The comments to my post about the Internet Tablet UI generated a stream of "me too!" comments. Krisse of Tabletschool went so far as to say the Canola interface should be the Internet Tablets' next UI. I think now would be a good time to discuss what WE think would be a better interface for the tablets. Wouldn't you know it? It's time for another poll!I mentioned three possible alternatives (The iPhone, the Asus Eee, and the Sony mylo COM2) as potential interface comparisons and the photos and explanations of those are in the original article. Here are a couple others I will mention:
Symbian: The front display will be rather utilitarian with a clock, a list of icons for the most commonly used applications, and a nice open area that can be filled with information like Email alerts, RSS headlines, and more. A single button (could be the "tasks" button on the tablets) brings up the application menu with an icon grid of applications.
Canola Beta 2: Few, big glossy icons that navigate the user to their preferred task (for example: Web, Communications, Applications, Tools, Settings) and corners used for certain "soft keys." Inertial scrolling and persistent themes included.
Those are the five options I will put in this poll. For the sake of this poll, assume each interface is without lag or bugs and that there is plenty of CPU and memory power to handle them all equally. Here's the question: Which interface do you think would be appealing to more consumers?
- iPhone style - Glossy grid of applications. Inertial scrolling. No persistent UI. (Each application takes the whole screen.)
- Asus Eee style - Gloss-free tabbed list of applications. Applications can be windowed in the UI or full-screen.
- Mylo COM2 style - Scrolling tree-like UI.
- Symbian style - Attractive utilitarian home screen with one button access an icon grid of applications.
- Canola style - Fewer, larger icons into which the rest of the applications are sorted. Inertial scrolling.
The results of the last poll are as follows:
Which Web 2.0/Social Networking sites do you contribute to?
Twitter | 35 (20%) |
Jaiku | 36 (21%) |
Facebook | 65 (38%) |
MySpace | 16 (9%) |
YouTube | 50 (29%) |
Ovi | 9 (5%) |
Blogs | 68 (40%) |
Flickr | 60 (35%) |
Picasa | 27 (15%) |
Wikipedia | 46 (27%) |
Other | 39 (23%) |
None | 29 (17%) |
22 comments:
hmm. I would like to see a vote option for an 'improved' hildon interface. The same but more customizable I guess. Hildon is pretty good IMHO. My 5 year old knows how to launch Sketch or his games or Club Penguin in the browser.
Anything but Symbian.
The symbian interface seems like a confused mess when you compare it to the current tablet user interface.
You need to go through about 5 levels just to change a couple of settings.
Phil
Canola seems the best way to go, and the cool thing is, someone is already doing it. The ubuntu mobile design is very similar to the canola interface, and considering the code shared between the projects, it may be quite easy to move in that direction.
I'm not entirely convinced that Canola could handle multitasking effectively - i.e. open up a link in your chat session in a browser window, and being able to switch from one to the other *quickly* (without having to tap the "Back" button eleventy billion times to go back to the main screen). It also looks like "canolaizing" an app would be a much more intensive process than hildonizing is, since you have to just about revamp the entire UI.
I'm not too displeased with Hildon, honestly. I'd just revamp the sidebar - dump the "window icons" entirely in favor of the menu, and just add task-oriented buttons in their place for multimedia (in addition to the current "talk to people" and "surf the web" ones)
Forgot to add "leave it as it is".
Maybe a mix between Canola and iPhone would allow for multitasking. In the old Newton system, there were very efficient ways of moving informations from app to app. That was really powerful.
I think Niko hit as close to the ultimate as possible--the Newton interface. I chose iPhone personally, because it's the closest to the Newton among your choices--maybe you should have added Newton? ;-)
In any case, I have this suspicion that all the other options are too limiting, in the end--and the iPhone is the closest to the ideal. However, the Newton was amazing on 320x480 (MP2K series) pixels. It did full-screen, as well as smaller-than-screen. It had a "base" application.
