[IxDA Discuss] mobile interface design guidelines

[Barbara Ballard]

On 1/30/07, Marc specht <specht.marc at gmail.com> wrote:
> For one of my project i have to design interface for handheld devices. Does
> anyone can point me to a good BOOK and any other literature which could help
> me in knowing the guidelines or more importantly patterns of application
> design for mobile devices.

While my book "Designing the Mobile User Experience" will be available
in the UK next month, other things are immediately available:

<http://www.littlespringsdesign.com/design/> - various mobile design resources

<http://patterns.littlespringsdesign.com> - mobile UI patterns

<http://www.lulu.com/littlesprings> - mobile UI design books for Java and web

<http://forum.nokia.com/main/technical_services/usability/index.html>
- a variety of excellent Nokia mobile UI resources



>
> Also do any one know any particular studies where people qunatify these
> guidelines and standards and generated user interfaces for different mobile
> devices automatically?
>

I'm working on that one, but it is tough.  "Automatically" is near
impossible.  Even testing a specific pattern (not documented in my
latest book because it's not terribly relevant any more, but
documented in the style guides) involved lots of test participants and
simplifying assumptions that may have eliminated the validity of the
research.

Scott Weiss' mobile downloads research product, for example, tests
usability of services by users using a device with whose user
interface they are unfamiliar.  That's somewhat like testing a Mac
application (with heavy OS integration) by a Windows users:  you have
OS and task confabulation.  But he had to make some reasonable
assumptions; he just didn't select the ones I did.

In fact, the same pattern we tested Scott also tested -- and found the
reverse results.  So the assumptions are critical.  (in this case, the
competing assumptions were "generalized from the most sophisticated
phone with the biggest screen which should have the easiest
experience" versus "use a mass-market phone and select for users with
the same device".  The punchline:  the big phone had a critical button
that the small ones didn't, which radically affected UI design.

That was several years ago now.  My current preferred testing
methodology is to acquire a smart number of phones based on market and
budget, then select for participants who have one of those phones or
one very much like it.  Test the application on the phone best
matching the user's current phone.

-- 
Barbara Ballard
barbara at littlespringsdesign.com 1-785-838-3003