SourceBottle

Exploring the web of user experience design and web technologies

iPad Review

Being a gadget whore, I just had to get myself an iPad to see what all the fuss was about. After a few days of following the package on it's journey from Shenzhen, China, it finally turned up on my doorstep.

As a power user, I really was looking for a net book alternative. Something which I could use to surf the web and read email on the couch, without having a MacBook Pro on my lap. I had played with a few netbooks and whilst the size was right, I just found them really annoying to use with their tiny keyboards and trackpads. My iPhone provided a much better couch surfing experience, but that too was on the small side.

So on to the iPad... Upon taking it out of it's rather plain box, the first thing that struck me was the weight if the thing - it has a fairly hefty feel to it, as if it could do some real damage if thrown! The build quality is fantastic, especially when compared to netbooks.

The initial setup was straightforward, requiring a connection to iTunes and some degree of patience whilst items are synced. It's a shame you cannot actually use the iPad during this process - you feel kind of helpless waiting for it complete. It's difficult to know where to start when talking about the device - in some ways the iPhone has helped train us, we know what to expect, and yet it is a totally different experience full of surprises and... I hate to say it... Magic!

The UI is essentially the same as on the iPhone, except it feels exceptionally smooth with additional visual effects and a beautifully crisp display which adds so much to the experience. It certainly looks the part and the performance makes interacting with the device all the more natural.

All the standard apps have been totally redesigned to take advantage of the larger screen size, offering streamlined navigation and a much greater density of information being displayed. Where the screen comes into its own is when you are using full screen apps such as Photos, Maps and Safari. As you pan and zoom across images, maps and web pages they take on a new quality that is often missing with digital items - the feeling of tangibility. Now you can browse the internet and feel like you are flipping through a magazine.

Speaking of the Internet, one of the things which surprised me, given the massive amount of coverage given to the HTML5 vs. Flash debate, was just how every video player I came across just seemed to work. From my perspective the experience certainly didn't feel crippled due to the lack of Flash.

Unlike when the iPhone was released, the iPad has hundreds of apps available already and they really add a lot to the device. The variety is amazing, and it really does seem like the possibilities are endless. The iWork suite is a must buy if you want to get some serious work done, however some features are missing such as the ability to review and annotate documents. Other apps worth mentioning are NetNewsWire, the RSS reader, Instapaper and Evernote.

The iPad is also a device geared towards content consumption - to that end a lot of effort has been put into apps such as iBooks. Compared to Amazon's Kindle it's a very similar experience, but small touches like turning the pages really makes the reading experience more fun and immersive. Similarly apps such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal show some great creativity when it comes to trying to replicate the print experience on the device. I'm a bit wary of publishers trying to monetize the device, mainly as the pricing being floated about (17.99/mo for the WSJ) seems a bit steep, especially when compared to paper.

Battery life compared to the iPhone has been amazing - since I got the device, it has been used heavily for surfing the web, video, apps and games. The battery indicator is showing 20%, so it is certainly living up to Apples 10 hour claim.

The keyboard is...interesting. Now I had no problems with the iPhone keyboard, mainly because I can touch type. The iPads is similarly easy to use - this review was written on the iPad, mostly touch typing with very few errors. It's great. What gives me cause for concern is more ergonomics. When sat on the couch I tend to find myself adopting the t-Rex position for typing, which over time I'm sure isn't very good for me. Since the screen and keyboard are the same surface it can be awkward finding a comfortable position. If you plan on using it for heavy typing, a kickstand case or an external keyboard might be worth considering.

One other minor gripe is the lack of multitasking. Mainly the lack of a background instant messenger client, since often I tend to surf and chat at the same tune. A standalone instant messenger client doesn't cut it, no matter how good it is, and relying on push notifications to fake multitasking is just a very unnatural and disruptive experience.

All in all I think the iPad is an amazing device. It is a fantastic device for web browsing, email, media and light productivity. Is it going to change the world? Maybe. With the creativity of third party developers I can certainly see it changing the way we consume content. I also anticipate some really cool applications showing of such a large multitouch surface. It really is all in the hands of developers.

