UX Techniques is a new iPhone App designed to act as a pocket guide for UX practitioners. Built along the same vein as IDEO’s Method Cards UX techniques shares simple and concise definitions of 45 common UX practices.

UX is predominately about digital interface design, whether online or via an application, but it is also how an interface behaves and understanding user needs and behaviour.

While the design of the application leaves a lot open to the imagination as far as visual appeal the cards themselves are quite helpful. In my review of the application, I came across a few methods I was less familiar with or had forgotten about entirely. The real benefit comes from the supporting links. Each card has a link to additional information viewable from your iPhone, whether it is a link to UIE or Boxes and Arrows, the authors have located a valuable and more detailed source for further investigation. This is an added detail not provided in all other UX reference guides.

While far from perfect, the application is a nice reference when on the go. This won’t replace your stack of books at home, and won’t replace practice for a particular technique, but it can help in some sticky conversations with clients and coworkers. While some might say this adds another set of definitions to a field with many differing opinions already, this application doesn’t define their stance as the end all be all and instead offers more places to look. UX Techniques can act as a catalyst for further conversation and investigation.

Still not convinced? UX Techniques allows you to email the content of the cards with a single click (though unfortunately this, like the additional content, leaves the application). Similarly, UX Techniques Lite is offered with a subset of the cards for a try-before-you-buy test drive.

With a mobile phone, you can watch movies/videos/TV programs online anywhere at almost any time. That ubiquity has brought tremendous convenience to our lives, but on the other hand, the value of them has been diminishing. We don’t very much/at all care about where we can get a clip or if we miss a drama episode. What if, however, we have a movie that can be watched only when certain conditions are met?

This concept is partly like a concept I’ve already introduced in my blog, but a little different.
OK, so you hold this device in front of you and watch a clip, but the clip can be played only if you are at a particular place. You have to BE there to see the whole movie.

For example, you can see

1. a movie’s secret story at an actual scene
2. a sequel clip to a TV commercial with how to apply for an exclusive present announced at the end
3. your favorite actress choose clothes at a boutique
4. a comedian introduce which spots you should visit in a touristy place

etc. etc.

Or you can shoot a video of yourself for your boyfriend saying “Hey, how long do you think I’ve been waiting for you? I’m going home.” so that he can see it when he finally arrives.

By limiting the geographical conditions for viewing movies this way, you might expect audiences to visit places you like.

It would be so much fun if videos can be seen in 3D from any angle (no, not from below).

We all know how great a touch screen is… But have you ever thought that it’s a nightmare for the blind? You never know what you’re touching because everything is flat. All the information and status is on the screen, so a user has to take the device up from a pocket, touch the necessary buttons and see with his eyes. In the future information is told in 3D.

So what would this look like? Let’s take a mobile phone as an example: The front face and the sides of it transforms the shapes according to what information or status is expressed. It makes concavity and convexity on the surface. For example, the face can be customized with contoured graphics. It could be dressed up with a kimono-like graphic or it could have a concave clock so that a blind user can know the time.

The status is shown on its sides

A convexity means a “+” notice, for example there is an unread email message or an unanswered phone call. For a negative status, for example, the battery running out soon or having a bad reception, a concavity appears at a certain location. With this function, you can know without even touching or looking at the phone if your current location has a good reception to talk on the phone, if the battery has to be charged and if you have unread emails or unanswered calls. You wouldn’t have to travel around a place to find a good spot to talk on the phone, taking a look at the small icon on the screen many times.

When the phone makes a continuous movement, it means you have an imminent status to take action for. For instance, when its surface is moving like a wave, you’re getting a phone call. Of course the movement can be customized freely…

With its flexible surface, the information on the screen could be dramatically expressed. Even an email message could be on a protruded paper. Your file management could be done in 3D. Open a folder to take out movies and photos in it just like you do in the physical world.

The biggest merit with this feature could be a 3D map. you can get a much greater feeling of locations with “heights” because in most cases, a landmark is something very high, which can be difficult to be expressed in 2D. Can you imagine how easy it would become to search where you are and which way to go with this function?

When you want to make your email message stand out, you can put an embossed present box on the screen. A calculator will be much easier to use if you can feel the keys. An RSS feed could be read on a book-like shaped surface. The curl on the bottom right corner means you have a next page to read, A flipping gesture takes you to the next page. A physical keyboard of course makes your texting faster!

