Can designs be too clever?

The History of the Button blog has a really interesting post on a seemingly smart, but ultimately confusing elevator design. Is it possible for designs to be too clever for their own good?

Dealing with the user’s ingrained expectations is often a dilemma when trying to innovate: do you create something that is novel and potentially confusing, or do you conform to the user’s expectations? Often, an idea will be a clear improvement on paper, but the user’s habits will in practice prove an overwhelming barrier. This is particularly true when the interaction is almost subconscious, as in the elevator example linked to above.

When a novel design provides significant new value, users may be willing to invest some time and mental effort to learn new behaviors. Many people are willing to learn how to use a navigation system, as it makes life so much easier. Nevertheless, designers should work to minimize these switching costs by providing adequate explanations (preferably in context, not tucked away in an obscure manual), adhering to usability conventions as much as possible, and using methods such as progressive disclosure.

Of course, the most revolutionary designs are those that innovate in a way that is so intuitive that they behave exactly as the user expects them to — even though the interaction is completely novel. Automatic transmissions are a good example of this — they are clearly simpler to use than their alternative. Not to use a tired example, the iPod’s scroll-wheel also springs to mind. It remains to be seen if the iPhone lives up to expectations, though usability expert Bruce Tognazzini has high hopes.

I’ve touched on this subject before: elevator algorithms

Motofone

Amidst all the buzz about the iPhone, I’d like to highlight what I think is an equally innovative phone: Motorola’s beautifully simple Motofone.


Not only is this phone razor thin and beautifully designed, it is also packed full of clever design thinking. Created for developing markets, it has days of battery life thanks to an innovative e-ink screen. The interface is focused on one thing: making phone calls, and special care has been taken to make it useable by people with limited literacy. Best of all, it only costs $50 (compare that to $600 for the iPhone!).


Motorola has a mini-site with some insights into the design process, and the MIT Technology Review tells us more about the screen technology.


I think this is a brilliant move on Motorola’s part. As Chris says:

I don’t want all the crap they are cramming into phones. I just want a phone. A phone that works.

Unfortunately it’s only available in India right now, or else I’d probably buy one.

iPhone roundup

The reason I haven’t posted this week is that I was lucky enough to attend Steve Jobs’ keynote at MacWorld on Tuesday. My entire group camped out the night before (we we’re second in line!)… and of course I ended up sleeping for 12 hours straight last night. While the iPhone has already been extensively dissected on the web, I wanted to post some thoughts and a round-up of relevant links.

Being at the keynote was an incredible experience. Jobs is an amazing salesman, and you could just see the sparkle in his eyes as he revealed his new baby. His demo was perfectly polished, with a strong consistent message (“5 years ahead of any other phone”) and lots of nice one-liners (“and boy have we patented it”). He had phone conversations with Jonathan Ive and Phil Schiller in the audience. Eric Schmidt made a guest appearance (we all clapped extra hard), as did Jerry Yang from Yahoo and Stan Sigman, the CEO of Cingular (whose speech was awful). It all concluded with a live performance by John Mayer.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the product itself is fantastic. As a designer, I’m most intrigued by the touch screen user interface, which has tremendous potential for novel interactions. Something as simple as unlocking the phone becomes a slick swipe, and don’t even get me started on the zooming gesture. The industrial design is beautiful as well, with a huge high-resolution 3.5 inch touchscreen and only one button on the front face (one too many, if you ask me). It’s not tiny, but it’s very thin. All in all, a very very nice object.

Now of course it isn’t perfect. Here are my gripes:

• No tactile feedback I’m very worried that the keyboard will be hard to use. The early reviews say that the error correction software helps, but I could still see it being clumsy. My only hope is that Jonathan Ive put enough work into it as to make it useable.
• No proper Gmail integration I don’t think I can live without the fantastic Gmail mobile client. While they’ll hopefully get it working on the iPhone in time for the release, I’ll be torn between seamless Gmail integration and seamless OS integration (including fancy touchscreen interactions).
• No third-party apps Apparently, the software is locked down. I’m hoping this isn’t the case.
• No wireless sync Apparently, it won’t sync wirelessly with your computer. I have to believe this will change in time for the launch.
• No detachable battery Given the roughly 1 day of battery life, it would have been nice to be able to pop in a spare battery. I know I’ve done it on my blackberry before.
• No flash The only cameraphones that produce even remotely useable pictures at night are those with an LED flash. While we’re at it, 2 megapixels is going to be pretty standard by the time it launches.
• A couple of unfair complaints I’d like to say that 8GB isn’t enough if you expect to store videos, pictures, music, etc… but I’d feel a bit snide given that it’s a lot more memory than any other phone, and anything bigger would have made it bulkier, more expensive and more power hungry. I’d also have liked a GPS, which would have enabled even more innovative applications.
• Price point By the way he led up to it, I expected Jobs to announce a price point lower than current smartphones, something like $399 for the 4GB version. It has a lot of features, but $600 is still a lot of money for a phone. I also wonder how much it will cost without a new contract (I’m already with Cingular).
• June?? WTF? Despite all of the above, I would definitely have bought one if they’d been available. I guess the FCC made that impossible, but still disappointing.

If you haven’t overdosed on the iPhone coverage yet, below is a list of links to give you a good overview of the product.

• Official Apple site with fancy animated demos.
• The keynote stream
• David Pogue’s initial review
• Time Magazine’s article on the history of the device, with some good insider stories.
• Signal vs. Noise on the lack of tactile feedback.
• Jason Kottke’s DYI size comparisons
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog on whether it will cannibalize iPod sales.
• BusinessWeek on how Apple sets the design standard.
• My previous post about a sweet multitouch screen demo. It’s great to see Apple bring something like this to the market.
• Slashdot’s infamous response to the original iPod announcement.