However, looking at the results, it's obvious I'm not an NXX0 user! ;-)
-Jon
A Hildon interface but more finger friendly.
Definitively not as the iphone or canola UI.
Canola is cool as media center, but I want to work with my tablet, and Canola isn't the better interface for it.
this poll should include "leave it as it is". given all the choices, the current user interface is superior. OS2008 introduced some glitches (there should be a way to get rid of the oversized menus and scrollbars, for example), but overall it's really good: easy to use, nothing unexpected to learn, very efficient.
I like it the way it is.
With the Canola interface - where do I put my widgets/gadgets/whatever?
The sony ui could work, but I like icons.
The iPhone ui might also work, but I'm afraid it isn't flexible enough (i could be wrong here)
And, the Symbian home screen is like the current UI, just flipped 90 degrees, and with a less flexible desktop.
I'd also vote for an improved Hildon UI.
Perhaps Hildon but with an iPhone-like launcher
app on the main page. I'd also make it more
finger-friendly but also allow some things
to be smaller (the RSS summary uses way too much space). The home page should requiring
enabling a menu option for rearranging
it so that homepage apps can support
inertial/finger scrolling without risking
rearranging things each time.
Having homepage tabs might also be
a nice addition.
whats the media server thing you have in canola?
None, none, none, NONE of the above.
1) The current Hildon interface isn't *that* screwed up. The main problem is the task bar/menu needs to be revamped. The default menu layout is too confusing; dividing apps into Internet, Communication, Utilities (why isn't this called Apps?) and Extras is excessive and illogical. The Web and Comm icons on the taskbar are confusing. But it's very easy to switch between running apps (some of the interfaces in the poll can't even multitask).
2) While the current interface definitely needs more graphical polish, dumbing the entire interface down to Canola levels will just lock potential customers out of functionality they want. Nokia needs to realize the the battle for the iPhone/iPod Touch market is over; people that just want a slick interface and easy iTunes syncing are going to buy Apple. But the Nseries tablets are more powerful than Apple's devices, and there is a market for a more powerful device. If Nokia buffs out some of the rough interface edges and provides easy access to more services (ebooks, audiobooks, video) it can attract the more tech-savvy (but not necessarily hackerish) consumers.
And BTW, I love Canola. I just don't want to see a interface great for music and media to be inappropriately stretched over the entire OS.
Symbian is not a user interface. The user interface in Nokia Symbian phones is called "Series60" or "S60". It has been designed for one-hand operation in phones with really small screens and isn't very useful on a pen-based device like an internet tablet.
I think the Canola interface is really cool, but it seems limited, even more so than the iPhone interface. There are few icons on the screen at one time, and the settings panels are too nested. In the end, it requires too many taps to get something done. If they improve it though, it might be suitable to replace Hildon, since there are many good ideas in there.
In any case, the next tablet UI shouldn't require a stylus for anything. If you need to use it in an application (like Xournal) fine, but not in the OS UI.
Hi Dan,
you need to list Ubuntu Mobile Interface, too.
AND! There is really a vote missing for keeping the UI as it is today.
Anyway the discussions about the UI let end users think the UI is bad, but in fact it is very good.
This seems like a bad case of wanting the throw the baby out with the bath water. :\
The actual UI is great.
I installed Simple Launcher to quick launch a few apps, but I like having other applets (won't waste the whole space for shortcuts).
Maybe they could provide a similar applet out of the box, but no need to change everything.
*Edit:*
The current UI is great.
Canola looks nice, but I *need* to have GPE-summary (or reasonable facsimile) on my home screen, how can this be reconciled. I realize I'm pissing into the wind asking for a more PIM friendly interface, but that's what I'd like.
Whatever UIs the "next Internet Tablet OS" can run, it looks like the underlying OS might eventually be Ubuntu!
I would like to use my tablet PC Nokia N810 to troubleshoot network. But I can have hand like admin or Root on it. Can someone know what can I do for that please.
Post a Comment