Chloe Lin’s blog

To design a quality layout for mobile devices, the key to decide what information is essential is clear, concise, and easy to navigate. As far as I’m concerned, designers would like to produce effective mobile devices, so they should pay more attention the following rules:

• Maximize screen use while avoiding clutter
• Minimize page length
• Avoid graphics that reduce readability

Designers should keep page length to fit the screen width in order for the user to avoid scrolling and try and keep appropriate hierarchy for navigation. Some necessary and frequent use should never be difficult to find, otherwise the user may be lost and feel annoyed, just like Shneiderman’s “Enable frequent users to use shortcuts” and Nielsen ‘s “Flexibility and efficiency of use”. Moreover, many usability problems related to developing Web resources for handheld devices are similar to those identified during the early days of Web development for PC computers (Ramsay & Nielsen, 2000). In my opinions, the navigation structure of PDA should reflect as similar as possible the site structure of an existing website structure if the PDA version is based around similar content. Current users familiar with an existing Web site should not feel alienated when browsing the site content via mobile devices, although the navigation aids should be specific to mobile devices. Hence, if PDA’s layout resembles the layout of the existing Web site, users will effortlessly know how to operate PDA. Designers can emphasize the consistency between the existing websites and PDA.

In addition, a back button on PDA on every page that has the same function as it has in a regular browser can be very important as it is one of the most used features on a mobile device. Also, that permits users to do easy reversal of actions. I think that it’s very valuable in not losing the user to offer appropriate navigation for users back to a home page or entry page after visiting a specific page on an item. Besides, a nice design of PDA should be able to detect the error and offer simple, comprehensible mechanisms for handling the error. This design will help users operate PDAs without special technology skills.

Because of the advancement of Internet and wireless application, the accessibility to Internet of PDA becomes higher. Colafigi, Inverardi and Matricciani (2001) pointed out that several design guidelines for WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) applications have been provided in various usability reports, particularly about the experience of developing WAP access to visitor information, including utilizing short links, backward navigation on every card (PDA equivalent of a page), minimizing the level of menu hierarchy, using headlines for every page.

A basic layout of PDA should consist of text-only content with graphics limited to navigation icons. This supports effective content delivery which relies on the following; namely, content relevance and the ease with which a user can navigate to it in relation to content weight. There are some advice and considerations as the follows.[1] First of all, “Keep screen size in mind”- pages should be designed for the lowest common denominator (Palm's 150 x 150 of usable screen). And, developers can use an HTTP Header to adapt the content to fit the larger screens of Windows CE, Pocket PC and Handheld PC Pro devices. Secondly, PDA content is best arranged as a simple 2-3 level navigation, such as a main menu, submenus (optional) and content pages. For example, a two level content site might consist of a main menu of articles, and the articles themselves should offer quick access to content for the end user. Last but not least, recently most PDAs are capable of displaying color. Images should be scaled to the smallest possible viewing size in order to reduce overall image weight, and thus reduce image download time. It is recommended to keep graphic design to a modest image layout. Also, no more than three thumbnail graphics should appear per PDA Web page.  

 

Because users become more and more demanding for IT devices and expect that their mobile devices can catch up the fashion trend, not only should designers of PDAs emphasize the functions and usability, but also should highlight PDA’s aesthetic to match Nielsen’s usability rules- Aesthetic and minimalist design. If one PDA can be easy to use, simple to search, convenient to carry on, and has nice appearance and completed function, that would be wonderful! I really look forward to the birth of it!

 

l       References:

Ramsay M. and Nielsen, J. (2000). WAP Usability: Déjà Vu: 1994 All Over Again. Report. Nielsen Norman Group, 2000. Updated in February 2003.

Colafigi, C., Inverard, P. and Martricciani, R.(2001). "InfoParc: An Experience in Designing an Information System Accessible through the Web and WAP Interfaces". In Proceedings of the 34th Hawaii International Conference on System Science, Los Alamitos, CA. IEEE Computer Society Press, 2001.

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[1] Sources from: Virtual museum, Canada,

http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Digital_Content/Tip_Sheets/Pda/tip_sheet3.html

 

 

l       Introduction

 

The term, PDA (personal digital assistant), was created by Apple Computer CEO John Sculley on January 7, 1992. PDAs are handheld computers which are used as calculation, as a clock and calendar. Besides, PDAs can access the Internet, send and receive E-mails, word processing, and even Global Positioning System (GPS). Hence, PDAs have become more versatile and universal.

