hyenalab’s mobile app design pointers

8/8/2019 HyenaLabs Mobile App Design Pointers

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HyenaLabss Mobile App design pointers

Proprietary and Confidential HyenaLabs

HyenaLabs Mobile app design

pointers.

Quick, quality and economical UX solutions


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ContentsExecutive Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 3

Human Computer Interaction ....................................................................................................................... 3

HCI Convergence of HCI towards Mobile devices .................................................................................. 3

User Expectations form the Mobile Devices ............................................................................................. 3

Factors promoting Mobile devices services popularity ................................................................................ 4

HCI is evolving ............................................................................................................................................... 5

User Experience on Handheld devices .......................................................................................................... 5

Overview ..................................................................................................................................................... 5

Interaction Design .......................................................................................................................................... 6

Interaction design areas............................................................................................................................ 6

CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING - When you lose context you lose everything.............................................. 6

Interaction design Insights for Handheld devices ..................................................................................... 6

Information Architecture .......................................................................................................................... 8

Some insights for IA design for mobile devices ........................................................................................ 8

Visual Design ........................................................................................................................................... 13

Different types of handheld devices ........................................................................................................... 15Mobile devices Design guidelines for better User Experience ................................................................... 17

Ideas for Handheld device design ........................................................................................................... 17

User Experience design considerations for senior citizens ................................................................. 20


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Executive Summary

Handheld devices are common today. They have become our constant companion. Mobile device arealways with us i.e. Travelling to office, in office, in park, in malls. What is making them eligible to stay

close? We are looking for similar answers in below sections & Mobile device design for good user

experience to make our lives comfortable.

The time span for which we live with Mobile devices is going to be larger sometimes more as compared

to our loved ones. Close proximity of mobile devices suggests us to design a good user experience with

them. Users are expecting small internet experience on mobile phones. To provide rich internet type of

experience on mobile devices needs UX expertise & common sense. The hand held device interface is an

interaction area overlapped by User activity, environment & culture. The roots of user experience on

handheld devices are deeper than what we think. In this paper, we would try to explore the different

aspects, future, design guidelines for hand held devices.

Human Computer Interaction

HCIConvergence of HCI towards Mobile devices

Most of us have heard about HCI, for the readers who are new to HCI the question comes to them, What

is HCI?

Human-computer interaction is a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation

of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding

them."

HCI focuses to improve the interaction between users & the computers to make computers more

receptive towards user needs. The computers are shrinking themselves into mobile devices now days

due to the growth of embedded operating systems. There are many other factors which is making this

convergence at a fast pace. Now the question is should we fear this convergence, as we cannot match

the internet richness on the Mobile devices. I suggest we should welcome the transition with a warm

heart & user UX skills to design usable, user friendly devices that makes the target audiences happier.

User Expectations form the Mobile Devices

Mobile devices are supporting multiple services for users. They help users do many things other than

receiving & making calls from them. As per user survey, 21% of the users want to browse the internet &

13% users are keen to share content on their mobile devices.


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Source: Mobile Entertainment Platforms and Services, a survey of 2,112 Internet users

Factors promoting Mobile devices services popularityTechnology is helping Mobile devices to evolve at a faster rate. Businesses are keen to provide Industry

specific services for customers to win their loyalty & develop business edge. Below are some of the

factors, which are making the mobile services more prominent.

IT & Software majors like Google, Microsoft, Symbian, Qualcomm, Montavista software, SavaJe,

are actively entering into Embedded Operating system. Microsoft with Embedded Standard

2009, Google with Android, Simian OS, iPhone OS, Palm OS are fueling the Mobile device

services market.

Mobile phone penetration is increasing rapidly, as per Portio Research; a market-research firm

global mobile penetration will reach 75% by 2011.The mobile users will be seeking mobile-

based services.

The convergence of internet and mobile phones creates the mobile internet, which in fact

provides the user with extended possibilities in the mobile communication.

WAP (Wireless application protocol) is growing supporting developers of mobile, interactive

data services for the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication). All contemporary mobile

application rely on WAP.


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1. Interaction Design

2. Information Architecture &

3. Visual design

Interaction Design

Interaction design is the science of defining the behaviors of products & applications a user interacts.

