Digitally Refreshing

I long for another phone (but not an iPhone yet).

I’ve been using my HTC Diamond for 3 months.

I’ve persisted with the touch screen, I’ve researched speed issues, I’ve trauled forums, I’ve edited settings and I’m still unhappy.

I’m fed-up with having to restart my HTC Diamond to get the menus to work, or having to switch the power on and off (the small black button at the top of the handset) to kick start the thing into reposnding.

I spent 2 hours yesterday trying to figure out why Gmail won’t send emails, but will receive them (you have to actually delete the Gmail account and start again).

I hate the way Windows 6 Mobile pokes its ugly head through the HTC Diamond’s (redeeming) slick look and feel.

The browser is not good. This dissappoints me as I’m a desktop Opera user. it’s not clear when you’ve tapped a link, nor is it clear when something is happening – or how long it will take for a page to load – the green loading bar doesn’t work for me.

Screen gestures just aren’t clever enough, I end up tapping when I mean to scroll and vise versa. I don’t know how Apple do it, but gestures are practically flawless on my iPod Touch.

The Accelerometer, when used with the browser, is sluggish and jumpy.

The battery life is abismal – but this isn’t out of the ordinary for a device such as this.

I could go on, but this is turning into a rant …

Jakob Nielsen put together ten general principles for user interface design. He calls them Usability Heuristics, you can read them below:

Visibility of system status
The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.

Match between system and the real world
The system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.

User control and freedom
Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.

Consistency and standards
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.

Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.

Recognition rather than recall
Minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.

Flexibility and efficiency of use
Accelerators — unseen by the novice user — may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.

Aesthetic and minimalist design
Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

Help and documentation
Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

For further reading on this subject please visit the links below:

• http://www.useit.com
• http://www.asktog.com

“Sitescore is a free tool which rates how well designed, popular and accessible your website is.”

And it works very, very well. I was quite taken aback by the depth of their analysis. Typically this sort of information would have been reserved for paying guests. Make sure to try it out – I did…

This is the rating I received for Pixel Juice: