For Users Only

Since its launch, there has been a lot of buzz about the great user experience of the iPhone. Some early reports on this user experience include Bruce ‘Tog’ Tognazzini’s articles “The iPhone User Experience: A First Look” and “The iPhone User Experience: A First Touch“, as well as a more detailed analysis of some usability issues in “How People Really Use the iPhone“.

I recently came across a whole blog dedicated to the iPhone User Experience, where the most recent article tries to adapt Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics to iPhone apps. It is still very basic and minimal, with each heuristic only illustrated by one or a few examples, but it’s a good way to make sure usability is an important part of the complete user experience, also when designing apps for the iPhone.

A new Iso norm has been published to extend the scope of the old Iso norm 9241-11 (the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use) to the user interfaces of everyday products.

The following article gives a clear understanding of the new ISO norm:

ISO have released a new standard for measuring the usability of every day products, like ticket machines, mobile phones and digital cameras. This standard, ISO 20282, includes test methods for quantifying the usability of consumer products to ensure they meet a pre-defined quality level. This development is exciting because the standard’s focus on usability measurement reflects a sea change in the evolving practice of usability. In the old world, usability specialists just found usability problems with a design. In the new world, usability specialists also answer the question: “How usable is this design?”

I was browsing through the articles of Boxes and Arrows when I came across this very interesting tutorial using Flash as a prototype tool. Definitely worth a read if you are tired of using Visio or some other tool.

Boxes and arrows published a very useful and interesting article about User Experience and how to approach it.

I came across an interesting article about the factors that determine the success of an online community over at Frankwatching. Worth a read.

More than a year ago, Microsoft Research invited 45 leading researchers to discuss the future of HCI and where it would be in 2020.
The report is now available at the Microsoft Research website

The report suggests that we’re just entering the age of mobile computing, but, by 2020, we’ll be in an era of ubiquitous computing. Instead of a few computers and devices, each user will have access to thousands of computers, with various information and capabilities available.

The report concludes that the evolution in HCI affects the whole cycle of research and design, including how we understand the user, how we do studies in the field and the laboratory, how we reflect on the values sought in design, how we build prototypes and how we evaluate our designs.

Finally, HCI researchers need a larger assembly of skills and know-how if they are to succeed, which has implications for the concepts, frameworks and theories of HCI.