Mobile Device Interface Design Awards

Hmm. I feel like I am dolling out awards thus the title for this post. Since I felt like this I wondered if there was such a thing and did a short google search for "mobile device interface awards." Second up on the list was Global Mobile Awards 2009. This is a pretty interesting site with various mobile categories. Even though the google inquiry had interface in it these awards did not focus primarily on interfaces.



If I was to design a contest for a Mobile Device Interface Designs I would have to develop a couple of criteria.

1. The interface needs to be easy to use. In a matter of a minute or less the user should be able to figure out how to use the application in a limited capacity.


2. The interface should be easy to navigate throughout the screens without confusion or frustration.


3. It should be visually pleasing. Although aesthetics is not a complete make or break item on the list it does go a long way to make an app more pleasing and marketable to the end user.

Although I am sure I could come up with many more I will use these three criteria to browse a few of the apps on my phone and access them.

I recently downloaded textPlus to give it a try. The set up is relatively simple and the interface uses standardized icons used by various programs to display information like settings and information as well as how to compose a message. This standardization and simplistic styling made it easy to get up and running in the app. The information screen provides easy access to more information if you were unable to figure it out quickly.

Twitterific is one of the most frequently used apps on my phone. The interface on this one is relatively simple as well and deploys some of the same standardization that textPlus did. A bonus for this application is the sources button in the upper left hand corner. I often click this and feel disjointed because I didn't het what I espected. I veliece a precious version of the software had something on that screen for adjustments but they are now another screen away.

The Role of the Interface for Mobile Devices

Steven Johnson in the text Interface Culture when talking about change ushered in by the digital age make the following statement:

"We will come to think of interface design as a kind of art form -- perhaps
the art form of the next century" (p. 213)

I tend to agree with this statement especially as we move to more mobile devices where real estate is limited and time to make an impression is critical to success. Since getting my iPhone I have downloaded a number of apps for various reasons but most to make my life easier. The last thing I want to do is rumage through various screens or menus to get to the information that I want. I have noticed that I respond and find interfaces that are streamlined as well as visually pleasing to be the ones that I use the most.

With the limited real estate available on the screen of mobile devices interface design is going to have to be an art form in order to accomplish everything that needs to be done in apps and still appeal to the end user. Appeal and use does not end with the visual representation. We will need to write concise and appropriate messages that work and assist the user.

Currently, unless the user increases the size of the information the text presented to them is the size of small scribbles. When the user increases the size of the information they are then forced to move the screen backwards and forwards to read the information. For many this makes reading and using a mobile device difficult. Applications that have been designed to increase or decrease the typography's size on the screen without forcing the user to scroll left or right are often ideal for handling this problem but can also be addressed through the practice of writing itself. If those who plan to write for mobile devices plan their message and write clearly and concisely those who seek the message will leave the application a satisfied user.

iPhone Apps - My Favorites

I was extremely excited when I saw that ENGL5376: Online Publishing for Mobile Devices required me to have a web enabled mobile device. At the time my old Motorola Razr was hardly keeping a charge and my contract had been ready for renewal since October of 2008. I had been looking for a while to decide what I wanted but had yet to get something.

I picked up my iPhone in April about a month before heading to May seminar and started playing with it to learn the interface and of course make it my own. It didn't take long before I was hooked. In my sad little organized world I have of course organized my iPhone screens. I have screens for everyday tools (main screen), educational, social networking, work related, music and television, food and exercise (finding locations, tips, cooking), games, the hardly ever use but can't delete apps and those I am research for the app project.

I have downloaded 64 apps to date that have allowed me to save and waste time in vast amounts. Some of these have not been worth the time that I sunk into downloading them and others are worth every penny I spent purchasing and downloading them.

My Favorites:

• Amazon Kindle - I think this is the app I clearly spend the most time with. I downloaded all of the books for my classes this summer that I could for the Kindle so that I could have them always at my fingertips. This has worked out well for me, especially the day I had to go to the clinic and wait three hours to get in. I got lots of reading done. I also use this at night since I like to read in bed for a while before drifting off to sleep. I don't have to hold a clunky book and a flashlight anymore in an awkward position so that I can turn pages and not wake up my husband. I just sent the app to display the text in white which make the background black and I am set to read until I start drifting off to sleep.
• Twitteriffic & Facebook - I have bundled these together because I probably spend equal time in each. I think I am drawn to both of them because of the community and connection they provide to things other than what I am doing at the current moment. Through each of these I feel much more in touch with my friends and relatives than I was previously.
• iThoughts - I absolutely loved this app until yesterday. I have been mapping out ideas for my dissertation since May seminar and had a lot of great information flowing together until I must have pushed a wrong button the other night and ended up losing all of the leaves I had created off my main trunk of ideas. I think I still have most of it in my head and can restore it but have yet to do so because I am a bit gun shy. All in all I learned a valuable lesson and will be constantly backing it up once I do reenter the data.
• Notes - I am always typing into the notes app, 28 notes saved to date. There are items to purchase, things to do, thoughts about my dissertation, future projects and things I am reading. Luckily because it takes me a while to delete items this is also were I will find a lot of the data that got wiped out of the iThoughts app.
  
