Mobile Keyboards

Trying to incorporate a 'QWERTY' keyboard into a small screen device is the second problematic factor alongside the small screen limitations. Folding keyboards are available for PDA's and some smart phones however this still constrains the user to a static seated position and so therefore these devices have not been very successful, as the consumer will often decide that they may as well use a laptop.

There are several variations of virtual keyboard. One device in particular is available in the form of gloves that interpret the movement of the fingers. Again this invention has not been very successful, as often the device will misinterpret the words being written and therefore resulting in slow productivity levels.

Alternatively, a virtual keyboard can be projected onto an external surface. This device also requires a greater degree of user attention and as a result is unsuitable for peripheral use. All of the above devices are ultimately limited due to the space required for the keyboard, the need for the user to be in a static position and the small screens. Therefore in my opinion i believe that companies should stop trying to invent these 'virtual keyboard' devices and consider a blue sky approach incorporating technologies from other areas such as gaming etc as it appear these limitations are not going to be overcome by concentrating on the areas currently struggling to be developed.

Talk by David Garcia

During the first week of November i attended a talk by Professor David Garcia on Digital Cultures and their impacts on Knowledge, Networks and Freedom at the University of Portsmouth.

During this talk David discussed areas that very much interested me and i considered how they could be implemented in the Designing for Digital Devices.

He talked about how in Italy it is well known and understood that after a certain time in the evening, when all television broadcasting has finished, a group of people will often hijack the TV broadcasting to broadcast their own messages. They are not necessarily breaking the law but the area that interested me the most was that these people were using the 'downtime' of this platform to capture an audience. They were manipulating technology to their advantage and using it in such a way that had never really been considered.

I was able to apply these ideas when considering designing for digital devices as i started to think about using the technology that is already available to us and using it in such a way that hadn't been considered and in a way that it hadn't been designed for. For example i developed the idea of using the camera on our mobile phone to pay for things. The user would point the camera at a barcode say for example a vending machine and then send this picture off and the cost of the item from the machine would be deducted from the users credit. This could also be used by way of SMS (short messaging service), the consumer could fill out the code on the machine and then send this text message off to the vending machine company e.g. Coca Cola and they would receive a reply containing a code that they would enter into the machine in order to receive the product. This idea could be seen to take more time than the standard approach of just entering money however it would save time if the consumer did not have any change on them at the time.
I have seen this idea used before but in a different way. Frank Lantz, with help from Mattia Romeo and Dennis Crowley created a big urban game called Conquest. The game involved a group of people competing with each other to take over certain urban areas. This would be accomplished by taking pictures of semacodes, which are two-dimensional barcodes that can be scanned and decoded with a camera phone. These semacodes would be placed on particular objects within the environment and then the participants would have to take a picture of the code in order to conquer that area. Again this is a very clever way of using current technology but in such a way that it was not intended.

CLICK HERE to visit the Conquest homepage


"We make computers and computers make us'' this is an area in which David Garcia touched on but it did capture my thoughts. When i thought about this statement more it made me consider how this really is true. The world we live in today is in such a contrast to that of 5, 10, 20 years ago and why? well, because our lives are adjusted as these digital platforms become more of a part of our lives. We create these devices to make our day-to-day processes more efficient, and as a result our day-to-day behaviour changes. For example the media no longer controls us as we can consume this content wherever and whenever we like. Yes, i still believe the media can have an influence over the audience and often shape our social and cultural identities through social grouping, but we consume it on-the-go and as a result i feel people discuss their opinions a lot less therefore these devices are contributing to making us who we are as a person.

CLICK HERE for David's Blog

Really Simple Syndication

When considering the use of the Internet on multiple devices i started to think about how it could be simplified to accommodate for all devices. I had never really heard about RSS until recently when i started seeing these little orange boxes with a signal symbol inside on many sites. I therefore conducted research to find out more and discover how it has or could be implemented onto a variety of digital devices.

RSS is an XML-based system that allows a user to subscribe to their favourite websites. A websites content can be converted into a standardized format and then displayed using RSS-aware software and even displayed on another website.

I considered how RSS could now help users by making their processes quicker. The user will no longer need to visit a site as their most commonly used sites can be downloaded like a subscription and the information is at had if and when they need it. The RSS content is in a simplified format and there is no disruption from advertising etc, it is content in its raw state. In my opinion this is a new way to consider browsing and the user is becoming detached from the ‘online’ state and in control of the content that they receive.

Semiotics

In order to navigate the small digital devices it is commonly understood that users will be using symbols. For example to go back a page there will be an arrow pointing left and to look at your address book there will be a symbol of an address book. This idea interested me and I researched into the workings of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1913) and their study into semiotics.

