Quote:
Originally Posted by fourstringfuror
While this may be true, most people would fail a 30-second test with a new BlackBerry device. Heck, I failed that test when I was issued my first 7290 over seven years ago.
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That's totally true, and it was also true that before around year 2007, most people would fail the 30-second test with
most cellphones on the market at the time. "Quick, launch the web browser!" "Quick, display the home screen!" -- operations now considered intuitive to the vast majority of the public on a random modernized device.
...Back in the 80's and the early 90's, the W.I.M.P. methology was only being brainstormed.
Windows-
Icon-
Menus-
Pointer. (
W.I.M.P. on Wikipedia). Before then, menus, icons, scrollbars, mouse pointers, weren't a platform-independent expectation. Today you expect it on Mac, PC, Linux, etc -- they share the same basic UI concepts.
...Nowadays, we are witnessing a rapid evolution/standardization of mobile user interfaces, much like computer-based user interfaces rapidly evolving just twenty years ago. Standardization of a method of going to home screen (house button or main button, etc), standardization of zooming (the pinch-zoom), standardization of launching apps (tapping an icon with finger), etc, etc.
(BTW, I don't always like touchscreens, except for browsing and certain other operations. I am sort of a a physical-keyboard zealot. I type 75 words per minute on BlackBerries --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egie4ApwoUg -- so my favourite Android device is the Motorola Pro+ which feels like a BlackBerry 9900 keyboard but with Android OS. I do, however, realize I am a dying breed with the prevalence of touchscreen keyboards, but I'm appreciative gadgets are still being released with keyboards. I *HOPE* I can return to BlackBerry ASAP, once OS 10 devices stabilizes after a few cycles, if RIM turns around, though. Some of you veterans here, may remember my obsessive writing about BlackBerries back in the
berryfaq.com days back in year 2005, when I was still a moderator here on BBF) I haven't abandoned BlackBerry, I still keep two BlackBerries active on my own dime, too.
Recently, certain manufacturers have suceeded in being able to have technology newbies be able to pick up a device and do a simple operation such as launching a web browser, wholly based on their familarity of average gadgets (like home computers, home remote controls, ATM machine touchscreens, television and DVD user interfaces, etc). By carefully modelling user interfaces to maximize success based on what people are familiar with, a larger percentage of the inexperienced public gets captivated within 30 seconds just from basic operations. (And designing a device where coaching can stay minimal/fewest word to maximum success of device operation -- i.e. salesperson saying: "Safari is the web browser. Touch that." or whatever.) Some vendors succeeded shockingly well here, while other vendors such as Nokia and RIM failed to adapt, even long after iPhone and Android came out.