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Posted April 4, 2010
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Using Google XML Sitemaps with Posterous

Since moving my blog to Posterous, I've been very pleased with how things have panned out. Its a nice simple posting interface, and I don't need to worry about maintaining the server or blogging software. One tiny frustration I encountered was seemingly having no control over XML sitemaps which can be submitted to search engines. Since you cannot upload files to the server directly, there is no obvious way to make it work.

After doing some experimentation, prompted by an upcoming post on SEO, I believe I have found a workaround for this, allowing Posterous users to upload XML sitemaps which can then be submitted to Google. This only works if you are using a custom domain, like I am with sourcebottle.net, but it seems to work.

To begin, you need an XML sitemap which can be created using a number of automated tools or even by hand. It should reference pages and/or resources on your custom domain. 

Once you have your sitemap, email it to your Posterous email address and a new post should be created. If you view the post you'll see that the XML document is being loaded into Scribd. Since we probably don't want readers to see this, we can go ahead and make it private.

If we look at the HTML code of the post,  you should be able to see a JavaScript block which looks like this:

var scribd_doc = scribd.Document.getDocFromUrl('http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/sourcebottle/LPuXsUEcENyvGt4dlrxve5SsyKwGjmYA7IaTLloIWWExyV4j1FFArCzj0l8j/sitemap.xml', 'pub-50214570658991172461');scribd_doc.addParam('height', 600);scribd_doc.addParam('width', 500);scribd_doc.addParam('public', true);scribd_doc.addParam('disable_related_docs', true);scribd_doc.addParam('my_user_id', 'user239689');scribd_doc.write('bxzExFptdB');

The URL of the sitemap stored on Posterous's server is visible:

http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/sourcebottle/LPuXsUEcENyvGt4dlrxve5SsyKwGjmYA7IaTLloIWWExyV4j1FFArCzj0l8j/sitemap.xml

Now before we submit it to Google, we need to modify the URL so that it is pointing to your custom domain. If you hit the URL in your browser you'll see it redirects to the file itself. In my case:

http://sourcebottle.net/getfile/files.posterous.com/sourcebottle/LPuXsUEcENyvGt4dlrxve5SsyKwGjmYA7IaTLloIWWExyV4j1FFArCzj0l8j/sitemap.xml

We can now login to Google Webmaster Tools and submit this URL as a new sitemap. Usually within an hour or so, it will be spidered. Voila you have a sitemap for your Posterous site! 

Now this method has one downside - the sitemap itself is fixed the moment you upload it, you can't update the file using this method, so if you have an updated sitemap, you'll need to follow these steps and submit it again. This can be handy though for relatively static sitemaps, such as ones specifically for video or geo content.

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Posted April 2, 2010
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URL Blindness

Last month an article on ReadWriteWeb was getting a lot of press, not because of the article content, but instead because thousands of people were ending up on the article page under the impression it was the actual Facebook login page and something weird was going on. Read the comments to get some idea of how these users reacted. Comments like:

  • "I just want to sign in............"
  • "wtf is this bullshttttttttttt all about. can i get n plzzzzzzzzz"
  • "Nothing like being taken hostage on our own computer :-("

Now at first glance you may think that the problem was between the chair and the keyboard, but it turns out that it was exposing a curious user behavior which is becoming more and more common. Because of the article content, it was now the number one result in a Google search for 'facebook login'. Rather than typing 'facebook.com' into the address bar, people were typing 'facebook login' into Google and navigating from there.

Interestingly, this URL blindness is not something which is uncommon. Over the past few months I have been working with our customer support team in order to improve processes and automate key requests. After spending time reading emails from our customers, one of the things that stood out was that a good handful of people, each day, would write to us asking how they can get the web address of video player pages so they can go and share it with their friends.

After raising an eyebrow and doing some investigation in our web analytics data, the bulk of the requests actually originated from the very page the customer was inquiring about the URL for.

Weird, yes? Now the obvious answer to this query is that you can simply cut and paste the URL from the browser's address bar, and then do whatever you want with it. Is this too technical for the average user? Initially, I thought that might be the case, so we made a few changes to test this.