Interaction design revolves around softwares, mobile devices & electronic devices. Interaction

designers work on the work flow of new applications, they perform task flow analysis & improves the

interaction with the applications.

Interaction design areas

The aspects of Interaction are important when we go for Mobile devices. Studies suggest mobile devices

are used for a particular context of significant importance surrounded by environmental distractions.

Interaction for handheld devices can be summed in few words.

CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING - When you lose context you lose everything

The user accompanies mobile devices everywhere. To parties, travelling, office, movies. Mobile devices

are inseparable from users. On other hand desktops cannot be taken everywhere so easily, techno-

logical advancement like laptops are only taken to meetings & work places or when we travel for a

business trip.

The hand held device is also surrounded in different context like connection type, carrier provider

policies, type of device from feature to functionality. The interface of the device acts as the layer onwhich user & his context meets for a purpose. We are at the brink of providing a mini Web experience to

mobile phone users. The opportunity looks dormant, we will engage the customers at any time any

place, and the business value implications are immense.

Interaction design Insights for Handheld devices

Interaction design for hand held devices is a bit different in comparison with computers. Let us explore

the differences.

Processing capacity of the handheld device will have a limited impact on the performance

The mobile phones will use the resources from different servers/applications & display the results

on the phone. Mobile phone can become a remote control for smart environments, and serve

functions including personal identity, wallet, ticket, entrance key, activator and personal display.


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Hand held devices will make Find ability easier

Mobile phones are inseparable from us now. GPRS, RFID, Location tagging on Google maps will

encourage the users to become aware about the surroundings with ease. Some smaller companies

help you to locate your friends on a map. Find ability will become easier with mobile phones.

Mobile interactions are small steps of the big user goals

Finding the PNR status of the railway ticket through mobile phones, while boarding the waiting list

ticket is a small step helping the user to make his train journey comfortable. Mobile devices will help

the end users in making their life simple by taking simple steps.

Mobile interaction will extend beyond the device

Users can fill a form on the personal computer on the internet & they can see the same information

updated on their cell phones. If the flight is delayed, a SMS comes in their cell phone to inform

them.

Mobile as continuous companions will open new experiences of different intensities

Mobile phone gaming have come a big way from the beginning dots to bricks arrangement, the

games have matured to provide respectable graphics & videos on the cell phones. This particular

area is going to mature & move towards a great user experience in entertainment perspective

through mobile devices. Today iPods, MP3 players are one-step ahead for a great user experience.

Silence will be respected by Mobile devices

As continuous companions of users, mobile phones have to respect the privacy & Zen of users. We

cannot design the interaction of the mobile devices that makes them noisy, they should avoid
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disturbing the user unnecessarily & they needs to keep the user focus when it is very important like

making a money transaction through mobile phones.

Handheld devices ease of use is first bait.

To make a good handheld device it need to be easy in use. The interactions should only take thesteps that are most important, unnecessarily steps, data inputs should be completely removed.

Handheld device interactions are task oriented

Hand held devices are smaller & easily carried. The area of interaction is less for the users. The data

that can be displayed is also smaller. Content and activities must be desired & requested. This makes

the interactions task oriented; we cannot beat around the bush here. The contexts are chosen &

solution is provided to resolve that.

New mobile experiences compete with legacy user models

As mobile services expand, design must take into account customers' reliance on user models that

come from prior technologies. We still use the word "dial" to refer to using phones that no longer

have rotary dials, experiences using personal computers and landline telephones will shape initial

interaction design schemes on handheld devices.

Information Architecture

Information Architecture is the combination of organizing, labeling & navigation schemes within an

information system. Content, Context & users are the main areas of focus when we design the

information architecture of any applications. The content needs to be scaled down to the minimum for

Hand held device IA design. The filtering of content needs to be done, a minimum amount of content

has to be provided to the users. Least number of inputs by key strokes is asked from the users.

Some insights for IA design for mobile devices

Real estate price is too high in handheld devices

The real estate is less in hand held devices. We cannot even think of leaving this idea when moving

to the drawing board.

Less is more in Hand held devices

The text I in IA of Handheld devices is filtered


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Information is of two basic types important & not important in context to a situation depending on

the scenario & requirement. The I in handheld devices needs to be small I instead of the Big I.