• Amateur Surgeon - I have to admit I have become addicted to a game. This game has grabbed my attention on more than a couple of occasions when I need a break from reading but am bored and what something to do. I had to recently ban myself from playing it so that I can get more work done.

So out of 64 these are my favorites. Many of the others are used but only on a casual basis like Aim, YahooIM, Jott, LogMeIn, CanMoo (what can I say we live in the country and the kids love to call cows to the fence to look at them this is great for that), BabySitter, and WorldCat to name a few. If I was ever to loose my iPhone now I think you would find me going through withdrawal and having to rebuild most of my digital life since so much of it has become encapsulated in this tiny little hand-held device.

Pie in the Sky Ideas for an iPhone App

While I am making my way through my reading for ENGL5376 and ENGL5369 I am still taking a few minutes here and there to do some research from my final project for Online Publishing. After exploring a number of the university based apps I think I have a good idea of how I want to progress and what I want to do. I have decided to set a goal for a final ideal pie in the sky app with all the possible bells and whistles I might like to create but then start small working away on the components a piece at a time.

The pie in the sky project will be to create an app similar to iStanford. I was very impressed with the design and elegance of the app. It is packed with a lot of components that I like some of which I would like to integrate now and others that would be possible list items once I become more proficient. If all goes as planned my final app will include the following components:

1. News Feed - using an RSS feed we already have established on the Clarkson news site.
2. Events Calendar - using an RSS feed provided from the current off site product we subscribe to
3. Athletics Feed - I have to check and see if we have RSS feeds for our current news information. I'm not sure that we do since these pages are handled by the athletic department and site development and hosting is handled by a third party off site.
   
4. Maps - input the current map images and use localization coding to allow for GPS location while on campus.

I think these four items will provide a pretty good start for the app with the map being on of the most difficult. I have a couple of other items I would like to include in the app but am not sure how time consuming all of the above will be so I am prepared to add more at a later date if I find the ability. I plan to start with the RSS feed and figure I will work my way down the list from there. I found what looks like a nice tutorial on building a simple RSS reader but will have to wait until this evening to check it out since I didn't carry along the Mac today. We will see how the process goes from here but I better get back to reading since I still have a lot to get finished before class on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

Carried Away in a Blobject

Wikipedia's definition of a Blobject as written by Frances Raven in Wittkower's iPod and Philosophy "is most often a colorful, mass-produced, plastic-based, emotionally engaging consumer product with a curvilinear, flowing shape. This fluid and curvaceous form is the blobject's most distinctive feature." Raven went on further while defining a blobject to quote from Steven Skov Holt the originator of the term. I noted a key word, "streamlining" and a phrase, "the blobject is the smoothest, sleekest and swoopiest of all our forms" from Holt's definition that brought some particular thoughts to mind. Later in the chapter Raven adds the word minimalist to the mix. All of these points are essential to my exploration of what a blobject is.

Blobjects don't have to be round or curvilinear, much like the iPod is more of a 'squircle' with it's rectangular curved edge shape that does not fit the blobby curvilinear definition. I believe the important part of the definition is not the appearance of the object itself, although it does factor into it I think it is more about the terms: minimalist, streamlining, smooth and sleek. These terms are synonymous in my mind with something that is modern and simplistic but yet advanced in its use.

Raven contends that the moment of the blobject has passed but I am not sure that is the case. As I look around my world I still see blobjects. 

I took yesterday off from everything I needed to do and spent a much needed day with my family away from books and computers. We had a wonderful time. So much so that my four year old son woke up this morning and wanted to go back again. All I could think of this morning was the pile of reading that I needed to make my way through and the number of responses I needed to write. Against my better judgement I found myself out-ruled by the family siting in my car on the hour long trip back to camp. As we were rinding along I was thinking about the definition of a blobject. I realized I was being carried away in one. 

