Thoughts on TV

I look forward to seeing Google TV soon as we are one of their competitors.

I have been thinking that within 1 or 2 years, it is possible we won’t need Set-Top-Boxes. This is because TV manufacturers have been making internet capable TVs, some of them even with HD space and SD card slot. We as audiences, don’t have to worry about another Box and remote control around the TV.

Internet TV companies might need to work together with those TV manufacturers to deliver the content.
Actually, there are providers that allow audiences to watch on-demand movies/TVs through game consoles already.

Anyway, we need a nice interface on TV as well. It’s a very interesting time.

Tags | thoughts, Universal Principles of Design

Weekend thoughts

Recently, I’m very interested in Web Mobile Experiences, responsive designs. Native OS applications will continue to grow and prosper as we have seen in the last 2 years. However, I strongly believe that Mobile web will increasingly be in demand and deliver everyone’s needs as some people remember when the dot-com-buble happened.
As a designer, who has been working behind these scenes for years, I sometime feel frustrated about productivity in development for supporting all devices, OSs with native applications.

People, companies will necessarily become more aware about web mobile. We designers must think about the transition between handheld devices and PC web experiences. In between each transition stage, user/visitor’s goal will be different. Some people may just need quick information from a mobile website and don’t bother to install native app, whereas some people may want to complete their shopping or claim insurance bills on their mobile phone.
We have a lot to think and do.

I have primarily been working on migrating my website for mobile web using media query. Thanks to all the people who provide HTML5 and CSS3 frameworks that I can reference for my work.

If you are interested in talking about web mobile experiences, please drop me a line or two.

Reading;
The Internet Goes Mobile with HTML5 Web Apps It’s not necessary to make web apps, but other static (information) websites also aware of mobile browsing experiences.

Tags | thoughts

ebook reading experience

It’s has been good for electric books to find acceptance at a rapid pace, but readers are not expecting to read books that have poor quality typography, punctuation and type composition etc.

Printing companies, typesetters, and graphic designers have been trying to create beautiful books for readers with the respect for its authors. Unfortunately, years of these people’s efforts have been ignored.

I stopped reading an ebook a couple month ago, because the text size wasn’t consistent between pages. The reading experience wasn’t good. I often see book reviews in ebook sites that say they aren’t happy with the quality of books and talking about reading experiences and not the ebook content itself.

You cannot excuse this. It’s not the same situation as when the Internet has limited type technology.
I hope publishers can fix this problem. And I also think both publishers, readers cannot have all three things: Good, Cheap, Quick.

We only get to choose 2 out of 3.

Tags | experiences

Back button on each device

NOTE: This was written in Aug. 2011.

The Problem With Home

It was very interesting subject that I have been thinking about the back button with Android mobile and Tablet.

I totally agree having 2 levels of home button controls, however, there are apps that don’t define as app-level home screen.

For example, there are 4 main navigation buttons Let’s say A, B, C and D) on top of the screen. When you tap BACK button form this each level is going back to Phone-Level home.
Even you kept tapping them: first A, next C, then B, and then D.
Finally you tap BACK button. That brings to the Phone-level home instead of back to screen B. So in your method, these 4 main screens are all app-level home.

Another app uses the BACK button totally historical data of the application. It works the same as a web browser back button. I think this also totally acceptable as people are familiar and expect how it works.

Now I have to work on Tablet back button…

Tags | Mobile

Thoughts on Android OS back button

Thursday, 22 December 2011
Back Button – Android’s Achilles’ Heel?
http://bit.ly/sT9WIS

I agree with the suggestion in the article. The app branding logo takes always user to the App top hierarchy(landing) screen. So we don’t need the indicator arrow on top left with the logo. I thought the arrow will take me to the previous page like we see in computer browsers even the function is doubled up with the physical back button. It is already in the guide lines but I think this indicator arrow is redundant.
The physical back button/on screen back button should work with;
– 1 Go back to previous screen (activity)
– 4 Close on-screen keyboard
– 5 Go to previous page on browser
– 7 Return to previous app when on the last activity and the app was launched through intent from another app

– 2 Dismiss a popup
This should put cancel button on the screen.

– 3 Terminate a long running process
If it’s running in modal, need a cancel button. If user has a choice to do another activity on the same screen (e.g foursquare: while the app is loading the check in list, you can search), back button takes user to the previous page.

– 6 Exit the running app when on the last activity
I agree with Juhani’s thought in the article. The button should be disabled.

Tags | Android OS

How our brain works

I have been reading a few books about how our brain works. There are interesting stories and research results about how we act. Endocrine action triggers neurons to tell how we take action/reaction in response to stimulus from outside situation.

These stories are like things we have all experienced, from everyday things with coffee shop loyalty cards (illusion of progress) to why we sometimes regret spending time on Facebook and Youtube. They are all our part of our natural behavior, there is nothing wrong with it. Media has been set up well, to work against our reactions. This is true for internet advertising through to TV commercials.

I have been really enjoying reading these books, hoping that they will help as my design usability decision making references. I say as references, because we can know how we can react in particular situation whatever the test objects are in, but we won’t know these people’s history which may affect the action they take.

I recommend these books to know how our basic behavior in everyday life works. You may find answers for your design project.

Here are a couple of books I have read recently;
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People
by Susan Weinschenk

Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing

by Roger Dooley

Tags | brain, human, Psychology

birds in a park and Fitts’s Law

One beautiful day, I was having lunch in a park. There were full 2 pieces of bread left. I was starting to give it bit by bit to the birds in the park.

“Scavenger ahoy!” I threw out pieces of bread. They were fighting to get the bread. Others flew in from somewhere. I kept throwing it into them. The birds flew away as soon as the food was gone.

Towards the end, I threw a big pieces of the bread. None of birds came for a while. One came and another came after. This was interesting and it reminded me about Fitts’s law. Why? The bigger buttons are more easily recognized and clicked on a screen.

However, my experience with the birds was if the target was boo big, they were afraid of it. The same thing happens on the screen that if the button or target area is too big to click, the user would miss it was there.

We have to find out appropriate size and position within the vision area on the screen.

Tags | Fitts's Law, Human behavior

A Sunday afternoon

Drawing based on a photograph by Kotori Kawashima

I concede that I need more practice.

Tags | Drawing

Television

This is my thoughts after I read Rethinking the Television Experience

Television experience has been rapidly changing. We can access better internet environment; speed, bandwidth, and converting to digital broadcasting reinforces the tendency to go back towards television. Audiences have seemed to shift to the Internet once but television’s getting attention as personal entertainment. This is because a home television gets more controllable.

Improving user experience problems on television would be the first step that we can handle and develop. Hardware will absolutely be improved day by day. We will try and want to provide useful functions. Yet some functions are so obscure the user needs to be told about it. These functions would be our challenges to make intuitive for users. On the other hand, we might still have a lot of guesses and expectations about our users. We are hoping that they have a short learning curve for the system to achieve their goals.

We may also encounter many things involved with the presentation of content. We can’t just throw content out to the world without context. We have to present the content in the proper context.

Audiences must not be baffled by television. Television is always in our lives and must not be difficult to use.

Tags | television

Used a pencil to draw lines

I held a pencil to draw this today. It was the first time in moths… I must keep doing it.

Tags | motivation