 

Since the advancement of information technology, a variety of digital devices are pervasive in our life. PDAs also constantly improve their interface design and other digital applications to meet users’ need. Newer PDAs usually have both color screens and audio capabilities, enabling them to be used as mobile phones, web browsers, or portable media players. Therefore, more and more people are willing to purchase PDAs to provide convenience for their daily life.

 

 

A contest is proceeding constantly between Apple iPod and Microsoft Zune since Zune launched. Because of thepopularity of iPod, Microsoft's Zune obviously faces a daunting challenge against the wildfire ubiquity of the iPod. Currently, 70% of MP3 player hobbyists use iPod, but only 10% of MP3 player hobbyists use Zune.  Microsoft indicated that upgraded Zune will combine other relative entertainment experiences to form a wireless network which connects all Microsoft media properties, such as its Xbox and Media Center, as well as phones and other products. That might help the Zune catch up and change people’s way to play.

 

However, which one could be the winner in iWar? I think that it will be proved by time. In this journal, I would like to compare these two trendy MP3 players according to their respective appearances, interface design, and functions.

 

l      Apple iPod

 

Launched in October 2001, iPod was designed by the Apple Computer Company. Music, Movies, TV shows, audio books, etc., can be downloaded from the internet and played in this little magical box—iPod, a fashionable portable media player. Apple provides some different types of iPod MP3 players based on their capacity and appearances, such as iPod Classic, the mid-level video-capable IPod Nano and the low-end screenless iPod Shuffle. Of course, it can also serve as external data storage devices. Besides, iTunes software is very convenient for users to transfer music, photos, videos, games, and calendars to those iPod models that support them. As far as I’m concerned, the reason why iPod became so popular is its unique user interface design and its ease of use, rather than on technical capability.

 

 

 

As Maeda said, Apple iPod reveals how small changes in organization create big differences in a design. It certainly follows the rule of “Simplicity” by integrating all of the buttons into a seamless control- the click wheel, replacing their original five buttons  Other operations such as scrolling through menu items and controlling the volume are performed by using the click wheel in a rotational manner  It incorporates a touch sensitive surface into the display. Also this design is pleasant for all users because it matches “Saving in time feel like simplicity” as Maeda pointed out.

 

I can’t live without music, so I listen to music everyday to relax my mind. Based on my experience to using my cute iPod nano, it’s very easy to carry on, friendly to operate, and its interface design is also simple to understand. Thus, iPod help me to spend a lot of leisure or boring time. Moreover, I use iPod nano as my sleep timer sometimes (Menu: Extra->clock->time->sleep timer->setting).

 

I believe that iPod mostly follows  Shneiderman's Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design, such as “Strive for consistency”- some actions of iPod are consistent in similar situations; “Enable frequent users to use shortcuts”-users can apply iTunes to organize and edit your music box and then find the song on iPod quickly. Of course, iPod can do the following tasks- “Permit easy reversal of actions”, and “Offer simple error handling” by pressing one button for resetting. Therefore, I like my iPod nano so much. If Apple’s designers can modify the click wheel to be smoother and improve the battery lifespan to be longer, that would be great!

 

l       Microsoft Zune

 

The Zune's graphical user interface, which is called the "twist interface" by Microsoft, has sections for music, video, pictures, radio, community, and settings. Zune offers two-dimensional navigation for scrolling through items with its directional pad. User can add songs into a quick playlist without reconnecting to computers in the music section; besides, in the picture section, users can apply their favorite image as wallpaper. Zune has many personalized applications for users. In my opinion, Zune indeed “is easy to get, easy to interpret, and matches the way the person thinks of the system”, just as Norman said. It has formidable potential to be a leader in MP3 player market.

 

More interesting thing is that users can broadcast users’ profile and current activity to others nearby in the community section, and it’s really cool. Furthermore, in the setting section, users can control backlight settings and output analog TV in with purchase of a separate connection .In my opinion, Zune also does well in its “organization” to obey Maeda’s Law 2. Additionally, to find a balance between simplicity and complexity is important as well (Law 5). In using Zune’s functions, I can realize that Zune is at the center of this scale.