My car, a Toyota Prius is very much a blobject. It is mass-produced, emotionally engaging, smooth, sleek and swoopy vehicle with curvilinear flowing lines. Much like the VW Beetle the Prius fits the blobject definition. My Prius is a 2006 but it's based on the design originally produced and released in 2005. One could argue that this design would have been going through the design stages during the age of the blobject as Raven suggests but I think blobject is something more than the objects themselves. I think that we as a society go through a period were we are looking for modernization in our lives. We are tired of the old boxy, boring designs that manufacturer after manufacturer give us. For our generation cars like the VW bug and the Prius exemplify it as does the iPod but years ago I think it might have been the refrigerator. 

You must be wondering how I got from the iPod and cars like the Prius and VW Bug to a refrigerator. Our camp is a place that is lost in time because it has no power, running water or other luxuries that many are used to in our lives. While there today I looked at what was around me. The refrigerator caught my attention in this time forgotten world. It had a number of the defining principles that blobjects have but was created years ahead of when the term blobject was coined. This old propane refrigerator (pictured to the left) in it's time represented a modern age of simplicity and technological advancement that revolutionized the home. This made me wonder if the moment of the blobject actually comes and goes or maybe just lays dormant for a few years and waits for designers to revisit it when the old is no longer new and we as consumers are looking for something fresh and interesting. 

Checking out the Landscape

I have started browsing around to explore what other colleges are currently doing with iPhone apps. I have always found exploring the landscape to be helpful in the process of getting started. It is always nice to learn from those who have gone before me and discover some of the best and worst practices out there so that when I am done my apps can hopefully live comfortably among some of the better practices.

What I have found so far (worth noting):

• iStanford - Cost: FREE
  This app offers a directory, athletics, maps, events and courses.
  
  My Thoughts:
  This is a pretty nice app with lots to offer given the price. It has a nice clean and professional design far above most that I have seen within the few minutes I have been searching.
  
  The individual components of the app have their pluses and minuses. The directory must only work on the Stanford network or I am missing the login screen for it. The athletics looks like it is feed from RSS feeds which is a bonus if ours are handled that way as well. Maps, events and courses also seem to be pretty basic and reasonable to implement. So far I think that this will be a model I can use to work from.
  
  
• Ohio State University Map - Cost: $1.99
  A map of the Ohio State campus that allows users to zoom in and out and use the GPS functionality to find there way around.
  
  My thoughts: I'm not sure I would pay $1.99 for a map of campus even if I was a visiting student. If I got seriously lost a lot and didn't want to continue to look like a fool when I had to call my friends to come find me, maybe but I clearly think this type of app should be free.
  
  I think this is a neat and possibly doable idea for my class project if I can get the localization coding down and mesh that with our current flash maps. If I want to go in this direction for my application I need spend speed up my iPhone App lessons and get to Chapter 17 on localization in the text.
  
  
• Penn State University - Cost: FREE
  Basically an application for providing Penn State news to your iPhone.
  
  My Thoughts: Seems very basic and hopefully easy. This should be easily handled by inserting the RSS feed from our news site into an iPhone App. THe text I currently have does not seem to cover this so I did some quick searching on the internet and came up with this auto conversion program, AppLoop. I should be able to figure out how to do this. With a little more research on the coding I came across these links which I will explore further later: How-to: building services into iPhone Applications, How to put twitter updates in your iPhone Apps (info on the NSXMLParser function)
  
  
• ACU MindWire - Cost: $ .99
  Abilene Christian University is using this app to offer education content.
  
  My Thoughts: I am intrigued by a universities use of an iPhone app to extend learning beyond the classroom. This is very forward thinking. I'm not sure that this is something I am ready to progress into for this class but it is something that I might consider working on as a value add for my students in my classes. I will have to think about this one further. It's disappointing that I can not download it and try it out to see under the hood and kick the tires.
  

I have also downloaded the Go Huskies App from Northeastern and IMason from George Mason University. Each of these are free and look interesting but I have not had time to review them yet. So more to come at a later time.

On a quest to learn programming for the iPhone

Well I have secured everything that I need to begin to learn how to code apps for the iPhone.

1. iPhone - Check, purchased one in April and am completely hooked now
2. Guiding Text - Check, ordered Beginning iPhone Development Exploring the iPhone SDK from Apress by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche
3. Mac Computer - Check, Thanks to JohnDan Johnson-Eiola I am borrowing a Macbook for the summer. Knowing me I will more than likely be hooked by the end of the summer and want one of my own so I will have to put in a lot of hours on a freelance job to be able to aford one.
4. iPhone SDK Software - Check, I downloaded the 2.2.1 version yesterday and have successfully run through my first interface lesson in the text.

I also have to sign up to become a registered iPhone developer if I hope to do anything with the apps I create. For now I just have to keep plugging my way through the text and make some headway. So far the process was pretty easy and I look forward to continuing. I forsee lots of late nights in my future. I will keep you posted on my progress.