From the category archives:

Apple

Interaction Design on the iPad: the apps you need

by Joseph on May 15, 2010

I have read scores of pundits talk about the iPad being a “consumption device,” that it’s for enjoying content and not creating it. To all these talking heads, I say “phooey!” The iPad is a great device to be creative and productive, especially if you are in the user experience design field. Here’s my list of the great (and quickly becoming indispensable) apps that I use to create next-gen online experiences.

iThoughts HD
?This mind mapping tool was originally created for the iPhone, and has now been updated for the iPad. With intuitive controls and the ability to export the results into multiple formats, it’s a must-have for visual thinkers and designers.

Newsrack?
How do you keep up with what’s going on in the technology and design community? Why, by following RSS feeds and readers like Google reader, that’s how. Newsrack is my favorite reader, for many reasons, primarily because of it’s integration with Google reader and the ability to share links via Twitter and send content to off-line readers such as Instapaper (see below).

IMockups
?Want to do some quick design sketches? Well, iMockups is the app for you. Very similar to Balsamiq Mockups, this app let’s you drag and drop UI elements on the screen and then export the designs to your photo library. It’s quite useful and I look forward to future updates, where they plan on adding photo import and more stencil shapes.

Pages?
Want to write design documentation on the go? Well, Pages isn’t a perfect word processor, but it is optimized and designed for the iPad, and the latest version fixes some of the usability issues (no access to the menu bar when in landscape mode, for example) that the first version had.

Omnigraffle
?I’m a huge fan of the desktop app, which i consider “Visio on steroids.” My initial reaction to the ipad version was frustration and anger – the UI was hard to “get” initially, and had a learning curve steeper than I would have liked. But after taking the time to get to understand the app, it’s now one I use on a daily or weekly basis to create user flow diagrams and quick visualizations. Hopefully the next version will provide better stencil and document management capabilities.

Good Reader?
The ability to have all my documents with me is a godsend. I copy dozens of design articles, saved as PDFs, to the app via iTunes and the controls are intuitive and easy to use. It even supports syncing and downloading documents from box.net, Dropbox or iDisk.

Instapaper
?If I don’t have the time to save web pages as PDFs to read with Good Reader, I can quickly click the Read Later bookmark that saves the content of the page to Instapaper, and I can save an offline version of the article the next time I open the app on the iPad. An incredibly useful app, especially when I’m traveling and have no Internet access.

Penultimate?
This is the ultimate sketching app for the iPad, which allows me to quickly draw up ideas with my fingers or with…

Pogo sketch pencil
?Not an app, really, but a stencil that has a tip that the iPad or the iphone “reads” as biological. It gives me greater control than just my fingertip, and is a great deal at only $15.

Follow Joseph Dickerson on Twitter.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Banking on the iPad: Evolutionary or revolutionary?

by Joseph on May 7, 2010

Originally posted on Atmmarketplace.com…

The iPad, Apple’s much-hyped new tablet device, was released last month to some measure of success — over 1 million units were sold in just 28 days. Clearly, the device has found an audience, more than any other tablet computer produced to date.

The question for financial institutions is, does this matter? How should banks and credit unions react? In the short term, the best reaction is to make sure their websites work in the Safari browser that ships with the iPad. Consumers who bank online will continue that behavior, only now many of them will be doing it using iPads. Financial institutions should also make sure that if they provide a mobile version of their site that automatically launches when accessed by the iPhone, it doesn’t do the same when opened with the iPad. Limited screen size is not a concern with Apple’s new tablet.

So, should financial institutions rush to create custom iPad apps to support the new device? Not quite yet.

As a user experience architect with Fiserv, I have conducted scores of consumer interviews and usability tests to understand consumers and provide the most effective product design possible. While doing so, I have reaffirmed again and again that mental models (how users think of activities or objects) and usage patterns (what users do to accomplish day-to-day tasks) are two deciding factors when it comes to technology adoption and success.
As noted above, usage patterns will remain the same for a while — users will check their finances online, mostly through the financial institution website. They will typically access this site from their home computer or laptop, and the iPad will initially be just another access option. The 3G iPad, however, may shift the traditional usage patterns. Because it will offer uninterrupted Internet access anywhere the user is (within the AT&T service area, of course), consumers will be able to use it to bank “on the go.” The iPad may become the world’s best mobile banking platform, due to its screen size, processing power and ever-present connectivity. For the most part, this mobile banking will not take place through custom mobile apps, but through the web browser.