 

However, Zune has some disadvantages even though Microsoft constantly emphasize that Zune is as good as Apple iPod, and even better than it. At first, Zune is restricted to specific Windows platforms, with its proprietary Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) rendering it unusable with other operating systems. Secondly, the wireless device demands a lot of battery power, as anyone who's ever used a mobile phone knows. Thus, its durability of battery is doubtful. Third, Microsoft isn't supporting Audible audiobooks, nor providing any support for podcasting, nor has it announced any support for notes, tasks, calendars, contacts, or games. So all it does is playing music . Overall, Zune cannot do everything the iPod does at the same price although Zune also follow some of Shneiderman's Eight Golden Rules in its interface design.

 

Since these foregoing factors, I believe that the result of iWar between iPod and Zune is very obvious. It is hard for Zune to catch up to iPod, a topmost brand in MP3 player field. If I have a chance to choose one of them, I still select iPod as my MP3 player to accompany me day by day. 

 

Reference:

 

1. Epochtimes, http://hk.epochtimes.com/7/10/11/53023.htm

2. John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity, the MIT press, 2006

 3. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipod

4. UW,

http://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/360/f04/sessions/schneidermanGoldenRules.html

5. Zune, http://www.zune.net/en-us/meetzune/holiday2007.htm

6. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune

7.http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/9F60D74A-0E27-4F5F-B88D-835974628809.html

 

 

 

Since the first Karaoka(KTV)—Bronco Western Restaurant appeared in Taipei in 1988, KTV has become a popular entertainment in service industry across Taiwan. It offers a leisure space for people to sing, get together and relax their body and mind after one-day work. When a consumer comes to a KTV, the common action is selecting songs to sing. In song-selection process, one method is to enter the song code by remote controller, while the other method is selecting songs from computer screen. With “Input by controller” method, the user should depend on song-selection book to find a song’s code and then enter it; with “select from screen” method, the user can search a song by multiple song-selection items or from song categories. Thus, song-selection menu on the computer screen can help consumers save more time and enjoy better service. In my opinion, a good song-selection menu design is very important for consumer, and it should emphasize consumers’ convenience and operation efficiency.  

 

In Taiwan, two of the most popular multiple KTV- CashBox and Holiday- have different interface designs for selecting songs. Except for highlighting their respective characteristics, all KTV companies expect that consumers can find the song they want to sing easily and conveniently. This journal will focus on CashBox and Holiday KTV and analyze their interaction design for song-selection system on their computer screen. 

 

l       CashBox KTV

 

 

Its home page uses about seven kinds of color and font size 24, so users can see its content clearly. There are some main items on its homepage: its company name, the branch store name, room number, song-selection items, operation instruction, and Back to MainPage or Last/Next page. Cashbox provides a keyboard that is put in front of the computer screen for consumers to control its song-selection system.

 

CashBox’s song-selection system has more than fifteen kinds of item, such as New-released songs, Chinese song billboard, Chinese classic songs, Taiwanese song billboard, Taiwanese classic songs, English song billboard, Order by singers’ name. Consumers can choose their favorite and convenient way to select songs.

 

In addition, consumers can select unlimited songs to wait for playing, but each page has only 22 songs. They can review those selected songs by clicking buttons: Back to MainPage and Last/Next page, and edit/delete them arbitrarily.

 

Usually, the process that we select a song to sing is as follows:

 

 

If consumers want to sing a song, he/she should click buttons for at least 3-5 times. Sometimes, they would browse every page and try to find their favorite songs. CashBox’s computer system is very clever and their employees work very efficiently.

 

Hence, we can sing constantly without waiting. Furthermore, if some problems happen on their computer, consumers can call waiters to seek assistance by pressing Service Call.

 

l       Holiday KTV

 

 

Its homepage uses more colors, but these colors are conformable. One thing I dislike about its homepage is the font size. The font size 14 is too small to see clearly. There are some main items on its homepage: its company logo, time, room number, song-selection items, operation instruction, and even some menu for food. The interface design is more complicated. It arranges too many fields to fill up the whole screen. This design might dizzy consumers when they want to select a song efficiently.

 

Holiday’s song-selection process is mostly the same as CashBox’s. However, there are some differences between them. Consumers have to click buttons for more than four times, and then they would get the song that they want to sing. Because its song-selection database is ordered by both number of words and strokes of a Chinese character, consumers must select both of two items and then go to next step. This design is too terrible and waste consumers’ time. Moreover, some songs displayed on its song-selection system can’t play or let consumer wait for a long time. We don’t know what problem it is, but I think that Holiday KTV should improve their computer system and service.

