One Device - Hundreds of Interactions.
Five examples of how the pocket-sized device can incorporate and build upon historic interactions.
Smartphones are a major part of our lives today. In past years we would collect loads of household items to use on a daily basis, which have now been rolled into one single device. Statistics show that more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.
Adaptability & Consistency
Smartphones have evolved to be a single device adaptable enough to accommodate hundreds of different experiences and interactions. As we use the smart phone for more and more end-cases, the interactions are now condensed into just a few finger gestures and touches, which are all unique to their application, yet have to feel part of the same overall system. Users do not want to learn a new set of rules every time they open an app, so all designers are aware of keeping things consistent when designing for Apple, Android or Samsung to name a few. This includes the iconography, menu styles, visual language and colour-coding to make them intuitive. The key is to keep the strong branding and design it to keep a similar consistency for the smartphone operating system.
As the smartphone takes over, UX Designers have even more challenges…
One of the main challenges of designing smartphone apps is that we have to digitally recreate the interactions from real life experiences, as well as bring them into a new format. Even though all the apps are on the same device, each one has to feel like you are entering a different environment fit for a specific purpose. For example a user might load up a news app followed by loading up a videogame app on the same device, which has completely different properties, functions, controls, sensitivity and systems.
Nostalgia and Mental Models
Not only does the app design have to use the principles of interaction design carefully, but it has to be user-friendly, friction-less and fun to interact with. In order for it to successfully communicate what it represents, apps will be designed with a clear Mental Model so the user will automatically know the behavior. For example a digital app version of a camera, but it also has to encapsulate the feelings the user would experience when using an actual camera. The designer intends for the user to get as excited as if they were using a traditional camera. This can be done by extensive user research on how people are with cameras, what they look for, find out where they get stuck and what they find intuitive. Another way is a nostalgic approach, whereby brands use the past designs to connect with new users today.
Five examples of how the pocket-sized device can incorporate and build upon historic interactions.
Looking at the Play store and app store, we can see that people use their smartphones for complex things such as controlling their household heating and lighting, for practical uses like checking in to flights or calculators apps, and for entertainment such as buying and watching movies, playing videogames or browsing the internet all in the palm of their hands.
With hope that conventional interactions haven’t become lost, here are some examples of physical products from the real world, and how designers have recreated the experience on smart phones.
Camera
There are a lot of intuitive interactions with physical camera: Turning the zoom lenses, twisting the focus valve, physical buttons for on/off, self timer etc. Traditional cameras also had their problems too, it was expensive to buy lenses, developing films and carrying hardware was not always easy. The smartphone camera apps are improving all the time with powerful lenses, built in filters, functions with drawing and editing tools, but most importantly the interactions. Intuitive design is the key here. Generally the new experience is to unlock your phone, click on the camera app then look at the few icons your screen. Tapping on a slick icon will bring up a menu on the side of the screen within reach of the users fingertips, then neatly tucked away allowing the full screen for the viewfinder. The old zooming ways have been replace by swiping two fingertips across the screen in different directions, allowing ease of use for the users hands. Twisting valves for focusing has been replaced by touching an area in the smartphone screen to focus on as particular area. No time is wasted — the final shot can be uploaded anywhere within seconds.
Music Players
Having a music player or a ghetto blaster used to be an amazing experience most of the time. The process of opening the cases, inserting discs or cassettes, listening to the feedback of things clicking into pace, placing a record carefully under a delicate stylus in preparation for the music are some to mention. There were problems too: discs got scratched, tapes got stuck and pulled out, a lot of older systems were not portable, batteries were required and carrying Walkmans and portable CD players were usually far too big to fit in pockets! Smartphones have really invested into music players. It’s so easy to download mp3s or stream music on application such as Spotify and lastfm. The interaction design on touch-screen music player apps is carefully designed, because everything is within one screen things can easily go wrong. The last thing you want is for something to touch and deactivate a song while it’s playing for example, so menus are neatly nested within icons that will allow the player to have a safely net. During this transition we have seen many interaction changes such as the death of fast forward and rewind functions, which have been replaced by sliders.
Telephone
The telephone has evolved somewhat over the last 100 years. Some nice old features allowed for wonderful interactions. One of which was the analogue circular dial pad that users would drag along to enter a number, which also had great feedback with the sounds. Another feature was the telephone receiver design, the perfect shape that affords holding, ear placement, and speech input. Which, in my opinion, is much more comfortable than holding a thin panel of glass for a long period of time. Another downfall is that touchscreens can allow accidental toggling of options with the side of your face while talking on the phone. However there are so many benefits: built in phonebook at your fingertips, connecting to a call straight from the internet and toggling options on and off according to which screen you are on. Even though touch screen dial pads tend to be much quicker than the circular dial pads, touch screen trends not to be as responsive as physical buttons some of the time.
Newspaper
Why trouble yourself by unfolding a newspaper that is longer than your arm span, when you can download a news app on your smartphone and store in your pocket. The traditional interaction of turning pages and ripping extracts have not been completely lost, you can copy and paste any extract and upload anywhere at the drop of a hat, and some apps have adapted the turn-page but sliding your finger over a corner and dragging to give the impression of pulling the page back. Another perk is categories, search functionalities allow you to find what you need in seconds. The best part is that news apps are updated so frequently, readers will get that “hot off the press” every few minutes.
Alarm Clock
The history of alarm clocks date back to when the sun woke people up, but with mechanical alarms, there have been great advances over the years like radio alarms and the snooze function. Smartphones allow you to have sounds fade in, ringtones and multiple alarms, reminders as alarms and flash lights to wake up to. Older alarm clocks were designed to wake people with a loud piercing sound with the vibrating twin bells and had a large button on top designed for people to roll over at whack the button while half asleep. Smartphones are harder to switch off with in the mornings while you’re waking up, as the interactions are much more fiddly and complex, for example using dexterity skills to slide left to snooze or slide right to turn off while your body and mind is still waking up, since require you to unlock your phone before being able to swipe an alarm off creating friction, compared to the nice and easy way to whacking a huge button to get the job done.
Summary
The smartphone is a small device with only a few physical buttons on the side, but the touch screen interactions are adaptable for hundreds of different uses. As well as a unique design and experience, each application also needs to have consistency with everything else on the operating system. Nostalgic elements are incorporated into app design to help build mental models. When a player clicks on a an app icon, they need to feel transported to a new environment that is specific for its purpose, even though it’s still on the same device as hundreds of other apps with totally different functions.
How many different things do you use your smartphone for?
