mobiletech
Better Interfaces: Coming Soon to a Handset Near You?
Filed in archive Design by Scott on March 16, 2006
Better Interfaces: Coming Soon to a Handset Near You?
I wrote a couple weeks ago about how some new mobile interfaces were becoming more simplified in their design, particularly a new model from Motorola, which features an external interface of a few simple icons, and youth-market focused MNVO Helio's new interface, which is much more minimalistic. One of the best designed blogs I have seen, mobiface, takes us in the other direction with a couple of postings recently about an emerging trend toward artiness in interface design, created to appeal to a visual noise-loving new generation raised on edgy visual advertising and video pastiches.

The particular examples mobiface points to are the LG LP5500, A CDMA handset with a 5 megapixel camera, and a pair of handsets from KDDI/AU in Japan, for which they provide links to two YouTube videos of blogger Carol Lin trying these phones out at KDDI's Design Center. One is a Casio model, the W41CA, and the other looks like the Neon.

In both cases, the interfaces are pretty evocative of their probable user base, in motion, patched together from different items, and probably somewhat customizable. They are a fresh approach to organization of the mobile interface, and take a cue from the increasingly customizable world of desktop interfaces, like Mac's OS X.

This movement represents a design solution to personalization, while the widget approach brings an engineering view to the problem. Neither is wrong, and both are better than the stale world of many mobile interfaces we have to choose from today. Symbian has been moving more and more in the direction of customization, but themes and wallpaper don't do enough for the next generation of sophisticated users. They will want to create within the interface sandbox, not just overlay new wallpaper. And no, Windows Mobile doesn't fix the problem either. Give me a tool that allows me to build my own Flash interface from components and I will be happy.

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Tags: design  interface 
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