Handheld Usability
I just finished reading Handheld Usability by Scott Weiss (ISBN: 0470844469) and I have to say I was initially disappointed. Scott's book should have been named "The Process to Handheld Usability". Don't get me wrong, the book goes into some good detail on what you should do to create the best user interface you can for your handheld product. The problem is I had a pre-conceived notion that this book would tell me how to create a usable UI for my handheld application.
The first section of the book discusses the differences between handheld devices and the desktop, and the various handheld devices out on the market. The middle of Chapter 3 gives some good guidelines for handheld UI design. Chapter 4 'Information Architecture: Practice' goes into some detail on what are good handheld elements (e.g. menus) on specific types of devices (e.g. phones) and how to use them (e.g. use no more then 8 menu items and 1 "More" menu item). This chapter is more along the lines of what I expected. The second, almost half, of the book discusses the best ways to conduct usability testing. I agree with Scott that this is a *very* important step that many companies skip when creating their products, not just handheld products. He discusses two specific types of usability testing: paper prototyping and online prototyping and how to get the best out of each of them.
This book describes the process designers should use to develop a good UI...and this is what you really want because it lets UI designers go beyond the current thinking and develop a new way for users to interact with your product (the Applet iPod UI was most likely developed by this, or a similar process).
If you're looking for a book to tell you how to create your UI (does such a book exist? can one be written?) this book will give you some good tips. If, on the other hand, your looking for a book to give you a process by which you can figure out what your handheld UI should look like, this is a good, quick read.
The first section of the book discusses the differences between handheld devices and the desktop, and the various handheld devices out on the market. The middle of Chapter 3 gives some good guidelines for handheld UI design. Chapter 4 'Information Architecture: Practice' goes into some detail on what are good handheld elements (e.g. menus) on specific types of devices (e.g. phones) and how to use them (e.g. use no more then 8 menu items and 1 "More" menu item). This chapter is more along the lines of what I expected. The second, almost half, of the book discusses the best ways to conduct usability testing. I agree with Scott that this is a *very* important step that many companies skip when creating their products, not just handheld products. He discusses two specific types of usability testing: paper prototyping and online prototyping and how to get the best out of each of them.
This book describes the process designers should use to develop a good UI...and this is what you really want because it lets UI designers go beyond the current thinking and develop a new way for users to interact with your product (the Applet iPod UI was most likely developed by this, or a similar process).
If you're looking for a book to tell you how to create your UI (does such a book exist? can one be written?) this book will give you some good tips. If, on the other hand, your looking for a book to give you a process by which you can figure out what your handheld UI should look like, this is a good, quick read.
