iPAD – Multitouch Web (Part B)

 Source: Some blog

 Research

There is already a usability study of the IPad. from the Nielsen Norman group here. A summary of the study can be found here. As Neilsen admits the study is preliminary, but the resulting usability insights serve as a good foundation for the design of the myriads of applications that will follow the release of the device on the global market.

The study is very generic –  it tested several applications and web sites running on the iPad device. As every digital project requires a unique testing context that takes into account its unique range of parameters, more focused studies are necessary. Again existing research methods and techniques must be tailored accordingly to take into consideration the multi-touch style of interaction.

Take as an example, m-commerce, which according to many is the next “big” thing in the mobile world. In my opinion, multi-touch web pages if done correctly, hold a high potential to make our transactions easier than even our desktop computers. How would you design an m-commerce web site in order to achieve such a goal? The guidelines discussed in Part A of this post, are a good place to start in order to construct some initial prototypes. However, as these guidelines are far from best-practises, an iterative cycle of participatory design workshops for a few days is necessary in order to agree on a final prototype.

Gathering user insights after the web site is released, currently seems challenging. The usability studies I’ve read so far, use lab-based testing with one-to-one sessions. However testing with real-users in lab-conditions is always expensive. Cheaper techniques, like remote usability testing currently seem very hard to implement. Then, do existing tools for split or multivariate testing (e.g., Google Web site Optimizer) work on a multi-touch interface? These tools are optimized for a mouse-based environment, and I am not convinced that they can be used effectively on multi-touch. For instance, does Google Web Site optimizer registers multi-touch gestures, as well as clicks when it comes to measuring the success of a web site? Nevertheless, it will be very interesting to see how these techniques for research will be adapted, to serve the new environment in the years to come. 

iPAD – Multitouch Web (Part A)

Image via Wikipedia

I finally had the chance the test the new IPad device. I spent some time trying to figure out if it really worth spending 400 pounds on this device. Here are my findings:

1) The device is excellent for gaming. It is perhaps one of the best gaming devices I’ve ever used. The integrated gyroscope means, that are no annoying arrow keys to use while playing games (all you have to do is to turn the device)

2) For i-reading, although the screen is very clear the absence of integrated back stand (like Samsung’s UMPC devices) make it very hard to hold it for a very long time.

3) From all the applications I tested I only found one of particular interest. It is an application that shows you the star constellations based on your geographical position.

4) The device has to flash support, which means that the majority of the WWW content is out of reach. Advocates of the device say that as the Web is progressively moving to the HTML 5.0 standard, that will soon stop be an issue. Advocates of Flash say that Flash can not die, as it is an integral part of the web. Who is right, and who is wrong only time will tell. For now all I can say is that if I buy the IPad, my favourite episodes of “Eureka” on Hulu are out of reach for good.

5) The device is multi-touch, which means that it is very hard to operate on mouse-based web pages. As the majority of mobile platforms are now moving towards multi-touch,  what does this mean for designers, IA, researchers and other stakeholders? Below I attempt to present some of the possible implications for designers, IA and researchers.

Design

• Size of Finger

Web pages on touch-sensitive devices are not navigated using a mouse. They are controlled with human fingers, many of which are much fatter than a typical mouse pointer. No matter what apple says about an “ultimate browsing experience” on IPad, clicking on small text links with your finger is painful, and sometimes practically impossible. As touch-sensitive devices become more popular, this could mean the end of traditional text-links and their replacement by big touchable buttons.

• Secondary Functions

The “fat finger” problem discussed above, and the limited screen estate, also mean that we can not cram thousand of features (or ads) in a tight frame as we would in a desktop web page. The design of web pages should be focus on the essential elements, and it should avoid wasting user attention on processing secondary functions.  

• Hover effects and Right Clicks

Without a mouse-based interface, you can’t use any mouse over effects. Elements that we are so used to interact with on mouse-driven interfaces, like menus that pop-up when you hover you mouse over a link, or right clicks, do not exist. Apple has a number of replacements in place, like holding your finger down on a link to get a pop-up menu, but they only make clicking itself more complex. 

• Horizontal Vs. Vertical Styling

Due to the ability to easily switch between vertical and horizontal orientations, web sites will have to automatically adapt their styling to look accordingly in both orientations. Seamless presentation in both landscape and portrait mode is one of the most fundamental guidelines when it come to designing for the IPad/IPhone devices.

• 3D Objects

Apple is trying to push designs that immediate tangible things – real world interfaces that are easy to understand and familiar in their use. If you create a magazine application make it look like a real magazine, or if you make a word processor make it look like a type writer. Could iPad be a significant milestone towards a more three-dimensional WWW? Some web 3D applications like Second Life, could certainly benefit from the mouse-less interface, as touching and tilting make it much easier to interact with 3D worlds than mousing and keyboarding. In mainstream websites, 3D elements (e.g., material surfaces and SFX)  will probably be used widely as an “invitation to touch”, but never as a basic metaphor.    

Information Architecture

Multi-touch presents a unique set of challenges for information architects. The limited screen size and the size of the human finger tip, means that  limited number of actions needed to complete one task (its tiresome to swipe and touch too often) pushes the IA to create a dead simple architecture with minimal number of actions. Information aggregation, will play a very important role into creating architectures that minimize input and maximize output.

Under the above rule, several more “human-like” modalities of communication, such as speech recognition, text to speech processing, emotion recognition, natural language processing etc, are likely to find their place into the multi-touch web. Multi-touch seems to me the perfect vehicle towards the right direction, away from the dominance of GUI interfaces and towards a more natural way of interacting with computers.    

Continues in the next post

Final System Configuration

Developing and running virtual human applications on mobile devices is a challenging task. Mobile phones because of the extremely limited hardware resources are out of the question (unless of course you like these bad-looking flash-based avatars). UMPC and notebooks are the best choice for such systems. After reviewing several models I ended up with the Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium (1.33 Intel Core Solo Processor):

As the device is not available in Europe, I had to buy it from Ebay and import it in the UK (It cost me close to 900 USD). I also thought to upgrade the device to 2GB Ram but after watching this video I realised that I would better ask an engineer to do it. I only added a 360 degrees web cam (for face detection and QR-CODE reading) as the integrated ones are very low resolution. I installed the systems successfully and I am ready to move on to the final stage of my work – The evaluation Stage of the prototypes. The first two prototypes (Prototype 1 and Prototype 2) will be evaluated in my home country Greece.