On our player pages we added a text field containing simply the URL of the page, making it easy for a user to cut and paste the address. We didn't promote this addition - it was still something which a user would need to discover. To my surprise, since adding this a month or so ago, I don't recall seeing a single customer email asking for a page's URL.

Our customers seemed perfectly capable of discovering this addition to the UI but did not necessarily understand the concept of the browsers address bar. Why is this? I spent many hours scratching my head over this, putting myself in the shoes of users who may not be as computer savvy as myself.

Changing times

The past decade has seen a massive change in how content is presented to the user, and shared on the web. Could these be responsible for the changing mental models of users?

The growth of sharing

If you look towards the bottom of this blog post, you can find links to digg it and post it to various social networks. If you look on other sites you have visited today, I would wager that similar tools were present. A whole industry and ecosystem of tools has sprung up, designed to make it easier to share content, led by companies such as ClearSpring, AddThis, Digg and Gigya. 

To share a site, users are more often posting it to those social networks where they already interact with their friends rather than manually exchanging links via emails or instant messages. Users can now share a link without even being aware of the link itself.

This is having a knock on effect on how users discover web content. Often users will respond to a friend's sharing and follow links directly from social networks. In other instances we see social networking sites consuming external web content such as videos and photos, presenting them in situ and allowing interaction without users ever having to leave the walled garden.

The evolution of address bar to awesome bar

Another reason for this URL blindness is that search engines have a much more dominant position within modern browsers. Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari all have a search box on the upper right of the window. Search engines are often set as the browser homepage. Third party plugins and toolbars provide easy access to specific search engines and web services. Even the address bar has morphed into the 'awesome bar', providing a search interface and easy access to such things as search history and suggestions.

There are so many other more efficient ways to navigate to and discover content compared to typing URL into the address bar.

Even for users who do not use this functionality, from a pure visual perspective we are also seeing changes to the address bar - text coloring highlights the domain name, a feature introduced to attract the users attention and hopefully prevent phishing attacks. We often see badges, icons and color being used to indicate a secure connection and levels of trust.

Rather than a simple text field where a user can type in an address, the address bar's functionality and visual appearance has been transformed into an advanced tool for navigating the web. The URL itself resides in this advanced area, and is regarded as such. 

URL complexity

It has not been helped by so many web applications presenting their URL's as complicated constructs, polluted by parameters and internal jargon. To some degree this is unavoidable, but should be a consideration of any good UX designer. To the user, it has turned the URL into something which looks complex, and its association to the page not be understandable.

Conclusions

Whilst those of us who have been with the internet for the past decade and beyond may not have any difficulty identifying a page URL, it is important for us to consider the current generation of users, whose primary concept of simple navigation on the internet is search. We must ensure that we reflect on the shifting mental models of our users and adapt accordingly.

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Posted March 21, 2010
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Flash, HTML5 & iPads

The iPad's release, and specifically the omission of support for Adobe Flash, has sparked a massive response from both the Flash and web standards communities.

Adobe and its development community are understandably miffed that Flash support has been omitted, pointing out the masses of sites around the web which rely on Flash to deliver a 'superior user experience'. 

Apple and the web standardista's are making the argument that Flash on a mobile device is a CPU hog, draining battery life and causing instability. HTML5 is being pushed as the solution - offering similar functionality in terms of delivering online video and vector animation.

Obviously its a topic which a lot of people feel strongly about and there is a lot of bias and misinformation floating about.

As a web developer who has spent considerable time working with both HTML and Flash, I can see both sides, but feel that in the end Flash is not going away anytime soon, and as others are proclaiming its snubbing by Apple is not going to be the final nail in the coffin.

There is certainly a stigma associated with Flash itself, for many reasons.