The alphabet I is taken as the symbol for INFORMATION here. The stress is use the minimum most

important information to play around handheld devices. Asking the users too many inputs is not a

good practice.

Iconic representation of information

Icons are clever way to say long words, after all a picture is worth thousand words. We all are

surrounded by icons everywhere. See the image below

Handheld devices need intuitive icons that are globally accepted to be effectively used with ease.

Effective Color combinations can increase the IA of Handheld devices

The focus now days are to provide smaller internet experience to users through hand held devices.

The users who are slowly moving towards this trend are well versed with internet technology &

personal computers. Taking advantage of this, in an effective manner design the IA in suitable

colors. Red text message on internet means some error happened either form your end or system

end. Green text message means the good news. Similar type of color combinations needs to be used

in handheld devices. As handheld devices are used in different locations like inside the house, near awater body, in deserts, in icy mountains etc. The intensity of light, falling on the screen will differ;

this has to be taken care by appropriate use of foreground & background color usage. If the device is

having only two colors like light background & a dark text color then what to do. Here the learnings

can be taken from earlier non color phones, the way they used to present information focusing on

the important information. I.e. making the not read SMS bold & read SMS normal text size.


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Increasing the User Experience on Black & White screens

To provide the basic service to the lower societal pyramid of the people, companies made products

that are affordable. A color handset will obviously cost a little more as compared to the non-color

one. In some cases, color screens may not be possible or not required, as the utility does not suggest

so. To give a better User Experience on non-color phones an effective strategy is to have a static

stunning image on the screen as the background. Illuminate it by LEDs on all the sides to make it

glow. Display the black text above the screen just placed on the image. Make sure the background

image is light enough to display the black text easily. To the user it will be like working on a color

screen.

Importance of intuitive Back button


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The users using the hand held devices are coming from an internet background, if not all most of them.

They are aware that clicking on back button will take them to the previous screen on the internet

however; the case is a bit different here. In case of internet, the previous page information is stored in

cache of the computer memory. Hand held device is not designed for such purposes, as there is memory

space constraint. Upfront Demarcation of the home link & the back button in handheld devices should

be used. Clicking on the home will take the user to the main screen & clicking the back button will take

the user to the previous menus.

Information Depth/Breadth balance

The small screens of mobile Internet devices, combined with the increasing complexity of mobile tasks,

create a serious obstacle to usability in the mobile Internet. The complexity of the tasks, the more the

number of steps the complex the task completion on mobile phones becomes. The depth of information

needs to be kept minimum, instead try to organize the information in a breadth wise structure.

Circular Key controls Design

The data available on the hand held devices needs to be modified, written, played etc. To

accomplish this intuitive & easy keys are required. On the main screen, mostly use of icons is done.

The beauty of circular keys is that with one key press you can reach to different section depending

on your choice.

Horizontal layout is dangerous on main page

If the main sections are more & there is a Circular Key available in the hand held device then the

best approach is to go for icons. The above approach is appropriate if the only medium for selection

is key pads not any stylus/touch screens. Use appropriate icons & displays the name of each icon as

the user scrolls through them on top of the screen. In this way, we can represent information easily.

Change the color of the text & some areas as the user scrolls through the icons. The color change

will grab the user attention towards the name of the section & he can select it properly.


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Good to have on main page A bit difficult main page if touch screen/stylus is

not present

Consistency in Handheld device design

Companies usually come up with new models year after year to meet the growing exceptions of the

users & market competition. As the company succeeds to sell more of the devices, it should try to

achieve consistency in the new designs in terms of labeling & navigation. Most of the cases due to

brand loyalty & popularity users upgrade the handheld device from the same manufacture. Consider

the case if the manufacture changes the keypad keys & some here & there modifications in

navigation scheme. Usability test shows the slower rate of task completion in these new handheld

upgrades from the familiar brand users. Maintaining the basic consistency standards will not harm

the company much but gain user trust & confidence in the process of usage.

Lower the rate of screen refresh by horizontal placing of content

It is very important to lower the number of screen refreshes by using intuitive navigation schemes.

If screen refreshes while the user is working on the screen he loses the context, as the screen is

small to visually attach to his mental model in order to remember.