This is not intended to minimize or dismiss mobile banking applications. Consumers have many more mobile phones than iPads, and always will — but the iPad does provide a richer experience than most mobile devices. That said, it’s still about the user’s mental models that will determine if they will use the iPad for banking. If users think of the iPad as a device that is as secure as their personal computer, then they will use it for banking. If not, then the iPad will face concerns related to security and privacy.

Also, the way consumers eventually use the iPad should influence financial institution strategies around facilitating usage of their services via the iPad and other tablets. The iPad will be used by many as a “lean-back” device, intended for consumption of information and entertainment. Others will look at it as a “lean forward” device, one that can be used to create content such as presentations, documents, spreadsheets and more. For the first group, providing online banking services through their existing site may be more than sufficient. For the second, providing a custom iPad app that provides not only banking services but also financial planning and goal tracking may be more useful. How these usage patterns “shake out” over the next few months will be worth close attention.

Smart technology providers cannot afford to wait things out. Even though we do not know how end users will use the device, we are making sure that we “future proof” ourselves by ensuring that our products work with the iPad and that we provide apps for the platform. The idea of being able to use the iPad or other tablets to virtually “touch your money” is an intriguing one, and we have some top development resources working on a “touch banking” product offering for the iPad.

Some financial institutions have already started the process of providing such custom apps for the iPad. Spain’s Banco Sabadell will soon be rolling out its own custom iPad app, and it will not be the last. The key to the success of any such app is, as always, user-centered design. The apps should empower users to accomplish tasks, and not just be first-to-market “me too” solutions. When it comes to any such solution, banks should always keep consumer’s needs, mental models and usage patterns in mind.

So, will the iPad change things in banking? Not overnight, but, as we saw with Apple’s iPhone product just three short years ago, change can sneak up on the world very quickly. Apple went from 0 to 50 million iPhones sold in that time … and if they sell only one tenth as many iPads, that’s still a lot of existing (or potential) users for financial institutions to accommodate.

Follow Joseph Dickerson on Twitter.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Lessons in UX – “If we understand the extremes, then the middle will fall into place.”

by Joseph on April 17, 2010

I just finished watching the great documentary on industrial design Objectified, which has interviews with many of the best designers in the history of the domain, including a personal favorite of mine, Apple’s Jonathan Ive.

One moment early in the film struck a cord. The great designer Dam Formosa from Smart Design said that we need to understand the extremes – when designing hedge-clippers, if we understand that many of the people who use such a product are arthritic, and that many others are young and muscular, then supporting both will affectively support the needs of everyone else.

Could we apply such thinking to user experience design? I think so, and I think we already do it when it comes to creating personas.

In order to better understand our users we create representative personas, based on extensive user interviews, that my team can use to as design “targets.” These personas allow me to emphasize with the consumers of my designs so that I can craft solutions that work for them, and not for me (I also try and avoid using the same type of software that I design, to reduce the potential for bias).

The thing that I have found when it comes to personas, though, is something I call the “soft middle” – personas that are accurate but are so similar to the personas in the same range that they are almost indistinct. Whenever me or my team creates such personas we often label these personas as “secondary” personas, as opposed to the “primary” personas… The ones that represent the extremes.

So, what is the most important things to put into personas? A clear and (preferably) visual representation of the key characteristics and those “extremes”. We recently did a mobile research study, to understand how people use their mobile devices – and a key indicator we focused on was the engagement and involvement people had with the mobile technology.
How they thought of the devices, and the usage patterns and mental models we defined, allowed us to better understand what users need to understand to adopt mobile services my company was offering. We learned the extremes, and built personas from them. We could have created nine personas, but found that six primary and one secondary persona represented the data we found in our user research without having a “soft middle.”

In summary – define the most important characteristics, target the extremes, and do so by research real users. If you do your due diligence you’ll end up creating solutions that service the needs you find out. Like the man said, solve the problems at both sides of the scale and chances are you’ll solve the problems of everyone in the middle as well.

Follow Joseph Dickerson on Twitter.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Is the iPad expensive? Not when you look at how much you can do with it, and then do the math…

by Joseph on April 4, 2010

I love tech fanboys. If there is anything popular or new, their initial response is either to praise it to the heavens or to tear it down for what it doesn’t do. And this past week end we saw the best case study that I have seen in recent memory: the iPad. Apple’s new tablet computing thingeee has brought both sides of the tech continuum out of the woodwork and the comments and hyperbole on both sides have been… well, impressive.