  • Especially around 2001-2006 there have been gross misuses of Flash as a technology. From website intro screens to superfluous visual effects, many people have came to despise Flash content.
  • Various (now patched) security vulnerabilities have led many software architects, primarily in the enterprise, to distrust the technology in general. 
  • The Flash Player is often seen as a CPU-hog, which consumes too many resources and is prone to crashing. This is perhaps more of a problem on Mac OS than Windows, where it is claimed that the most common cause of Safari crashing is the Flash plug-in.
  • Up until very recently Flash has been a closed source application, controlled by a single vendor, Adobe.

If we peel back the layers, most of the criticisms aimed at Flash are either unfair, or no longer valid. 

Over the past decade, developers have matured and we are seeing Flash frameworks emerge which use common architecture design patterns. Designers are also using Flash more as a tool to enhance the user experience rather than to provide superfluous  visual effects. Granted, you still have the odd developer/designer out there who throws user experience out of the window for the sake of some animated, flashing text but you get that with every interface technology.

Adobe is also committed to the security and stability of the Flash player, releasing regular updates and working with operating system and hardware vendors in order to optimize performance. Obviously this has to be a two-way street, and companies such as Apple need to be willing to work with Adobe if we are to see real improvements in stability and performance. From what I gather this is not the case. Adobe has also made an aggressive push to open-source various components of the Flash Platform, meaning developers are no longer locked into to a specific set of developer tools.

So what is Flash good for? Whilst it is used for many things, three stand out in particular:

  • Advertising. Someone had to say it. Whilst Flash adverts are often the bane of the web, from a design agency perspective it is the perfect medium. Designers can create advertisements for products incorporating animation and visual shine which are not possible with static images, compiled into a single SWF file which is guaranteed to look the same regardless of the browser or website where that advert is displayed. 
  • Video. Today flash is the most widely used player of h.264 video files in the world. Its ubiquity is what has led to the success of YouTube and sites like it. Not only does it play video, its actually quite good at it - offering functionality for streaming and interaction with a video feed. 
  • Applications. With mature frameworks like PureMVC and Flex, the Flash Platform offers a great environment for building rich web applications. You only need to take a look at the likes of Buzzword and Picnik to get a feel for what is possible. Much richer interaction than HTML web apps, with the added benefits of cross-browser consistency and a more integrated set of development tools.

With HTML5, I only see one item disappearing from this list. Let me explain.

So, HTML5 brings a number of great features into the mix for developers:

  • The video element, allowing video to be displayed within the browser without the need for plugins.
  • The canvas element, allowing for dynamic, scriptable rendering of bitmap images.
  • API's for drag and drop, cross document messaging, offline storage, browser history management and more.

As you may have gathered, a lot of these enhancements are geared towards those developing web apps, and this is where I can see HTML5 stealing market share from Adobe. 

If we consider online advertising, many people seem to think that the canvas tag, and to some extent CSS3, is going to replace Flash as a medium for delivering animated web content. 

 In reality, to replicate a simple animated Flash banner, you need a good chunk of CSS, JavaScript and separate image assets. On top of this you need additional JavaScript to make the canvas tag compatible with older versions of Internet Explorer and multiple implementations of certain visual/animation functions to ensure full cross-browser compatibility. And, you need to spend time sandboxing your code to ensure that it doesn't conflict with other CSS and JavaScript on the site where it is published. Even then, your HTML5 banner is likely not going to look right in a good deal of browsers. 

Compare it to the Flash workflow - you create your banner in within your favorite IDE, and its packaged up into a single file which you can distribute, upload to ad networks and more. Plus it will look the same across different platforms and browsers.

Creative agencies are simply not going to put the time into creating HTML5 content when the Flash player is so ubiquitous and where Flash is the creative format of choice for the hundreds of advertising networks and exchanges out there.

So Flash adverts, unfortunately, are here to stay.

The video tag is a lot more interesting - can it provide an alternative to Flash video? In an ideal world, yes, in reality, not for a while.

For a start, browser vendors can't seem to agree on which formats the video tag supports. For developers that means having to provide the same video in two formats - Ogg Theora for Firefox and MP4 for Chrome and Safari. Not ideal, especially when you factor in the additional costs of hosting additional copies of a video.