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Visual Design

Visual implications are more as the handheld device screen is first seen by the user eyes & then the

users respond to them. The web pages are now days available on the mobile phones. To make the

web pages accessible on the mobile phones we need to take certain creative steps.

Include Handheld CSS

A web page needs to have three different style sheets incorporated to have a good visual representation

to the users. The three types of the CSS required are

1. Screen CSS ( Display on the computer screens)

2. Print CSS (To get the best print)

3. Hand held CSS (To display the page on hand held devices)

Important things to consider if the page is considered for handheld devices. Omitting the below things

will make the page easily accessible

images that are not legible below 160x320 resolution

advertising - especially graphical and flash-based

JavaScript - most phones don't handle JavaScript well, so it's a good idea to not display those

sections of your site

Large logos and navigation found at the top of the page

Avoid frames, pop ups & flash

Pop up & flash will make the page heavy on the handheld devices & may not load. Remove them or hide

them.


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Alt text is not an alternative

Including alternative text for the images will make the page accessible.

Color dependency is not fruitful here

Do not rely on color, some of the hand held devices on which your design will run may be black & white.

External environment screen design

The screen of the handheld device is small so the text displayed will be small. The device will be used in

different environments as sunny, rainy etc the visual display of the content should be in such a way that

it suits & makes the user read the content easily. The glare of the sun should not affect the visibility of

the content. The screen should be able to work well without any distortions in multiple weather

conditions.

Font color

The font colors used are in different variations today. Research suggests that black color on white

background is more readable for display media. Option to change the skin is should be given to the user

in case he is not comfortable with the display color settings.

Font style

The font size used purely depends on the target audiences. If the target audience is young people we

can go for a lower style size, Arial is the text, which is accepted by research to be easily readable by

users without any visual distortions. Large font size is suggested if the device is intended for senior

citizens as their visual & spatial abilities decrease as the age passes.
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Different types of handheld devicesA handheld device is a pocket size-computing device with a key pad/touch to enter the information & a

screen to display the information to the user. Multiple types of devices are available in the market

today. Let us go through them in some detail.

Picture of Device Name Users & Use Features

PDA Personal Digital

Assistance

Used by business

people & frequent

travelers

Can be used as mobile

phones, web browsers,

portable media devices

Touch screen, Access

intranet via Wireless

Wide Area

Network(WWAN) &

Wi-Fi

Smart phones it is an

advanced phone with

e-mail and Internet

capabilities, and/or a

full keyboard.

It has an operating

system running on it.

Business class & upper

pyramid people

Customized

Applications can be

made to run on it.

Checking e-mails,

browsers etc.

Touch screen, built in

cameras, internet

EDA Enterprise

digital assistance. Also

named as Data capture

mobile devices, Batch

terminals or handheld

portables

Extensive usage for

Small to Medium

enterprises

Used in warehouse

management,

inventory control &

field services to name

a few.

Touch Screen, IrDA,

Bluetooth, a Memory

card slot & one or

more data capture

devices.
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Palmtop/handheld PC Business users

Calendar meeting

organizers.

Use Rom, screen

resolution 480 x 240,

KEYBOARD,PC card

slot, IrDA, USB &

wireless connectivity

Graphing calculators

Are type of advanced

calculators

Scientists & research

teams

Capable of plotting

graphs, solving

simultaneous

equations &

performing other

numerous tasks with

variables

Screen, Calculator

functions on the

keyboard

Mobile phones

Specially made to

have minimum

features like calls, SMS,

some pictures etc

Majority of the mobile

users

Calling & receiving

voice calls, SMS, crude

images via sms,

listening to music

Screen, keypad,

speakers

Satellite phones Armed forced

Used to communicate

in difficult terrains

Key pad, small screen,

Extensible antenna
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Mobile devices Design guidelines for better User ExperienceMobile phones are becoming continuous companions of ours. We carry them in most of all the places

we travel. Proximity mostly causes problems is a common saying if the rules of privacy & peace not

followed .The focus today is to design handheld devices which do not disturb you unnecessarily & help

to complete user goals.

