Quote:
Originally Posted by possmann
It's time for MS to look at the competition - not just handsets, but the third party UI experience applications. What really makes a phone user friendly? Think of users with thicker fingers - not all of us have a stylus for a finger - and think of how many clicks it takes to get something done.
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Actually, if you have a touchscreen device, you probably
do have a stylus. Almost every WM Classic/Pro device comes with one. (And I only say "almost" because I don't know for sure if the HTC Touches, Samsung Omnia and Sony Ericsson Xperia have them.)
However, as I've advocated for a while, I hope Microsoft won't abandon the stylus if they're designing a finger-friendly UI. There should be Finger and Stylus modes for the UI. Finger input won't be good for people who use handwriting input or inking.
As for clicks, the number may not be as important as you think. Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" says that it doesn't really matter how many clicks it takes to accomplish a task as long they're all mindless (AKA obvious). That was actually about Web site usability, and of course there were some exceptions (a million obvious clicks would, um, obviously be too many), but it could also hold true for operating systems.
So instead of worrying about how many clicks something takes, Microsoft might do better to worry about making the actions more obvious.
Steve