Secondly, whilst you can jury-rig much of HTML5's functionality into Internet Explorer, the video tag isn't on that list. This means that, if IE6 is any indication, developers will be forced to support Internet Explorer 7 & 8 for the next 8-10 years with an alternate means for displaying video. What is this alternate display technology? Flash of course!

Finally, working for a company which has invested a good chunk of time and resources into a customized Flash video player, rewriting it using HTML, CSS and JavaScript certainly isn't a top priority. Many video destination websites use additional functionality of the Flash player to provide other functionality which would be lost. Also, its worth considering how a HTML5 based video player can easily be embedded on other websites (newsflash: with difficulty!). Here we run into the same issues which also mean that Flash will remain the dominant format for advertising for the time being.

So whilst HTML5 video is a good idea, numerous reasons tend to make me think that Flash is still going to be the dominant formant for online video for many years to come.

As a developer, the challenges of ensuring compatibility and porting functionality just don't make it a viable prospect at the moment. Until these are addressed, Flash remains the technology of choice for me - I can use superior MP4 videos, and can write once and deploy anywhere.

So where does this leave the iPad and Apple's choice to exclude Adobe from the table?

I predict many application developers will move towards HTML5 rather than Flash - providing compatible versions of their applications. Will this hurt Adobe? Probably to some extent since they have sunk so much money into promoting Flash as a serious application development platform.

For content destinations such as YouTube, Vimeo and others, if they want iPhone/iPad users to consume their content then I would expect to see specific native applications - like what we already have for YouTube. Will this hurt Adobe? Not really.

Flash adverts will still be the bane of the web, developers will still use Flash for games and slideshows and restaurant menus. iPhone/iPad owners will still see lots of blue cubes.

Flash isn't going anywhere, though its usage may be shifting. 

Apple isn't going to change its mind, just look at their track record. This decision isn't going to impact sales significantly one way or another.

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Posted January 31, 2010
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iPad Applications I'm Looking Forward To

  • NetNewsWire

    My current RSS reader of choice. I love how it can sync what I have read between my desktop and mobile clients, however on an iPhone the limited screen real-estate makes it tricky to quickly scan posts. On an iPad, with the extra pixels, an RSS reader can really present an experience comparable to the desktop. Now if only we could queue up articles to read in background Safari tabs...

  • Instapaper

    Great for those moments during the day that you stumble across an interesting looking web page that you don't have time to read. I save it to Instapaper and either read it from the iPhone app or have it delivered to my Kindle. It has really changed the way I consume web content, and has increased my productivity ten-fold. Another app which would benefit from the larger screen.

  • Evernote

    Yet another great web-app with an iPhone app which is limited by the small screen size.

  • A good RTS game

    After seeing Warcraft 3 on a multi-touch screen I have a feeling this could be really cool.

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Posted January 30, 2010
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iPad Thoughts

Wednesday saw Apple introduce the iPad, their revolutionary new mobile computing device, designed to fill the gap between smartphone and laptop. All in all, I was fairly impressed by the device and will probably end up buying one - partly because I'm a gadget whore, and partly because I think it could actually live up to some of its promises.

Some of the features things were pretty much what I was expecting:

  • The form factor. When dealing with multi-touch computing, you are always dealing with a big sheet of glass. I do like the aluminum back - a very elegant and understated piece of design common across the unibody Macbook's and iMac's.
  • iPhone OS. Anyone who thought the iPad would be running a full blown version of Mac OS X must be sorely disappointed, but I think this move makes perfect sense - the tablet was never going to be the kind of device which replaces the desktop, but instead one which was good at a subset of its functionality. Having an OS designed around the multi-touch experience makes perfect sense.
  • The Apple A4 silicon. A given really after their acquisition of PA Semiconductors.
  • No Flash support. More on that in a future post.
  • iBookstore.

