Study: iPhone UI lives up to the hype

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Monday, 21 April 2008

Page 1 of 3 ! So, does the iPhone live up to the massive hype it has enjoyed since Steve Jobs first unveiled it during the Macworld 2007 keynote? A new study says the answer is a definitive yes! Here’s an article that Information Week’s Alexander Wolfe could have written about, rather than his so-called iPhone problems after only two weeks of not very enthusiastic iPhone usage: a new study showing just how superior the iPhone is to all other phones on the market. Performed by Scandinavia’s leading usability and interaction design company, inUse, the study is printed at UIGarden.net, and makes for fascinating reading. The study notes that inUse “let some of our best usability experts run [a] comparative usability test with four phones and five users. It is easy to fall in love with something so beautiful and sexy, but if the device is not easy to use the initial euphoria will quickly turn into despair and frustration.” And the results as discovered by inUse, specifically in regards to the iPhone? “Stunning”, they say. Darja Isaksson, CEO of inUse said that: “The iPhone has introduced a new interaction paradigm to the world, in an uncompromising way that proves that “less is more” when it comes to true user experience.” It’s definitely worth reading the entire study at the UIGarden.net site, but here are a few choice quotes. I’ve included them in “quotation marks”. “We suspect that the fascination for the iPhone that we have seen in people’s faces carries the expectation that the iPhone will simplify and enhance their daily “phoning” life. That people expect the iPhone to change how we communicate in the same way the iPod has already changed our relation to music.” A usability test was done “to determine if the iPhone will meet people’s expectations and live up to its hype. Simply having people trying out the iPhone, and then asking them if they liked it or not, would not make much of a test. In order to see how the iPhone really worked in action, and how well that corresponds to people’s expectations of it, we had five people carry out a set of tasks using the iPhone as well as with three other devices from leading competing brands.” “We selected what we consider to be simple everyday tasks that are crucial to the overall user experience of each device. Use of mobile phones is typically characterized by carrying out the same or similar sequences of actions over and over; calling someone from the contacts list and reading new text messages may be repeated every hour of every day. The specific tasks were chosen because we consider them to be key use cases that determine the ease-of-use of a mobile phone, as well as showing the different interaction methods used in the iPhone.” What standard was the usability test done to? inUse say that “We used our standard setting for usability testing, inspired by Wright & Monk´s cooperative evaluation. The user performs pre-defined tasks that should be representative for her normal usage, whilst a test leader communicates with her in a format that sounds like a normal conversation, but really is a refined method to find out what the user conceive about the product." "An observer is present, with the one assignment to note everything of what is said and done that is important for understanding how the product succeeds in meeting the user´s expectations.” Please read onto page 2 to see just why inUse and its testers thought the iPhone was so good compared with the rest, which are listed on the next page. << First page <   1 2 3 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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