Depending on where you go on the Internet the iPad will either revolutionize the way we use computers (throw away your mouse and keyboard NOW, people, to really get ahead of the curve) or is a crippled device that is overpriced and fails in almost every way (Oh, sorry, that’s “EPIC FAIL”).

I lean more towards the former, just because I’m an optimist. I think the iPad is great for what it IS, but it’s not the best thing that ever happened, ever. After using it for a coupled of days it has enhanced my life and made me more productive, and so I think it was worth buying. I expected what I was sold, and I got more than I hoped.

Not to sound like a fanboy, one thing that the critics claim that grates on my is the device is overpriced for what you get, compared to a netbook. Well, that is the wrong comparison, in my opinion. You need to look at usage patterns and the experience that the device provides – it’s very much an apples vs. oranges comparison. So here’s a quick “shopping list” that I pulled together that compares the iPad against other devices (plural) appropriately.

(This list is focused on USAGE, not functionality. YES, I know the Kindle has a longer-lasting battery, I get it – for most people that is a nice to have, not a must-have… power outlets are pretty ubiquitous. “But, but, it doesn’t do flash! It doesn’t multitask!” Well, yeah. The second is coming, and the first is slightly annoying – until all major sites stop using flash and use HTML 5 – which I think will happen, and soon…)

WHAT YOU CAN DO AND WHAT DOES IT COST:

The iPad: Entry level version, $499. It does a lot of stuff that a lot of other devices do (see below).

The other devices:

Netbook. The obvious one, first. The average price is $250, so let’s use that.

Nintendo DS or a PSP. Yes, the iPad is a great portable gaming system, with a screen that beats both these systems, hands down. The average is $170, so let’s use that. And the games are cheaper for the iPad.
Digital Photo Frame. The iPad has a “screen saver” that works as a great digital photo frame. Comparable frames of that size cost $150, so that’s the price I’ll use in my math.

Portable DVD player. A flat-screen DVD player costs $140-160 bucks, and with comparable screens. Yes, the iPad doesn’t play DVDs, but software to covert movies to a format that can play on the iPad is available, for free, for both Windows and OS X. And if that’s too complicated, users can buy movies in one click on the itunes store. Let’s pin this one at $140.

An iPod. The iPad works as a pretty damn good iPod, better than the Shuffle but in some ways not as comparable as the iPod Touch or the Nano (you can’t shoot video like you can with the Nano, but the screen is bigger than the iPod Touch). Let’s split the difference and say $100.

A Kindle. Yes, the Kindle has the e-ink technology, which is more usable in bright sunlight – but how often do you read in that environment? I’d say… rarely. The entry level Kindle is $259.

A streaming Netflix box. Yes, you can stream all your Netflix movies thanks to a new (and free) app. The Roku entry-level version costs $80, and even though you need to buy an extra accessory to output video from the iPad, think it’s fair to use the $80 price.

The Experience. I can’t pin a price on this one, but as a user experience architect, I consider the design of the devise – both the software and the industrial design of the hardware – to be absolutely vital to success. I would say that this one is “priceless” but let’s be generous and say that the iPad’s UI and hardware is worth about $50.

The bearing cost. I want to factor in the “convergence cost” – imagine owning, maintaing, and carrying around all the above every day. I’d go nuts if I had to do that. I’d say being able to do all the stuff I detailed in all the devices above in one singe device is worth $50 – it is to me, at least.

And the rest… The iPad is a great notebook, portable storage device, comic-book reader, board game… as they say, whatever the use case you may have, odds are “there’s an app for that.” I won’t assign a value to this, except to round up at the end.

The Total

So, how does it look? The total of all I have detailed above, rounding up? $1200. So, is the iPad a great deal, at the entry level price of $500? ABSOLUTELY. Is it making my, and many peoples lives better and easier? I would say so.

And when you realize that, adjusted for inflation, the iPad is the cheapest device that the (notoriously overpricing) Apple has ever sold? Well, it’s an even better deal.

Follow Joseph Dickerson on Twitter.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Speculation: Is Apple planning a personal payment service?

by Joseph on March 2, 2010

OK, this post should be considered wild-ass speculation, but, since a great many industry analysts are paid a great deal of money for such seemingly random musings, where’s the harm in throwing another ill-based rumor on the pyre?

