Sunday, June 7, 2009

Proof that Multitouch Isn't Intuitive

This study entitled, "How People Really Use the iPhone" provides some great insight into what works and what doesn't work in touch interfaces.

How people really use the iPhone


It ends with 8 Rules of Thumb that sound pretty good to me.

1. Take Advantage of Learned Behaviors

2. Avoid Interaction Inconsistencies

3. Provide Clear Conceptual Link Between Widgets

4. Put Space Between Action Widgets

5. Plan for Accidental Overswiping

6. Don't rely exclusively on Multitouch

7. Provide Visual Feedback For Taps

8. Provide Interaction Affordances


Thanks to http://www.touchuserinterface.com for hunting this one down.
at 1:00 PM
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1 comments:

  1. Good stuff. They definitely have some decent suggestions for how to improve upon some of the most common apps.

    One of the most challenging (and interesting) parts of dealing with touchscreen interacting design is tolerance for huge variations in input between people. They hit on this with rules #5 and #8 especially.

    Unfortunately, these are often things (mostly) out of the individual programmer's control because they tend to rely on low-level information not normally exposed via the sdk. And even if you get that information, properly dealing with it (figuring out that something is an overswipe) can be incredibly difficult. It tends to involve a lot of math and probability.
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