Interface

RantWoman is blessed to live in an area where she is currently getting multiple opportunities to play crash test dummy for various just over-the-horizon interfaces with a smart phone. This circumstance has unexpectedly offered RantWoman opportunities to reflect on what she wants in a phone interface.

RantWoman is also in a quandary: RantWoman suspects she is interacting with what would likely be competing products. One interaction involves a confidentiality agreement; the other test dummy experience wants RantWoman to credit the research group. RantWoman is drawing on current and past experiences. RantWoman is basically offering people who are using her time and wantint to make a lot of money off her efforts free consulting. RantWoman thinks she is going to focus on her own perspectives in this entry and credit the research group that wants credit in a separate post.


RantWoman REALLY LIKES Tactile buttons
RantWoman knows that touch screens are all the rage. RantWoman has fat fingers that, for a first pass, would really, really much prefer seriously tactile buttons. Long ago, as in early last decade, RantWoman and Ferrener Husband had WONDERFUL alpha-numeric pagers. The pagers had a phone number that someone could call and leave a message through an operator to be delivered through the phone. RantWoman did not need the operator interface, but Ferrener Husband did. What RantWoman ADORED, besides the opportunity to emit writings, 500 characters at a time to whole email lists, and the peculiar convenience of having arguments silently from across town, was the keyboard. It was a TACTILE keyboard with clear easy-to-feel buttons. RantWoman had a tendency to type with one or two fingers on each hand, but RantWoman definitely felt that typing with both hands was possible and that it was less tiring and more efficient than typing with only one hand.

RantWoman used this pager before her midlife vision meltdown. It had a backlit screen and predated the age of internet on every mobile device. At the time the visual interface was workable but RantWoman would have liked better contrast.

A bigger screen
RantWoman knows there is the iPad and an assortmetn of such devices. RantWoman thinks something with a bigger interface than the typical smart phone would draw FLOCKS of new customers like RantWoman or even RantMom with fat or arthritic fingers and poor vision. Writing things out to a bigger screen would be a total boon.


Things RantWoman is not crazy about:
RantWoman got to test input with what she can only describe as a little doohickey on a headset. RantWoman really does not DO subtle as far as buttons. RantWoman also thinks that, although the headset is necessary, RantWoman might like to try having the little doohickey closer to the phone rather than to RantWoman's face.

For one thing, RantWoman is likely to be using the phone and any associated interface in all kinds of unstable environments like the bus. RantWoman might really want headphones on but might prefer for various reasons to keep her hands closer to her device.

The next input method RantWoman got to test was a touchscreen keyboard with audio feedback called Voiceover. (tm intended) RantWoman found the small keyboard both convenient in terms of easy small motions and tiring because it led RantWoman to a lot of repetitive finger motions and one-handed typing. Nevertheless, RantWoman got pretty good and would seriously a commerical product showing off this input method.

The next input method RantWoman got to test on an Android phone is a system based on the braille alphabet called Perkinput. The three fingers of one hand are first dots 1,2,3 and then 4,5,6. Letters that use only half a cell are indicated with a single swipe. Spaces and erasures are indicated by swiping two and three fingers respectively at a time. The system was set up for only uncontracted braille and no punctuation. Apparently some test subjects, longtime braille readers found it hard to do uncontracted braille though entering half a cell at a time proved manageable for most testees. RantWoman found herself with an interesting desire: RantWoman might have liked the option of using her left hand for entry, but if so, she would have wanted a way to tell Perkinput to revers the order of dots and read from right to left instead of left to right.


Three-fingers Perkins like ............

Braill