I noted three things I found interesting when it comes to my favorite consumer electronics company recently. First, in the past two keynotes Steve Jobs has made a point to emphasize that they have hundreds of millions of customers in the Apple music store… and “all with credit cards.” An odd statement, contextually, unless what they are planning is what happens. Follow…

The second thing was that Apple has replaced the previous Windows-mobile based applications in all of their Apple stores with iPod Touches, all equipped with credit card readers and a proprietary app that supports point of sale transactions. They use hardware attached to the device to read the card and you “sign” with a stylus that works with the biosensitive ipod touch screen. Boring stuff, you may think… well, read on.

The third and most interesting thing that I am seeing is that a lot of companies are pushing the idea of a “pay anyone” service, where you can send money through the web… or through a mobile device. A startup called Square, from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is targeting such a market opportunity with a dongel that you connect to an iPhone that allows you to accept a credit or debit card payment anywhere… and they get a cut of the transaction. The technology looks cool… but I think they are late to the game.

I think Apple is ready to ship an iPhone that supports personal payments, with card-swiping built in.

Crazy talk? Think about it. They have the infrastructure (“millions of users – all with credit cards on file”), they control the hardware, and they are already using apps to do transactions – millions, every day, in all their stores. Cloud they “leap-frog” all the banks and financial services companies and provide such a “ay anyone, anywhere” service? Yes… and they would be able to socialize personal payments better and quicker than any other company could. And they’ll get a cut of every transaction.

Again, this is wild and crazy speculation, and this could mean that Apple could end up being, affectively, a big bank… but I wouldn’t put it past them. After all, Apple likes to “think different” and “follow the money.”

And there’s a lot of money in transaction fees.

Follow Joseph Dickerson on Twitter.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Steve Jobs, forgive me…

by Joseph on August 26, 2008

… I just bought my wife a new computer, and it wasn’t a mac.

To be fair, she has never wanted a mac, and has resisted the constant propaganda I had thrown her way since I switched a few years back. If I replaced her old HP computer with a Mac Mini I’d an iMac she would have raised a great ruckus, so I bought a $329 Compaq. Running Vista.

And, Jobs help me, I love it.

It’s fast, the new Ui is gorgeous, the media player and photo gallery programs are really nice… And so on. All for about half the cost of the Mac Mini or the original coat of the iPhone.

Have to say, with Vista finally to the point where users are beginning to accept it, and after some of the mistakes Apple made with the new iPhone rollout and software problems plaguing both it and Mobile Me… I may not ever “switch back,” but Vista is now a viable option to me.

Steve, you better have a new Special Event soon, cause you’re beginning to lose me…

Follow Joseph Dickerson on Twitter.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Leopard impressions…

by Joseph on October 28, 2007

Well, I just finished installing Leopard on my 4th Mac (one was for a friend of mine) and my initial thoughts are this… Fantastic OS, buggy installer. I had to do a full install on one of the four computers due to an unrecoverable error message during the upgrade. I had luckily backed up everything on that computer (and it was my non-critical laptop) but I shudder to think what my reaction would have been if I hadn’t.

Also, restoring files from the backup was not seamless – it would not import my old address book calendar files and did not import e-mail settings. The only way I was able to get my data back on the computer was due to my “backup” contacts and calendar on my iPhone…

Reading around the net today a LOT of people who tried the default upgrade encountered similar problems. If this was Windows, a LOT more press would come from this, methinks, but due to the “thank you sir may I have another” relationship may in the Apple community have with the company, the complaints will be far less than the number of individuals affected by this.

I think that the installer, honestly, was not ready for release, but Apple, just like they did with the iPhone, released a partial-beta to the public.

The most success (and the only upgrade of the two I tried that worked) was with my son’s mac mini, but then again, he has no e-mail or calendar entries and very few documents…

As I stated, he operating system is fantastic (and I am already taking advantage of spaces to increase my efficiency), but the advice I am giving everyone is simple – if you can backup and know how to restore your files, then do a clean install. Otherwise, wait until the next version is released (probably before Christmas – look for stickers on the outside of the package before then, indicating the point-release…)

Follow Joseph Dickerson on Twitter.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

{ 0 comments }

More iPhone update reax – this time from Leo Laporte

October 3, 2007 Read the full article →

Apple store grand opening flickr photos

September 22, 2007 Read the full article →

Live blogging outside the new Apple Store

September 22, 2007 Read the full article →

← Previous Entries