iPad fails usability test

David Swan
Tuesday, 11 May 2010 11:13

Your IT - Mobility

A new study has slammed iPad apps as inconsistent, finding "frequent user errors" were being made and that "users don't know where to click."

The preliminary study, which looked at 7 iPad users each with at least 3 months of experience with an iPhone, found that "users can't transfer their skills from one app to the next." Each application has a completely different UI for similar features.

The report describes a triple threat of low discoverability, low memorability and accidental activation. This means that users often don't know what functions their apps have, they don't remember how to use each app because each app works so differently, and they will mistakenly use features through accidental gestures.

It came to the overall conclusion that the iPad user interface shouldn't be a scaled-up iPhone UI.

The study found that the chief difference between the iPad and iPhone in terms of usability was that the tab bar at the bottom of the screen works much worse on iPad than on iPhone. The report explains that on the small phone, users are likely to notice the muted icons at the bottom of the screen, even if their attention is on content in the middle of the screen. But the iPad's much bigger screen means that users are typically directing their gaze far from the tab bar and they ignore (and forget) those buttons.

Also, after testing many websites it was concluded that the iPad was much better at web browsing than the iPhone, so there should be some sort of enhancement for the iPad. While websites "work reasonably well" and are "beautiful" on the iPad, it was also found that "users don't know where to click."

Continue to the next page to find what usability features the focus group wanted from their iPad.