JeffKirvin.net

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to optimize the Windows Mobile user interface. Palm OS and the iPhone/iPod variant of OS X get a lot of props for being so simple and easy to use, and Windows Mobile always seems to lag behind. A while back I was reading an article on WMexperts.com about the Windows Mobile UI, and in the comments I found this interesting point:

Besides leveraging the desktop, there’s a paradigm in WM which most critics just don’t get. MS has a view that when mobile its all about "glanceable information" ie. it’s not about the apps, but the information synchronized from the desktop or exchange server. WM is not app centric. Its not even task centric. It tries to be information centric. Its not brilliant at it, but the today screen is the center of activity on a WM device, and for someone that’s very busy having info that’s glanceable is very valuable… If MS were to copy the iPhone and its playskool interface, one can only hope they don’t lose one of the most powerful aspect of their OS, the ease with which apps can expose and surface their information to the user on the home screen. — Surur, WMexperts.com

Surur has an excellent point here. Windows Mobile devices revolve around the Today screen, particularly the way it can be extended to display just the combination of information sources each individual user needs. Where the Palm and Apple concept is to make a simple grid of application icons the home screen for the device, Microsoft chose instead to go with what users need at a glance, what they’re likely to want to see within the first second or two of turning on the device.

By default, this makes the Windows Mobile home screen (I’m talking about Windows Mobile Professional or Pocket PC versions here) a bit pedestrian by today’s standards. It gets the job done, but not terribly efficiently. There is a clean simplicity to a list of plugins, their icons forming a column down the left edge of the screen in front of indented content, but it’s not a great use of screen real estate.

It’s also worth noting that the stock Today screen does not even attempt to mimic the application launchers at the core of Palm OS or the iPhone. While there is a brisk business in third party plugins to let you launch applications from the Today screen, this seems to be counter to Microsoft’s design intent. Microsoft’s design intent is confusing, inconsistent and contradictory, but I’ll get to that in another article.

Let’s stick with the Today screen for now. Given that it’s supposed to be the center of the Windows Mobile experience, the "desktop" if you will, and intended to show varied information at a glance, how best to optimize this experience?

My answer to that question changes constantly, but I’ve learned a few things.

First, it’s vital to keep everything on one screen, and if possible do away with the scroll bar as well. A lot of the more popular Today screen plugins provide a tabbed interface, including the popular Home plugin from HTC, the biggest Windows Mobile device maker. From a usability standpoint, this is a mistake, since only one tab can be visible at a time. All the information in the inactive tabs lose their "glanceability" and require more finger pressing or d-pad gymnastics to get to. Similarly, anything you have to scroll to see usually won’t be seen (just like the less important front page stories in a newspaper are below the fold), so make sure information decreases in importance as it falls lower on the screen. Anything that scrolls offscreen should be something you can afford to ignore (and wonder why you need it on the Today screen in the first place).

Secondly, and related to the scroll issue, is keep the important stuff near the top. In the screenshot above, you’ll notice I have Spb Phone Suite at the very top of the screen, where the big, finger-friendly notification, profile and speed dial buttons are quickly and easily accessible by finger, d-pad or scroll wheel. Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palm Pilot, was famous for "tap counting", being absolutely ruthless about streamlining and cutting any extraneous steps out of a workflow on a mobile device. He was right. Every single button press counts, so make the stuff you use often easy to get to. I may fine tune my Today screen a bit myself, moving the Live Search box to the bottom and bring the clock one click closer.

Lastly (for now, I’ve got some other thoughts that need to simmer a bit more before I post them), keep things finger-friendly as much as possible. The iPhone and the WM-based HTC Touch have proven that the stylus isn’t necessary or even desirable on a touch screen device. As you can see by the third screenshot in this article, when Pocket Player is running I have big finger-friendly buttons right on my Today screen, making it easy to control my tunes from my home screen. The clock is also big enough to hit with my thumb, giving me quick access to my alarm settings. To accommodate this without scrolling PocketBreeze at the bottom dynamically adjusts itself to fit into the remaining space.

Next up in UI Musings: dissecting my Today screen plugin by plugin, why I selected each and why they’re in the order they’re in, and a look at how to launch programs in Windows Mobile and how to optimize that experience.