41 +0000

Don Norman and Bahar Wadia give a nice summation of the opportunities and challenges of designing interactions for touch and gesture-based systems.

“Yes, getting the technology to work is hard, but the really hard part is getting the human-system interaction right, making it easy for people to use the systems…To overcome the limitations of affordances, Norman introduced the concept of a “signifier,” a perceivable (usually visible) signal of the location and form of the possible input interaction. Signifiers are of critical importance for these new interfaces because without them, the person will seldom be able to operate the device properly or, even if some operations are done, not be able to take full advantage of the rich possibility offered by more advanced, but invisible, modes of interaction. Today, signifiers are badly done with multi-touch devices. With touchless devices, the signifiers, if show at all, tend to be diagrams or short animated sequences visible on some associated display. This is an area in deep need of standards.”

Link: Opportunities and Challenges For Touch and Gesture-Based Systems (jnd.org)

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Thumbs-only UI? How people hold phones

Gabriel White — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 11:08:29 +0000

“The users who we observed touching their phone’s screens or buttons held their phones in three basic ways: one handed – 49%, cradled – 36%, two handed – 15%. In the following sections, I’ll describe and show a diagram of each of these methods of holding a mobile phone, along with providing some more detailed data and general observations about why I believe people hold a mobile phone in a particular way.”

Link: How Do Users Really Hold Mobile Devices? (uxmatters.com, via. See also Microsoft Research Paper for a pre-iPhone study)

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Designing Android UX (some Google advice)

Gabriel White — Thu, 30 May 2013 11:35:49 +0000

An introduction to UX design basics for Android from Google I/O, sprinkled with insights about design decisions that the Android design team has made about the platform itself.

“Want to enchant people, simplify their lives, and make them feel amazing with your app? Learn how Android’s Design Principles can help you create products that resonate with people. Find out about the meaning and research behind the principles. See real-world examples and practices from the Android Design team. Discover techniques for applying the principles in your daily work. No design experience necessary.”

Link: Google I/O 2013 – Enchant, Simplify, Amaze: Android’s Design Principles (youtube.com)

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Data graphs will power contextual computing

Gabriel White — Wed, 29 May 2013 11:00:10 +0000

“The adoption of contextual computing–combinations of hardware, software, networks, and services that use deep understanding of the user to create tailored, relevant actions that the user can take–is contingent on the spread of new platforms. Frankly, it depends on the smartphone…we’ve identified four data graphs essential to the rise of contextual computing: social, interest, behavior, and personal…The real potential of contextual computing isn’t about just one of these graphs. It’s about connections that resonate between them and which get tailored to different kinds of experiences. Early entrants like Google’s Now and Glass projects, Highlig.ht, and Siri are just beginning to experiment with these technologies.”

Link: The Future Of Technology Isn’t Mobile, It’s Contextual (fastcodesign.com)

Small Surfaces designs amazing mobile and device UI. Learn more