Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

Re: Interesting read
 

asidana doesn't say, but the article s/he links to is an unsophisticated user's subjective comparison of smartphones (with the N900 ending up #1).

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

Perhaps the N900 isnt such a "Geek Phone" after all.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

was a well done review, nice outcome too!

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

very good read, i enjoyed it even tho the words "iPhone" was mentioned.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

Yeah.. interesting read. Hardware keyboards are a must :D.

Although you could have added a little more to your post. We get too many "good read" titles with single links in them and no description or information.

I was legitimately surprised at the ending.. I was sure the iPhone had won. I notice they were more focused on banking than anything else.. and multi-tasking was never mentioned... also - maybe I missed it - but was the stylus he was using a capacitive-friendly stylus? The iPhone normally doesn't work with a stylus - need special ones for that.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

I was surprised with the end result too, but after 3 weeks with n900 i kind a understand why "B" picked n900.

UI is a lot simpler and easy to use when you compare with others. I am not professional or something, just a geek and I believe if Nokia removes access to deep in to system, many of "normal users" would like it too.

Don't get me wrong i am not against openness but allowing people to access to xterminal is asking for trouble.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

Wow. That really was interesting.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

That was a great read.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

HERESY! HERETIC! SACRILEGE!

Making a comment like that around here is asking for trouble!

;) ;) ;)

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

I concur.

Either way I disagree with asidana. Removing xterm would not make it more usable. For a user who doesn't need it, it's just another app he or she doesn't use IMO.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

I like it when he tought B. to say "Halts Maul" (Shut up) to the Blackberry :D

Now seriously:
I actually gave my N900 to some of my friends who had never used a touch screen phone before and they had trouble distinguishing between actions to scroll, click and zoom. Acutally, the N900 UI a lil confusing about this:
When place your finger on the touchscreen to scroll, the item underneath your finger will be highlighted first, and then the highlight will be removed once you start scrolling. I think this issue will be resolved once a capacitive screen is used.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

+1 for OP,

this heightened my confidence while waiting for the N900, I have ordered it to phase out my old iPhone 3G (bought the very first day). So far, only the fact that the phone might not have USB host capability on a hardware level is what I regret not knowing before ordering it.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

i've had a similar experience.
gave the n900 to a collegue, a woman.
before that i had a presentation (selling training) and i used the n900 connected to a screen so my audience knew how to use it a little bit (they saw me using it on the big screen).
and after using it for an !entire hour! she said, that if she had such a device, she would be surfing all the day the internet.. she was totally exited because "it just works"!

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

This is a nice anecdote. Means nothing. We all know that, don't we.

It does show one thing though. One basic mistake a lot of self-appointed journalists (incl. bloggers like me) make:

The definition of "usability".

It seems to be common understanding these days that usability means something like: Put it in the hands of a complete noob and he should be able to operate it.

I say: wrong.

With a €600,- device that you (hopefully) intend to keep a week or two, even noobs (especially noobs) can be expected to take their time to sit down and get used to the device. Read a quick start guide or something. Anything.

Usability is what you think of the UI after you've owned and used such a device for a month or even two. When you learned most of the shortcuts, when you know the pitfalls.
If then, after one month, you think the device is a joy to use, fast and efficient, then the usability is good. If you want to throw it against the wall each time you perform a certain task because the workflow is so idiot-proof that you feel like an idiot crawling through it step by step each time, then it's not so good.

That's what defines usability for these devices.

Sadly, I don't read many reviews by people who have already used the device they write about for at least a month. A gadget is released, and we find reviews about it the very same day, telling us if the UI is "intuitive" (I hate this word) an if it's easy to use. - That's how you judge a packing at McDonald's: Do you manage to open it? Yes? Good. No? No use trying a month later, the burger will already smell.
With high tech gadgets, things I find helpful when I first use them can get in my way once I know how everything works. Only then, when I know how it works, should I talk about usability.

