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Posted by The PocketTV Team on December 20, 2006, 11:12 am
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i just don't understand why the Smartphone UI is so poorely designed (by
MSFT).
for example, Start > Settings has 3 or 4 pages of items on separate screens,
and the only way to go through this list is to go from screen to screen
using "More..." to go to the next or pressing the BACK key to go to the
previous screen.
it would have been SOOOO much simpler and nicer to have just ONE screen with
a long scrolling list of items.
oh, yes, i know, you can select items in each screen by pressing a number
key, but frankly i would prefer loosing this feature and not having to
"think" in order to go through the list.
and now that most popular smartphones have a full keyboard, a smart
interface could recognize some letters pressed and scroll to the
corresponding item in the list - like when you look for a contact.
it looks like the UI design choices have been made based on the idea that
scroll is always very slow (not the case with today's devices).
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Posted by The PocketTV Team on December 20, 2006, 11:19 am
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oh, another inept UI design thing, too, in that same Settings section:
why not put "More..." on the right soft key, which is not used, rather than
map it to a digit or otherwise require two key press to get to the next
screen (up then OK)
not only this would have made Settings easier to navigate, but it would also
have freed one item in the list, i.e. better use of limited screen
real-estate.
i wonder is MSFT has competent UI experts, sometimes...
>i just don't understand why the Smartphone UI is so poorely designed (by
>MSFT).
>
> for example, Start > Settings has 3 or 4 pages of items on separate
> screens, and the only way to go through this list is to go from screen to
> screen using "More..." to go to the next or pressing the BACK key to go to
> the previous screen.
>
> it would have been SOOOO much simpler and nicer to have just ONE screen
> with a long scrolling list of items.
>
> oh, yes, i know, you can select items in each screen by pressing a number
> key, but frankly i would prefer loosing this feature and not having to
> "think" in order to go through the list.
>
> and now that most popular smartphones have a full keyboard, a smart
> interface could recognize some letters pressed and scroll to the
> corresponding item in the list - like when you look for a contact.
>
> it looks like the UI design choices have been made based on the idea that
> scroll is always very slow (not the case with today's devices).
>
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Posted by Beverly Howard [Ms-MVP/MobileD on December 20, 2006, 12:30 pm
Please log in for more thread options time has shown that solutions come from developers such as yourself who
see the need, write the solution and give or vend it to the community.
time has also proven that requests, complaints, suggestions, rants, etc
directed at ms from these and similar forums have no apparent influence
on what ms fixes or adds to it's os and products... count the [msft]
responders vs others to sample their presence here.
Beverly Howard [MS MVP-Mobile Devices]
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Posted by The PocketTV Team on December 20, 2006, 1:01 pm
Please log in for more thread options "Beverly Howard [Ms-MVP/MobileDev]" <BevNoSpamBevHoward.com> wrote in
> time has shown that solutions come from developers such as yourself who
> see the need, write the solution and give or vend it to the community.
i'm talking about the UI built-in by MSFT in the device. it would not make
sense - and probably would be quite difficult - to develop a replacement for
such things as the Settings applet.
> time has also proven that requests, complaints, suggestions, rants, etc
> directed at ms from these and similar forums have no apparent influence on
> what ms fixes or adds to it's os and products...
i know, since i can see that MSFT still "doesn't get it" - and it still
making some of the least usable UI on mobile, still, after all those years.
> count the [msft] responders vs others to sample their presence here.
maybe it is time MSFT listen to the users and look at the competition.
sorry, but when i want to set-up an alarm (just a SINGLE alarm for tomorrow
morning), i can to it on my nokia without thinking, without any risk of
mis-configuration, and i am sure that i will not miss my flight. not the
case with a Smartphone.
in fact on a smartphone (and PPC) there is no easy way to setup a simple
alarm for tomorrow morning: in order to do that, you must be certain of what
day of the week is today (since you can only set alarms for particular days
of the week - so if you pick the wrong day, you are screwed), or you can set
it for all days, but then it will ring again every day unless you
reconfigure the alarm after the first day. once again, this is ugly,
compared to other devices.
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Posted by Todd Allcock on December 20, 2006, 3:25 pm
Please log in for more thread options At 20 Dec 2006 10:01:26 -0800 The PocketTV Team wrote:
> i'm talking about the UI built-in by MSFT in the device. it would not
make
> sense - and probably would be quite difficult - to develop a
replacement for
> such things as the Settings applet.
Agreed. But to be fair to MS, Smartphones come in many flavors-
different sized screens, different input devices (full keyboard, dialpad)
so it's challenge to create a one-UI fits all. They probably have to
think lowest common denominator in the design.
> i know, since i can see that MSFT still "doesn't get it" - and it still
> making some of the least usable UI on mobile, still, after all those
years.
>
>
> maybe it is time MSFT listen to the users and look at the competition.
While it's often cumbersome, I still haven't seen a phone UI I've really
liked yet, which leads me to believe that a good UI with a tiny screen
and a dialpad is still something of a Holy Grail.
>
> sorry, but when i want to set-up an alarm (just a SINGLE alarm for
tomorrow
> morning), i can to it on my nokia without thinking, without any risk of
> mis-configuration, and i am sure that i will not miss my flight. not
the
> case with a Smartphone.
>
> in fact on a smartphone (and PPC) there is no easy way to setup a
simple
> alarm for tomorrow morning: in order to do that, you must be certain of
what
> day of the week is today (since you can only set alarms for particular
days
> of the week - so if you pick the wrong day, you are screwed), or you
can set
> it for all days, but then it will ring again every day unless you
> reconfigure the alarm after the first day. once again, this is ugly,
> compared to other devices.
But on the otherhand, on my basic Nokias I could ONLY set up an alarm for
the next day (or later today if the alarm time hadn't passed.)
Flexibility adds complexity. On my Series 60 Nokias (3650 & 3620) alarms
had to be scheduled on the calendar- which was at least as cumbersome as
my PPC Phone if not more so.
Again, I'm not saying the MS WinMo UI is great- I'm just saying, IMHO,
it's in the middle of a pack of weak UIs.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
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