I have to admit, I was a bit surprised by some of the aspects of the device:

  • iPhone OS. Whilst I had no doubt that the iPad's operating system would be based on the same codebase as the iPhone, I was expecting a bit more. Whilst the apps looked very nice, especially the new versions of iWork, the Springboard and lockscreens looked very awkward when scaled up to a larger size. Apple seemingly has done nothing to help users manage their apps, and based on all the patents posted on Engadget and Gizmodo, I was really hoping to see some kind of new and sexy multi-touch gesturing system, and of course, multi-tasking would have been nice.
  • The price points.  I see why Apple did it, they wanted to keep costs down and price the base model at $499, but I was not expecting a separate 3G versions, especially with staggered release dates. Especially with the service being pay-as-you-go, anyone who jumps in early and gets the wifi version is an idiot. Okay, a bit strong, but they are missing out especially given the iPad is not upgradable later. I really would have thought that Apple would have found a way to have a single version. One thing to consider, which no-one seems to have been talking about is GPS - unless you have a 3G version, there is no location enabled niceness - a very useful feature and one which a great deal of app developers are embracing.
  • The camera (or lack thereof). Now before anyone says anything, no, I did not want to take pictures with my iPad! Instead I was hoping for a front facing camera for two reasons. First, video conferencing. iChat or Skype could have become the killer app for the iPad, turning it into a serious communication device. If a $249 netbook can incorporate a webcam, then why not the iPad? Video conferencing isn't exactly something which requires an expensive camera sensor - 1.3 megapixels would be fine, and they are cheap as chips. The second reason I was hoping for a camera was due to Apple's patent on switching user accounts based on facial recognition. As a device, the iPad is meant to sit on your coffee table and be used by multiple family members- unlike the iPhone which has a one-on-one relationship with its user. With the iPad there seems to be no way to offer user specific customizations or accounts. 

Across the internet, debates are raging wether its about the lack of Flash support, cameras or coffee making abilities. I have a few predictions for the future:

  • Apple were rushed to get the iPad ready for January 29th. Part of the reason why we are looking at iPhone OS 3.2 and not OS 4.0. Whilst the iPad will be released with 3.2, 4.0 will also be announced at the same time for a July release. This is where we will see enhancements to Springboard and multi-tasking.
  • AT&T will offer a subsidy on the iPad with a 2-year contract. This will bring the price of the 3G model down to something comparable with the wifi-only models.
  • We won't see any pre-launch hardware updates of any consequence. That means no camera this time round.
  • The iPad will change app development for the better. Companies such as OmniGroup have already re-prioritized their 2010 plans around 5 separate iPad apps because they see the value in the device - a large multi-touch screen opens up a lot of doors for both interaction and information density. We are going to see better apps, more complex and innovative apps, and many of the simplistic trivial, joke apps which pollute the app store will not survive the transition.

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Posted January 30, 2010
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iPhone Home Screen Experiment: Days 2 & 3

Oddly, my iPhone homescreen still looks like it did on day one. With the exception of one companion application for a web app I'm evaluating, its still looking very bare with only Facebook, Tweetie 2, Foursquare and Maps.

This is really testament to the fact that whilst the App Store boasts over 140,000 applications, its actually really hard to produce something which has the stickiness factor which leads to regular usage. In each of these cases, they provide excellent interfaces to web apps which I am engaged with, optimized for the smartphone screen.

Whilst Steve Ballmer criticized the App Store, stating that it was more like a necessity in order to make up for a poor web browsing experience, I see it more of a genius move. On such a small device, even with the niceties of HTML5 and webkit's extensions to CSS3, it is still a very difficult task to produce an optimized UI; plus even if you do get it looking perfect, you still have to deal with the big killer - latency. Quite simply, apps are a huge part of the iPhone's success, offering developers the benefits of native device interaction and access to the various sensors on the device. 

If you pay attention to all of the good applications, you can see that not only do they embrace multi-touch interaction and gestures, but they pull in sensor data. Tweetie 2 has a user interface full of little touches which demonstrate this - you drag on a list to refresh it, swipe a list item to reveal a toolbox. Apps such as Foursquare and Maps are built around geo-location. Its very easy to see why they are sticky.

With the announcement of the iPad, you have to wonder how things will change. Suddenly we have a device capable of a much better web browsing experience - with a massive high-definition screen and a fast processor. Does this mean we will see a move away from applications and a shift towards websites optimized for the device? 

