Addressing the Stylus-Driven UI

Given the fact that touchscreens have become nothing but the “in” thing to do, it seems like most every innovation with the Internet Tablet focuses on making it finger-friendly. Now, there’s nothing wrong with it, and personally I prefer it. But, what would happen if we addressed the UI from a perspective of being optimized for use with a stylus?

Navigation

As much as sometimes we don’t want to admit it, using the stylus is sometimes the most effective way to navigate around the tablet. Here are a few recommendations for making the stylus more effective:

• Making actions such as tap and hold more evident on things like text, icons, and when items are highlighted by showing a star or some kind of indicator that there are some additional functions
• When scrolling web pages and long documents (PDFs, etc.) with the stylus, show trails that accelerate or decelerate scrolling speed as well as FF/RW buttons to do a quick page up/down action on the page
• In applications that feature forward and back, allow for gesture actions with the stylus to go forward and backward (essential in full-screen mode)

If you will, the point here is keeping the stylus in your hand, and a part of the interaction of the tablet that finger-friendly UIs expose.

Writing

I want to break this up into two subsections, handwriting and keyboard.

Handwriting

• In terms of handwriting we can look at having a transparent writing pad appear over writable sections (when the focus cursor is activated for those items)
• Improve the sensitivity of the handwriting engine so that letters that are written together can be easily trained and recognized (maybe some type of AI can be added here)

Virtual Keyboard

• Allow for users to not have to lift the stylus, but at every “stop” and “direction change” the letter is recognized.
• Change the location of the word compted words to the top of the virtual keyboard, keeping the space bar free from being possibly taken up by too long a list of words
• Transparency could be nice here too

Thinking About Different Needs

I know that we normally want to think about things in a way that seems comfortable to us, but the truth of designing a user interface is that you are making something that is comfortable to be learned for someone else. Fingers are great, and painting with them can really amount to some neat artwork. But for those that like to use a brush, attention has to be paid to them too, because some really nice masterpieces can be made when we make sure that the canvas, paints, and brushes have been made with them in mind too.

Chapter IV: Ready to surf.

Hello there.

Today we’ll talk again about main feature and main way of use of Internet Tablets — Internet surfing. But not about the window to the web, MicroB. We’ll talk about things, that are very common for every user and that we face many times every day. Actions, that comes before surfing itself. I have some ideas how to make them more handy and seamless. So, let’s begin.

As we begin in every article, lets see what we have now. A connection icon in the tray that opens drop-down menu, where you can select connection and go to the connectivity settings. All looks pretty handy, but in fact it’s not. Let’s count steps, that we take to connect to the internet in different situations.

Added Wi-Fi hot-spot.

1. Click the icon.
2. Click “Select connections”
3. “Exit offline mode?” - yep.
4. Window opens.
5. Wait for Wi-Fi to search for all APs.
6. Click AP that you need.

You’re online in 6 steps and near 15 seconds. Not so fast to my mind. It’s a bit faster with BT connection, cause you don’t need to wait for AP’s to be searched, but it’s totally ruined if you need to connect thru different phones. You need to digg deep into settings to switch the phone.

So, I’ve found easier way to handle all of this. Take a look.

Chapter III: Home Sweet Home.

Hi.

Before starting our discussion I want to tell some ideas that will explain the features that I want to suggest now and later. So, let’s begin.

Freedom is a great thing. Freedom allows you to do anything you want whenever or wherever you want. But not all humans can use freedom in the right way. Some of them don’t even know what to do. Let’s take games for example. Imagine that you don’t know the rules of football for example. You’re just standing in the field with the ball. And there are another 21 men that don’t know the rules. There will be no game, until all of you will make some rules, single for everyone. And all will be guided by this rules.

Going from Reading to ReadWriting

This is a derivation of a post made on my personal website titled “Going from Reading to ReadWriting by Improving the Internet Tablet“, though tuned for this site’s audience. Reading both might bring more clarity towards the idea in its enterity. But I wanted to keep this centered for this audience as much as possible.

Like many who read this blog, I have invested a good deal of my mobile computing life into getting a device (or devices) and a set of services that works best for how I need to be productive in this quickly changing world. Unlike many, I know however, I tend to spend a lot of time in a browser, most of my working day in fact. Because of this association with the browser as a vital part of work and play, I’ve come to understand some of its shortcomings, and laud its benefits on whatever platform that I can.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that I have always been a fan of the Internet relayed to me on the Internet Tablet (IT). The reason is that while it does an excellent job in presenting to me the web that I can read, because of several aspects of the browser (and accompanying hardware/software issues), I cannot interact with it the way that an “internet tablet” should allow. If you will, Web 2.0 opened the door to an Internet that we did not just read but we also could compose. However, this central aspect of the web is not exploited on the IT. Moreover, I believe that this is one central reason why the user interface and user experience misses for the target audience and beyond.

Addressing UI (and UX) via Extensions

As some have already shown, the microB browser on the IT is capable of using extensions originally created for Firefox. However, for one reason or another, this has not jumpstarted the IT developer community towards making UI improvements.

For example, extensions in Firefox enable functionality such as blogging from any screen, saving bookmarks to online bookmarking services, taking screen shots, or even using embedded microformated content.

I propose addressing the UI items spoken about in previous posts here by developing extensions that do things like add a finger-sized scrollbar, or change the appearance of the address bar.

Actually ReadWriting

This does not get us to the point of readwriting the web though. To get to this point, the browser has to facilitate more than just consuming content. The easiest way to address this would be seeing a tighter integration between the microB browser and various web services.

For example, adding a content menu when one taps and holds on an image stating “Send to Flickr” or “Add to Flickr and Tag.” Or how about adding a content menu that would appear when text is highlighted that would ask if the information needs to be parsed into calendar/contact format, or automatically pasted into an email.

More than UI

Pushing the ability of the browser past just a portal to consumer content means that the UI has to do more than look good. It enables the IT user to craft a trend of using “internet anywhere” as a more normative view of using the Internet. When services are tasked with being able to plug-in efficiently to the said browser, a layer of “how” is breached for users so that “go” becomes the new how. We’ve seen how the rise of extensions for Firefox has allowed for users to create a personalized web that is and isn’t a part of the online experience. Given the personal and touchscreen natures of the IT, one could argue that doing the same would enable the same type of UI/UX shift.

Most of what I propose is more along the lines of user experience than the interface itself. Nevertheless, I’ll argue that the two have to dance more when it comes to addressing the usability of the IT. As a platform, until the device starts to push against the status quo, it will continue to just be viewed as a device that is one of many. And that it is, lest someone tears a page out of history and decides to use an Internet Tablet to write another. Then the web really begins to script life differently.