Why everyone in the technology business should use a touch interface for at least a week

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You don’t know what touch is, until you’ve used it.

I’ve been using a touch based mobile phone (an HTC Hero, running Android 1.5) for the last 4 or 5 days, and I’m convinced that everyone who is in the technology space must use a touch based device as one of their primary devices for at least a week.

I’m not asking you to switch to an iPad permanently. I’m not saying that the iPhone is better than your Nokia or your Blackberry. I’m not saying that touch will kill the keyboard. All I am saying is that touch is different, and the only way to really understand it is to use it for a while. After you’ve understood touch, you can go back to your favourite input interface. But remember, that if you’re in the business of technology, touch will be a major part of the lives of a major part of your customer-base in the foreseeable future – and it’s different enough that for every product you put out, you must ask yourself, how will this appear on a touch based device.

Why?

Here are some reasons:

Touch is different

Yes, in theory, I knew that interacting with a program using a touch based device is very different from interacting with it using a mouse and a keyboard. I already knew these things:

  • Fingers are fatter than mouse pointers, and hence, all buttons need to be fatter
  • Touch allows various new ways of interacting–like fling, and drag, and long-press

However, it is only after using the phone myself for day-to-day tasks that I realized that there are a hundred little things that make things different. For example:

  • Most of the time, there is no keyboard. Which means that all your shortcut keys are gone. No <Del> to delete something, no Ctrl-C to copy, and no Ctrl-A to select all.
  • There is no good way you can move your cursor to the middle of a sentence. So if you typed Naavin insted of Navin by mistake, normally you would simply take your cursor after the second a and then hit backspace. Guess what… there is no back arrow, and tapping on the screen to make your cursor go to spot just after the second a is almost impossible. The only way is to backspace all the way and re-type everything.
  • The long-press is equivalent to the context menu in Windows/Linux (i.e. the menu you get when you right click the mouse on some item). Well, by definition, long-press takes a long time, and it painful enough that I simply avoid it and try to find alternative ways of doing things.
  • When you’re interacting with the screen, your finger is actually covering the screen. This makes some things more difficult.
  • There is no that allows you to skip to the next field when filling out a form. To get around this, some apps add a “Next” key to the keyboard when you’re filling out forms. You don’t realize how important this key is, until you’ve filled some forms and have to go to the next field by hiding the keyboard, scrolling and selecting the next field.

There’s a whole bunch of tiny issues like these that can completely kill a user experience unless the app has been specifically designed for the touch interface, by someone who actually uses a touch interface (as opposed to someone who’s just imagining the touch interface).

Touch will be a major part of your life

In spite of all the issues I pointed out above, I’m convinced that touch is a very intuitive interface, and is a huge improvement over mouse+keyboard for a large number of applications. Enough has been written about this on the web, so I will not repeat those arguments here. If you’ve not heard those arguments before, you should befriend Google.

But the point is that whether you like it or not, a major fraction of your customers/consumers will be using touch to consume your content. So, get with the program.

It’s not just about mobile apps

I somehow had this vague notion that the people who really need to spend time understanding touch are those who are building iPhone or Android apps. Then, while using my device, I realized that I was visiting a lot of vanilla websites using my mobile phone browser. And some of those sites sucked.

So, even if you’re not a mobile app developer, you still need to worry about touch. If you have any website out there, if you’ve put out any content on the web, you should spend some time in understanding how your content shows up on touch devices.

And, yes, this even applies to you if you don’t have anything really to do with the UI of whatever it is that you’re working on. The UI is the only thing about your product that the end user (the person who’s paying) interacts with. So better make sure you take an interest in that.

I said “primary device” and “1 week”

That’s right. You need to use a touch device as one of your primary devices for about a week before you “get” some of these issues. You need to view your content, or use your app, using that device to really understand.

I can count a long list of friends who played with a touch based device for about 15 minutes (mostly playing some games, and a photo album) before deciding that they’ve seen enough. But, good UI is about deciding which inconveniences does the user get used to over time, and which ones continue to remain a pain. And the only way you’ll know that is by going through it yourself.