Building applications for the iPad is a far more daunting prospect than the iPhone, with more to think about in terms of interaction design. One has to wonder, with such a rich web experience, is this even necessary?

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Posted January 27, 2010
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Measuring the impact of the Twitter ecosystem

I found this fascinating look at the Twitter ecosystem today:

My point is this. You can talk about Twitter.com and then you can talk about the Twitter ecosystem. One is a web site. The other is a fundamental part of the Internet infrastructure. And the latter is 3-5x bigger than the former and that delta is likely to grow even larger. avc.com, A VC, Jan 2010

 

Twitter is a tricky one when it comes to measuring the reach of your campaigns. Tools such as Google Analytics offer a good insight as to the number of users who come in from Twitter.com but provide next to nothing on the users who come in from various non-browser Twitter clients, this figure is instead blended into your direct traffic.

Whilst URL shorteners and tracking parameters can still help close the gap, there are still many instances where you cannot close the tracking gap.

With expert insights suggesting that the traffic coming from these clients and the greater Twitter ecosystem is roughly 3-5 times that as you see coming from Twitter.com it really gives you something to think about as you consider your inbound traffic analysis.

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Posted January 25, 2010
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iPhone Home Screen Experiment: Day 1

Like many iPhone owners, I have far too many apps on my phone. Taking a leaf out of Patrick Rhones' book, I have embarked on a mission to slim down my home screen.

Yesterday I started by moving all the icons off the first screen, with the exception of the dock which I use regularly. As I find myself using an app multiple times during the day, I move it back.

The results after day one are fairly predictable. Foursquare, Facebook, Tweetie and Maps have made it back to the home screen. All apps which are part of my social periscope and see regular use. It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow when I am back at work - will any productivity apps move to the front?

As well as yielding interesting insights into which iPhone apps have the most stickiness, experiments like this are also a reflection on the UI design of the iPhone as a whole. Whilst Springboard is a simple and effective way of launching apps it is painfully obvious that it does not scale. The success of the App Store is beyond Apple's wildest dreams, and having 100,000 apps at everyones fingertips is exposing this as a serious problem. 

I think its a given that iPhone OS 4.0, which will likely be previewed this coming Wednesday, will attempt to address this with either a totally redesigned springboard or at the very least some UI enhancements. 

Lets consider what Apple's engineers can do to improve things:

  • Folders. An obvious one, with so many apps some form of grouping would be entirely logical. As a user, a way to organize all apps of a similar type, such as games, into a folder would be invaluable. Several solutions to this exist in the Jailbreak community, though so far they have all been lacking - missing the sexy UI touches for navigation and management which we could hope to expect from Apple.
  • Stacks. Introduced in Leopard, Stacks have been fairly interesting in terms of UI - proving themselves great for showing small collections of items such as recent downloads, but falling down to some extent when navigating larger sets. I can see this metaphor working well on the iPhone, with icons erupting from the dock, perhaps showing popular applications or those with active notifications.
  • Magic Pages. Apple could try and replicate this very experiment, and also borrow from the folders concept - creating home screen pages which automatically show the most popular applications, or specific categories. After all, why rely on the user to organize their collections when the software can add a little helping hand.

I'm sure there are a lot more directions to go and I'll post more as I post updates on my home screen experiment. If you have any thoughts, why not leave a comment ?

 

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Posted January 24, 2010
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Emerging Techniques Every Web Developer Should Know – woorkup.com

via woorkup.com

A great look at some of the emerging techniques on the web - some of which are enabled by HTML5 such as offline application storage, others such as oAuth and oEmbed which represent standards being developed by developers, for developers.

Its fairly easy to really start gushing when compiling a list like this, but what I like is that it is feasible to begin implementing these techniques right now. We are starting to see HTML5 support in Webkit and Mozilla based browsers, and it is really a serious option especially when creating mobile web applications. oAuth is becoming a de facto authentication standard, and oEmbed is really starting to generate traction with YouTube implementing it and Wordpress 2.9 consuming.

Exciting times ahead!

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Posted January 16, 2010
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