I was interested in why we simply recognise these navigation symbols and what they will do when we press them. This is not only the case on the digital devices as semiotics are used all around us. An example can be seen with figure 3 in the image below. We use three different techniques in order to recognise symbols and they are as follows. Icon – this resembles physically the object that is being presented such as images 3.1 and 3.2 where a shopping center is represented using an iconic sign. Index – a direct link the sign and the object. Traffic signs are index signs as they have a direct link to the location in which they are placed. An example of this is image 3.3 where the danger of fire is linked to the forest by its physical location. Symbol signs have no logical connection between the sign and what it means. Symbol signs are used on small digital devices as the user is expected to know in advance what they mean. This is also the same with image 3.4 and 3.5. This

These functions can work together for example figure 1 in the image below warns us that we are approaching traffic lights. The mark on the sign, which resembles the lights, is both an icon and a symbol. It looks physically like the thing it is represents therefore it could be said to be iconic. However it is also a symbol. That is to say it is part of a set of signs for which we have international agreement for its meaning.

I believe the reason we use these symbols is because in the case of the small digital devices they have small screens so therefore it may be difficult for people to read lots of text. We use symbols that represent their meaning and this is commonly recognised by all people, speaking all languages and coming from a variety of cultures. I also discovered that symbols are often used on larger digital devices as well. I therefore started to consider the reasoning for this and I believe that it is for the same reasons as the small devices. Companies are distributing all over the world so therefore rather than having to create different platforms for different languages then symbols can be used as they are internationally recognised. An example of international recognition of a symbol is figure 2 in the image below.

Platform Constraints

With so many platforms to display content on designers need to consider how applications need to work on multiple platforms. All users may receive a different experience due to variations in download rates, resolutions and screen sizes. I personally believe that designers need to use these ‘media shortcomings’ that help take advantage of the uniqueness of each device. For example the web is a medium in itself and ‘it is not crippled, nor is it just waiting idly around for the advent of universal broadband so it can magically morph into interactive television’ (Cloninger, 2002, p.3). This statement suggests to me that designers should use the Internet in such a way that compliments a complete array of platforms rather than seeing them as a constraint. There is not going to be an invention of a human like Internet that can automatically detect your resolution, screen size, operating system, download speed, etc in the near future (I am aware this has been created on a basic level), so therefore work with the platforms rather than against them.

Cross Platform

I started to think about how the Internet is becoming a meta-level of information that is almost superimposed on reality. The user can call up any information no matter where they are in the world and this is becoming increasingly more apparent as people are carrying these mobile browsing devices with them wherever they are. This graph indicates this and shows just how quickly these devices have grown to become a natural companion in everyday life. The area that interested me most was how quickly ‘mobile contracts with internet access’ have grown. This therefore shows me that companies will seriously need to start considering how creating websites suitable for these small devices. However, this graph does not actually show how many of the people who have taken up these contracts actually use the Internet.

The Internet on a mobile is only one factor as there are a huge number of technologies that can be used on a mobile phone. I started to consider how people are no longer being broadcasted to as people now how a choice as to what they listen/watch and when they listen/watch it. ‘The new consumer experience is one of content that exists within a context that suits them’. Consumers are choosing which platforms to use and these platforms are not at the end of one channel as they are able to communicate with one another. For example a user may be able to receive video clips on their mobile but then this mobile can send the clips to other mobiles, therefore these platforms are cross communicating.

When considering the data I was also surprised at the numbers of PDA's that have been bought. It appears to me that in the years surrounding 2000 there was a belief that these devices would take off however it the sales levels declined and I believe that people may have realised that mobile phones would soon be able to do all that PDA’s can.

I mentioned earlier that the Internet is becoming so widely accessible and this is not only because of mobile browsing it can be accessed through digital TV. I therefore became interested in the other end of the scale, as instead of designers becoming challenged by the limitation of the small devices there was the ‘widescreen’ with complete freedom for the designer and user. The widescreen TV or Monitor will allow the user more space to view content etc and therefore making processes quicker.

The navigation of the internet through a TV became a problem as a remote control was not complex enough for browsing so therefore keyboard remote controls had be to created. Overall these new platforms further enables people to freely browse the Internet and many other platforms no matter where they are in the world or what room in the house they are in.

Mobile Interaction

When conducting research into current mobile devices i discovered that there is a complete array of different ways to interact with a device. The way that you interact with such a small devices is far more important than in design of applications for desktop computers. This is because as yet there are no equal equivalents to the keyboard and mouse. The user will be using the device in a variety of positions so therefore the interactive elements needs to complement this, whereas a desktop computer users stays in a static seated position.

The examples below show a range of ways to interact with a device, such as: one-handed menu interaction, clickable scroll wheel, mini joystick and touchpad.