Announcement : The sad demise of Youth

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This was just written by a friend of mine (who is turning 45 this July). Blogging it without comments (some identifying details have been redacted):

Dear All
I regret to inform you of the passing away of my Youth yesterday. The end finally came at 10 am on 6th April 2010 when the diagnosis of impaired glucose tolerance (a kind of pre-diabetes state) and a bizzare lipid profile were confirmed.

Some of you knew my Youth very well, others had only recently become acquainted. Youth took charge of my life in1982, when I joined medical school in Xxxxxx, India. Youth took over from a reasonably co-operative and shy Adolescent who had done nothing remarkable during the preceding 8 years. It was a heady time, and Youth had little time for niceties. Youth started by re-writing the rule book and throwing out all existing rules and limitations. Youth introduced me to a world of late night parties, drinking excessively, driving recklessly and missing classes in the medical school. Hangovers became a very common occurrence, and heartbreak was the order of the day. Youth was also highly principled and believe in old fashioned concepts such as liberty, fraternity and equality. This led us to get involved in multiple disastrous challenges with the Authorities, who at once stage even issued arrest orders for Youth's involvement in a strike by resident medical officers at XXX Hospital, Xxxxxxxx.

Youth finally took me to UK in 1991 and I had an excellent time in London over the next 8 years. During this time, Youth became quite disciplined and we managed a few important acquisitions – in 1995, Youth spearheaded our acquisition of the Membership of the Royal College of Xxxxxxxx and 1996 saw us acquire the Xxxxxxxx fellowship.

London also saw the birth of Xxxxxxxx, my first son, and many felt that this would finally slow down Youth, but these fears failed to materialise. Youth continued to be as irresponsible and care-free as before, taking  momentous decisions with very little preparation. One example of such behaviour was returning  to India from UK in 1999 with no stable job and no plan of what to do in life.

The last ten years have been a difficult period for Youth, with the ongoing battle with Middle Age for control of my life. However Youth continued to sparkle and there were many an irresponsible and gay night when Youth was completely in charge and there was not a hint of maturity or responsibility around.

I hope we will all remember Youth as this positive, irresponsible, reckless, cheerful, optimistic character who defied all odds and was up to all challenges. His passing will be missed by me and I am sure by many of my friends.

In view of this sad incident, Middle Age has now taken charge of my life and will be responsible for all future decisions on my behalf. Some of you may be well acquainted with Middle Age while others have only seen Middle Age from a distance. Let me assure you that Middle Age is a very responsible, stable, level headed person and I am certain that I am in safe hands. I hope you will extend all support to Middle Age during this difficult transition as you have always done so in the past.

As you all know very well, we are now on the home stretch and Middle Age is only temporary arrangement for the next few years, until more permanent and final arrangements are confirmed.

sadly yours
xxxxxxxx

ps. as per centuries-old tradition, a Wake will be organized at my residence on XXth July 2010 to celebrate the passing away of Youth. You are all invited to attend and remember our dear old friend in an atmosphere of gaiety  and fun. I am sure this is the way Youth would have liked us to remember him. Please do not forget to get your own poisons – alcohol, cigarettes, or any other addictive substance that you are in love with. The Wake will end only when the last member of the group has passed out.

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

What makes you happy, and what doesn’t?

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What gives you happiness? This New York Times article collects together a number of tidbits from research studies that look at what are the things that make you happy and what are the things that you think will make you happy, but don’t.

Money doesn’t make you happy:

On a personal scale, winning the lottery doesn’t seem to produce lasting gains in well-being. People aren’t happiest during the years when they are winning the most promotions. Instead, people are happy in their 20′s, dip in middle age and then, on average, hit peak happiness just after retirement at age 65.

On the other hand, your relationships do make you happy.

If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting. According to one study, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. According to another, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year.

I guess we all know that already; but it’s interesting that there’s a dollar figure attached to a happy marriage!

And, the parting thought:

The second impression is that most of us pay attention to the wrong things. Most people vastly overestimate the extent to which more money would improve our lives. Most schools and colleges spend too much time preparing students for careers and not enough preparing them to make social decisions.

See the full article – it’s short and sweet and interesting.