Edward Tufte On Windows Phone 7 Series (WP7S) UX

Edward Tufte has some interesting things to say about the Windows Phone 7 Series (WP7S) interface design. Basically this is phase 2 in the new product introduction series, where the initial "ooohh! look how nice and cool it looks" fades away and some actual usage thoughts come in. IE:

On a small handheld device, screen real estate is extremely valuable. So the content-free big black band on the right margin is a puzzling waste of space, resulting in a 20% downgrade in screen resolution.

This is going to be interesting, as this is one area that (IMHO as a fanboy) the iPhone (main competitor of the WinPhone7Series, or at least what'll be compared most to it) has maintained well in. For example, yes, cut and paste was introduced a year after the iPhone's release, but when it was done, it was done very well. I've heard that cut and paste in Android is nowhere near as good. Same with the little details like deleting apps. In the iPhone you hold down the icon till it jiggles, hit 'x', confirm, and then 'no thanks' to the rating (the last step is annoying to me). In Android deleting an app is (apparently anyway, I have yet to use it myself) a long series of steps akin to windows, that is control panel, add/remove, find it, select, delete, confirm, etc.

It'll be interesting to see the W7PS in actual use to see if the "oooh shiny" holds up in terms of real world usability.

Posted by Arcterex at March 02, 2010 09:04 AM