I like the exposure we’re getting to the usability of mobile devices. I mentioned in a previous post that I didn’t know much about designing for mobile and now I feel that, although by no means am I an expert, I have a better handle on the topic and some of the problems it can cause, as well as some design methods to deal with them.
It surprised me that, with the current popularity of using mobile devices to access the web, that there isn’t already good usability and gestural capture software. Someone will make a lot of money if they solve that problem well.
For now, it does seem that gestures are deeply embedded in the use of mobile devices. Still, it seems like the same problem I mentioned in last week’s post: the devices are almost all very limited in how much they can allow for (an average) 10mm finger tip to do.
We had a speaker a while back at Intuit and his team had started building an app that was literally based on the one from Minority Report. The funny thing was that, luckily before they had put too much time and money into it, while trying to use paper prototypes on a whiteboard to simulate the gestural movements of Tom Cruise, everyone’s shoulders got way too tired, way too quickly and they had to scrap the idea. I guess even with “simple” gestures, you sometimes have to go too far before you know where the limits are.
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