The iPhone user interface, dismantled by a design expert
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“While the iPhone as a whole may be revolutionary, the individual elements forming the interface are not so new,” started Bruce Tognazzini (or ‘Tog’), a user interface veteran who founded the Apple Human Interface group during its 14 years at the Apple company, and who now is a partner at Nielsen Norman Group.
The UI consultant reviewed the ‘revolutionary’ functions of the iPhone. And guess what, he didn’t find them as innovative as Steve Jobs promoted them. The iPhone can shrink or zoom pictures with fingers. Isn’t it cool? Yes, but Tog wrote Bill Buxton invented the pinch gesture in the 1980s. “Orientation-sensing is, again, not new: Canon, for example, has used it in its cameras for years so that the photos “know” whether they are intended to be viewed horizontally or vertically, based on the orientation of the camera at the time of shooting.”
“iPhone is missing something important—a keyboard. The touch keyboard appears quite practical for a device sized like this for doing short messaging and such, but I wouldn’t want to write this whole column with it, particularly when the keyboard is obstructing half the screen.”
“Apple didn’t invent the concept of the multi-touch interface. They’ve just, by all evidence, built the first one that, like the Mac before it, is (relatively) inexpensive, attractive, and accessible.”
And going further, Tog suggested this great idea for text messages, and its informal acronyms vocabulary, “The SMS interface should include an interpreter that can expand standard messaging abbreviations, converting terms such as GBTM into ‘Get back to me.‘ This is required if people are to communicate across generations without undue burden. One option would be to have the system highlight such contractions, revealing the meaning when they are touched. This would facilitate learning.” For the record, the Linux instant messaging Gaim has been doing this alias word for years.
But even though the iPhone isn’t innovative at a designer point of view, Tog acknowledges it is still revolutionary because “it gives ordinary people access to features that have been the private purview of the young and the geeky.”
Jan 20, 2007 | By Nuno
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