 

l       Some suggestions for KTV song-selection system

 

Because the main target group for KTV in Taiwan is 18-35 year-old people, KTV companies should take their opinions into consideration. KTV companies should do some survey and understand what consumers think and what kind of song-selection system is appropriate for them. The survey might bring more consumers and lots of revenue for KTV companies.

 

Based on my experience, I think that the interface design on the homepage should not be complicated. The color of its background can be black or other darker color because those colors can’t affect the brightness of TV screen. Also, interface designers shouldn’t use more than seven kinds of color on the same page because that might confuse consumers. If possible, designers can pick up some comfortable and popular colors to design its interface.

 

After doing survey, designers can know that which song-selection item is the most popular and easy to use for consumers, and they can accord to consumers’ response to modify their song-selection items, such as Chinese pop song billboard and English classic songs. Additionally, if designers can control the number of clicking buttons and reduce the time for selecting a song, consumers would enjoy the atmosphere in KTV. KTV companied should often upgrade their computer system to increase the sensitivity of the whole system in order to make the song-selection process to flow smoothly. Of course, the internal training for their employees is very important as well.

 

As a KTV hobbyist, I hope that consumers can have a better space to sing and express our emotion and feelings. Designers of the song-selection system are very crucial because they can bring a better interaction design between consumers and the computer system. Therefore, designers and KTV companies should value consumer-centered opinions and idea to develop a complete and perfect song-selection system.    

 

 

 

 

Since the advancement of information technology, a variety of IT products are pervasive in our life. These products have high-degree of interactivity that some traditional mechanical or electronic products are lacking. Thus, “Interaction Design” is the most important part of the design for IT products. However, existing studies and discussions about interaction design mostly overemphasize the usability and functions, and ignore other important factors for users, such as users’ feeling, emotion, and atheistic experience.

 

Recently, I found some IT designs start to take the foregoing factors into consideration, like iPod, iPhone, LG chocolate and even new laptops. Designers got gradually increasing understanding for the relationship between human and products; besides, the advancement of IT brought more possibility of interaction. Hence, interaction design has begun to value” aesthetic experience” with “ease to use”, “convenience” these usability issues. In short, designers should also focus on users’ aesthetic needs in human-product interaction. I would like to call it as “Aesthetic of Interaction”.

 

As a female consumer for IT products, I am usually more willing to insist on their style over their functions, because a nice appearance of the IT product would make me more comfortable and joyful to use it. However, “Aesthetic of Interaction” is still a relatively new word in design research, and there are few discussion and design principles about this. What is “Aesthetic Interaction”? What are its characteristics? How does it apply in interaction design for IT products? These issues should be discussed by all designers.

 

According to some reports and news, the cell-phone market has exploded - from 340,000 subscribers in 1985 to 220 million today. Since Prada and LG teamed up to produce a sleek black touch-screen phone, Dolce & Gabbana followed this trend to attach its iconic logo to a gold Motorola Razr phone, and Samsung unveiled a Versace phone last summer. As we know, Handset producers have paid attention to style; consumer tastes are transforming electronics companies used to competing based on technology into fashion houses. Five years ago, cell-phones were just being sold as a phone. But now LG Chocolate was never sold as a phone -- they were sold as something sexy." said Matt Lewis, a director at research firm ARCchart.

 

 

 

 

 

As far as I’m concerned, the evaluation for aesthetic interaction is based on multi-modal of sensory organ, not involved in only one sense. Hummels(2001) points out that except for appropriate functions, aesthetic interaction have to value the desire, needs, interests, and skills of users (perceivable, cognitive, and emotional). In addition, aesthetic of interaction need to cover the abundance of all sensory organs, so designers should utilize the range of design methods and diversity to broaden the range of the feelings in sensory organs. A more important thing is that products should enhance the possibility of creating users’ stories and habits. If products can stimulate users to create their stories and ceremonies while they use those products, the relationship between people and products become more intimate.

 

Furthermore, I think that there are three elements in aesthetic of interaction: participation, sympathy, and naturally. That is to say, users can naturally interact with products and produce some sympathy in their mind due to the content of their interaction and form can connect with users’ life experience. When users think that their interaction with products can connect their life, they might use those products with highly satisfactory and probably regard products as some lovely creations.    

 

Although aesthetic doesn’t have any established standard, designers should pay much attention to the aesthetic of products to attract more users to purchase and enhance the quality of products. I think that designers of IT products can find out some aesthetic factors of interaction in interpersonal communication, and extend these factors into human-product interaction design. That is what all designers should think deeply.