For advanced functions, there are limitless ideas to be realized that could never have been done with a conventional flat screen. For example, you can leave a kiss mark and handwritten message to
send your love to someone. And text information could be rendered in braille for the blind.

Some people love checking out newly approved patents, since they are a look in the future. And this Christmas an interesting one was approved. Because according to ‘United States Patent Approval 20080313857′ Nokia is working on a new device ‘which includes at least four device parts’.

It’s believed to be the next generation Nokia Communicator, and it looks…. special. Instead of the classical clamshell phone this one folds open in four seperate pieces. The end result looks like… well actually I don’t know what it looks like. It seems that they’re trying to create a device that is small enough to carry around in your pocket, but can become big enough to be a mini laptop. But this design doesn’t seem to be RSI-proof, check out the keyboard:

In the past it was easy to describe a product. We used to talk about a mobile phone or a handheld gaming device, but these days things have gone blurry. Borders have disappeared, and this patent is another proof of that. Look at claim 23-26:
’23. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is a mobile phone.
24. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is a laptop computer.
25. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is a handheld gaming device.
26. The device of claim 1, wherein said device is a media player.’
I’m actually surprised that you still have to claim being a ‘handheld gaming device’ and ‘media player’, when you also claim ‘laptop computer’. Isn’t a ‘laptop computer’ covering a lot of bases?

via cellpassion

The idea of a test drive is notorious for automobiles and other large investment pieces of technology. Walk into the computer store and you can try out the new laptop before buying it and take snapshots of the clerk with the on display digital cameras. You can even walk into the store and try cell phones. But what if you don’t want to go to the store? For users who do not want the overbearing sales person, online tutorials are a saving grace. One market capitalizing on this trend is the mobile phone arena.

Blackberry is one high-tech company offering an online trial of their product line. Log onto Blackberry.com, navigate to the Blackberry 101 tutorials and you will be presented with a flash based user guide of the phone you select. The entire interface is truly an experiment in adapting physical products to a digital realm. The tutorial is presented in a booklet like fashion with details on the left and animated images on the right. To further ‘enhance’ the translation of the physical booklet, users are required to actually page through the tutorial by clicking and dragging the corners of pages to navigate forward and back. Now, I mentioned this tutorial first as it seems to offer the best overall navigation and interaction. Simple chapters list the current progress and the consistent use of animation keeps the entire interaction very pleasant. I can’t help but be bothered by the direct translation to paging though. To reference Alan Cooper, it is important to take into consideration the technology being used when a product is digitized. The fact that a physical product allows paging, thumbing through corners, and tabbing is completely lost in this digital world.

Blackberry

Still, Blackberry is not the only company trying to solve the problem of how to present a physical form through a two-dimensional screen. T-Mobile has a different solution to the online tutorial. Seen here, the G1-Android is displayed in a combined flash and html tutorial. The use of video sketches to show real world applications of the system helps understand what makes this device different and how easy it is to use. The separation between ’See’ ’Learn’ and ‘Do’ provides laymen terms of how to use the device. Still, there is almost no interactivity here and it is near impossible to navigate through the chapters. Another oddity of this tutorial is the mix of digital ‘form’. As you navigate through the three main topics, the site switches between flash and html. Not only jarring to the user this shows a lack of communication from the design teams.

Section 1 of G1 Android Tutorial, Flash Based

Section 2 of G1 Anroid Tutorial, HTML based

To change paces, we cannot discuss mobile device tutorial without mentioning Apple’s iPhone. The product is presented in a one-on-one discussion with the user highlighting the events and actions the phone can take. Not to dwell on this too long, as this has been on the market for some time, the personal face to face discussion helps bring a human connection to the product. Still, it is near impossible to navigate to a specific section of the tutorial and to know what’s next in the discussion.

iPhone

Regardless of how you feel about any of these devices, these three examples show hands down the possibilities of online tutorials and interactivity. All of them are better than the standard pogo sticking method of archaic terms and static images. I can’t help but feel the use of flash needs to be checked at the door and more thought needs to be put towards combining interaction methods. I look forward to when the Flash obsession has truly passed and we are able to experience more cohesive tutorials that not only engage us like Blackberry, but have the emotional content of Apple along with a natural and easy interface.

This is by no means an all inclusive review of online tutorials but by reviewing the three self proclaimed leads of mobile technology an overall feel of the direction the industry is going can be reached. Let’s see what the next generation of smart phones has to offer technically and how the companies behind them market themselves as standing out from the pack.