Everything else is absolutely worthless.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

Not exactly. There isn't much a normal user could do with xterm other than quit/exit it if they had no idea what it is. It's not like you can say "delete my whole system!" at the prompt unless you know how to tell it that, and then just them figuring out how to make the wildcard (or even knowing what one was) would be a barrier to doing anything super nasty on the phone. It's also easy enough to reflash for someone coming from Windows and that doesn't always mean the loss of user data so I mean. It's not so bad that the user has an xterm, the only thing they'll ever probably type in it is a command that their local guru asks them to type. (Which is good for us)

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

Great post, thanks a lot!
I had been using psions for many years, starting with the S5, and have to say, I loved the touchscreen + full keyboard combo. The Palm Treo 680 is also very fast in my use with the touchscreen + keyboard.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

i think alot of reviewers mean by the usability of the interface is the out of box usability, are there any strange quirks or bugs in it? what do they find good. it's only ment to give a person an impression of what to expect with the interface not a analytical breakdown of the whole UI.

as for this review i found it interesting and well documented and presented. It was refreshing to read a review on something simple about a device and read a different perspective on a non-tech persons impressions with using todays top devices.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

@benny1967

I understand your point, we can expect the user to take some time to read the quick start manual, and learn to live with the device.

However, myself as an engineer, I see that most of the users of my own technology I develop during my work (nothing to do with IT), don't bother with reading, or learning, they just go ahead with what feels right.

I bought a Nokia E63 on Saturday, because my Palm Treo 680 really started to die hardware side. Since then, I have spent all my free time (saturday, sunday, and now three week nights) learning the new interface. I have read the manual, which is not much use at all, it is more a table of content of features. No any screenshots, just the menu names in plain text. I am quite angry, that I have spent this much time, and the phone still is at half usage. I had to learn that there is no SMS threading (was a standard feature for me), I still didn't get the hang of the home button and why the red button closes the apps, I discovered that Outlook sync cannot handle folders and categories, etc.

I think MS Word / Excel / Powerpoint 2007 is very innovative with the new ribbon interface. However, I have been using the 2003 style interface since 1995, and now this new ribbon thing just makes me angry, because I don't find even the basic things. I have already bought a book to read about this, but I just don't have the time to do that, I have a zillion more important things than to read a 250 page book just to learn where I find things in the new interface.

So, I have about 30min-1 hour to read the basics, and then, that's it. And if a new gadget needs more time than that to learn to use it, probably I exchange it for something that needs less.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

(scroll up a few posts for the full post, I hate to fill my post with a whole lot of something that's on the same page)



I disagree with you,
If its intuitive it means that the task you are doing is easy to perceive, which translate to an easy work flow in most cases. If you look at the iPhone, the only knowledge my 4 year old niece had to be told was that pressing hard on the screen could render the device useless.

If you look at an application like Photoshop, this is an application that require training to use, but after you learn its features, and keyboard shortcuts its no harder to use than cooking food or playing an advanced game.

The difference between such an application and a phone or a device is that of many, mainly:

1. How accurate are your normal functions? (are you doing open heart surgery or calling a friend asking for a round of beer on the town?)

2. How fast do you expect do do a average task? (instantly, or do you have the rest of the month on you?)

3. How do you expect to accomplish your task? (clicking as few buttons as possible, or doing multiple thought out keyboard commands accompanied by mouse guests?)



What I mean is, if you are using an banking application or photoshoping, making special effects with CGI.... or are you using a device that as become an extension to our way of life? In the last case I would want the interactions to be as simple and fast as possible, even though im a power user that is fully capable of recompiling my own kernel with a premade patch, or writing a crack for a simple program.

Things that require remembering and learning, are most often the least fastest way in computing. (take file->select all, file->copy, file->past, and compare it to drawing a rectangle, and dragging one object to a drop zone which you allready knew about after you tried the solitary program)

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

[offtopic]
Did you know about this:
http://www.officelabs.com/projects/s...s/default.aspx

.edit
In my opinion spotlight/launchy/start (search) whatever you wanna call it should be default program/extension/addon in every single program/OS including maemo 5.

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

ì use launchy alot. funny thing i was just about to ask is there a similar feature or program for the n900

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

The title should be changed to "A basic usability test on the web browser on ten phones"

Would be more interesting to see the user
- receive/make phone call
- play music
- use the GPS to find directions
- send/receieve email

The outcome would be different for sure

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

Still... after one hour, you can not know if you like the UI or not. You simply can't. Because you haven't used it under every-day, real-world conditions.

Let me take you to a parallel dimension where they have computers pretty much like ours, with keyboard, mouse and a GUI. Only their GUIs consist of nothing but drop down menus. No colorful toolbars, no keyboard shortcuts, only "File > Open | Save | Quit" and "Edit > Cut | Copy | Paste" and the like.

Then 2 companies both announce brand new text editors. They both say their respective applications will have a revolutionary UI and will work completely without drop down menus.

Company A introduces a system that has toolbars as we know them for "Open", "Save", "Search" etc. - Copy and paste are replaced by beautifully animated drap&drop actions...

Company B has a very different solution: They replace the drop down menus with keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl+O for open, Ctrl+S for save, Ctrl+X/C/V for Xut/Copy/Vaste as we know it. Selecting text is not done with the mouse, but with various Shift combinations: Shift and any arrow key selects text character by character. Shift+Ctrl+arrow selects word by word etc.

Both enter the market at the same time and get reviewed by "journalists" and bloggers.

Guess who will get the good reviews for usability? Right. The editor with the toolbar and the drag&drop thing. Why? Because it's what you understand easily and intuitively when you don't spend much time with the application and don't want t read a manual.
Company B will probably get reviews like "it's not enough to read the manual, you have to keep it open while using the application as you will soon forget which combination of keys triggers which action."

Now come back to our dimension again where we're used to having all of these UI elements. Keyboard shortcuts, menus and toolbars. If you do a lot of typing and keep selecting and moving text around, which of those do you use? I'm working in a room with 22 people at the moment, and I hardly ever see them touch the mouse while typing. Its keyboard shurtcuts that rule here.... because for the specific task, when you're already typing, it's much easier and faster to go Shift+Ctrl+arrow left, arrow left, then ctrl+c, alt+tab and finally ctrl+v . Taking your hands off the keyboard, finding the mouse cursor, carefully selecting the words, moving up to the copy-symbol, etc etc, is just slower and totally breaks your workflow.

Of course you need to know the keyboard shortcuts first. There's a learning curve. But after using them for a while, they're just natural and you'll find they're the superior UI concept for this task. None of the fictional "journalists" in our parallel dimension would have noticed that - because none of them invested the time.


So coming back to the topic of this thread:
In order to become somehow relevant, the test should be conducted in a way that allows "B." to take all phones with him to Indonesia and use them all during his whole stay there. Only after getting used to each of them he can really make a judgement about "usability".

Re: Interesting read: "A basic usability test on ten phones"
 

benny1967,
Those things are not exclusive to one another. Good example good be smplayer which is quite good frontend for mplayer which is highly configurable for power users. Also vlc is very powerful but yet easy on UIs point of view. I´m afraid that money that shareholders (in this business) crave comes from people who appreciate short sighted usability (at least at first) as you described it. And in the end of day that's all that matters to Nokia and its shareholders.

So usabilitys definition can be complex and depends on people who make research. But it has to be made somehow and this is one way to do it. There is probably no general usability for single computer with different programs and different needs. Some things should be like childs play and some things should take time. But hey at least we have (crippled) bash shell where quite nice things can be made.

Making UI dead easy, but yet powerful, without forgetting keyboard shortcuts (whole point of having hw keyboard) can make everyone happy.