Mobile Interface Design

There are several contributing trends which are useful to consider while creating mobile user interface guidelines, including:

   1. The rapid proliferation of touch screen and other gestural user interfaces which combine "direct" physical control with digital interface design. If you want to design for a finger, you have to know how a finger works.

   2. The growth of ubiquitous computing leading to an increased range of scale and form factor in mobile / handheld devices that contain user interfaces, from traditional computers and laptops, to kiosks, tablets, mobile phones, interactive video walls, electronic ink and handheld consumer appliances (to name a few).  As a result, people are interacting with user interfaces in a range of positions and contexts that go beyond simply standing or sitting in front of a screen. So beyond fingertips, knowing how people can reasonably use their bodies to hold, view, reach and interact is critical.

   3. Computing power and bandwidth across such mobile devices now supports more complex, involved tasks such as data entry, long duration reading and gaming, all of which can lead to user risks for repetitive motion injuries, or at least discomfort. Having a knowledge of the types of interactions that can cause such injuries, and how to design around them, is essential to developing mobile user interface guidelines.

   4. An increasingly diverse range of end-users are gaining access to mobile interactive devices, across age, and physical characteristics. For example, the One Laptop Per Child campaign has produced a global, kid-sized laptop. In home health care, a market of predominately elderly users, more devices contain embedded user interfaces. And ADA and similar legislation requires that mobile / handheld devices are accessible to users with a range of disabilities. In other words, you need to know your user, for it is not you - a given in mobile user interface design, a necessity in ergonomic design.

   5. Last, but not least - interest. Several of the factors described above are driving many interaction designers to explore and study the world of physical product interface design. For example, the IIT Institute of Design is hosting a "thinkering" workshop specifically to provide "an opportunity for interaction designers to get their hands dirty with electronics, soldering, and wiring, and learn how to interface hardware artifacts with virtual interactions." Just as it is important to understand the electro-mechanics of hardware, it is essential to understand the relevant mechanical attributes for the users of such handheld / mobile hardware.

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