Archive for 2007 January

Windows Vista (and Office) out… finally

After five years of ups and downs, Microsoft has finally released Windows Vista, its’ new operating system. Released simultaneously, Office has been revamped with a radical new interface. We haven’t had a chance to significantly use either yet, but we’ll be interested in improvements (or degradations) in usability, elegance and style. Reviews have been mixed so far, to say the least, but our initial experiences have been positive – especially in terms of the ‘richer’ feel of the interface, including system-wide text anti-aliasing (at last). Many of the criticisms have been aimed at the perceived sense that Microsoft is playing catch-up to Apple’s Mac OS X, while this is true, it is also a good thing. In many areas, such as security, visual experience, ease-of-use and stability, OS X has been far better than Windows for a while. The launch of Vista means that finally there is some competition for Apple. Competition, that is, in terms of user experience. In terms of sales and impact to the way the vast majority of people will interact with their computers, Vista has already won.

by Andrew Fox

30 January, 2007

Font use and perception

The decision to use different fonts is often hard to comprehend for non-designers, in fact users often do not consciously recognise the difference between fonts whether they be Georgia or Times, Arial or Verdana. Of course fonts are important in indicating certain characteristics of your message, yourself or your brand – however unconsciously understood. This study from Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) on the effect of typeface on the perception of email investigates what happens when you choose Comic Sans (unsurprisingly… do not use!), Calibri (use!) or Gigi for an email.

by Andrew Fox

29 January, 2007

The inevitable iPhone post

Everyone else is talking about it, so we will too. Here are our 12 initial small observations…

1. It appears that it has a beautiful, flexible and refined UI.
2. It makes all other phones look clunky, awkward and unrefined.
3. It makes the iPod’s interface look clunky, awkward and unrefined.
4. That said, in reality, making a call, starting a text message and entering my calendar on my Sony Ericsson k800 is efficient and fast. It will be interesting to see how fast the iPhone will be to do the same.
5. The iPhone doesn’t offer any actual features that other phones don’t already offer. Will the interface and ease-of-use sway people to switch to the iPhone. It worked with the iPod, but lots of people bought Motorola’s RAZR despite its’ interface.
6. Your fingers are going to be moving and tapping a lot, rather than sticking mainly to a small area like most phone’s joystick. Will this become annoying?
7. The virtual QWERTY keyboard used for typing looks possibly awkward without real buttons.
8. In the future I’d like a tiny Apple phone that does the basics well, and an iPhone without the phone element (i.e. a very slick iPod).
9. Developers should be given a clear path for making applications for it. Apple is currently saying that this won’t happen, but a range of games, VOIP and Office-type applications immediately spring to mind as great features they may not deign to make, but would be a natural fit for the iPhone.
10. While much of the functionality and interaction has been patented – it will be interesting to see how Nokia, RIM, Sony Ericsson, etc. will react to this. Can they in time before the iPhone launch? This is much bigger, richer and arguably better competition than the iPod’s original competitors.
11. The iPhone’s web browser illustrates how well mobile interfaces are beginning to deal with pages that are larger than their screen. Designing a website for all shapes and sizes is not necessarily something we will always need to do.
12. We want one.

by Andrew Fox

10 January, 2007