Market is full of many companies providing the hand held devices, awareness levels of users is high

thanks to the community blogs, consumer report portals, mouth shut etc which is making easier to

share the users product experiences with the help of internet technology. Users are able to rate the

product according to different parameters depending on product category. Prospective product users

make decisions based on this information. After all users are rating the product based on their user

experience with the product. If we raise the bar for user experience then obviously the product will be

good rated, this good rating will invite more users to buy it & act as a catalyst in business growth.

Let us peek into some of the user experience best practices, which I came across my work to follow

through. The thick lines for hand held devices design is different, when the scope is well understoodthen only a good handheld device can be designed.

Ideas for Handheld device design

Involve the end users

Handheld devices are user centric, a girly mobile phone, a PDA for an executive, a MP3 player for young

college students, a satellite phone for soldiers etc. It is advisable to involve the end users in the design of

the devices. Understand the user needs, get to know their mental model when they are using the

device, have a look at the social factors that are making him to work on the device. Depending on the

ethnography of the users, their experience expectations may vary largely. It is necessary to adopt an

application development strategy in which the intended target group is 100% involved right from the

beginning.

KISS me often

Keep it simple & simple a slight deviation from the standard saying Keep it simple & stupid is well

suited in handheld device design. We are not interested to make the hand held devices stupid after all

they are our continuous companions. The type of company a man keeps tells a lot about him. Hide the

complexity of the devices, show it only when the user is making use of it. Sliding phones, flip phones aremade to hide the inherent complexity of the mobile devices.


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Slide phone to hide the key pad Flexible antenna to fold when not in use

Less is more in hand held devices

Reduce to the maximum when we are going to design content/tasks for the hand held devices.

Minimum number of key inputs in all the cases is advisable as the key board is small. Provide the most

necessary options and functionalities. Instead of quantity, the quality of the presented information is

much more important here.

Personalized & Bookmarked

Users are used to personalized services on the internet; they are even looking the same flavor on mobile

devices. A personalized message makes them more comfortable while performing the tasks.

Giving them the flexibility to personalize the information they will see, bookmarking help the user to

find the preferred services faster.

Local scope

While the user is working on the application, he is interested to solve a particular problem. To solve

those problems he needs certain data & services in one place. Completely avoid changing the screen for

each step. Make the user perform many tasks on one screen. Disable some of the keys to help him type

only numbers etc. Evidently, the option to change the local scope should be readily available to him.

Name is auspicious

Naming of different sections should reflect the type of data & services provided in sync. The name needs

to be suggestive in nature. Conflicting terminology should be avoided in all cases. Popular accepted

naming conventions adopted will make an easy to use device. Consider the below case of conflicting

icons to illustrate the importance of naming. Below both is home however, people who are not much

aware about the houses of colder region people may not recognize the igloo. So I stress the idea Name

is auspicious to navigate the users to complete tasks easily.
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Icon can be used for home section Avoid this icon for home section

Intuitive navigation

There is less interaction as compared to stationary internet, on mobile devices. The navigation used here

needs to be transparent & simple. The user should know from where he is coming, where he is now &

where he can go from there.

Scrolling is better than clicking!

Usability studies on mobile devices shows that the users prefer scrolling through a general list compared

to clicking on a serial list. There should not be more than seven items in a list to give good navigation

choices in a list.

Least text input

Typing a lot of text in the screen for mobile devices is not advisable. User is not comfortable with the

small keypad to input the data. To type in a text has negative consequences concerning the usability and

should be avoided as much as possible.

Consistency

Thought the application use the same color links & identification icons. Home link should take the user

to the home page of the application always etc. The messages needs to be consistent, read sections if

shown in normal font should be same thought the application. Following these standards will not harm

the device in return, it will promote device usability. The keys need to be consistent in the design at

least in the type of labels & color used for different sections. A consistent keypad design in the later

versions of the mobiles from same manufacture leads to higher usability when people upgrade their

mobile phones manufactured by the same company.

The keypad designs are not in harmony to use in consecutive new models by a particular company.

Hide the technology

A consumer is not interested which technology is included in order to use the handheld device. Pouring

the technical information to the end user is not at all suggested. Showing a small icon before the

application is Ok however taking the user to a movie what the technology can help the users to do is a

wage idea that should be dropped before it comes to the drawing board. Users focus primarily on

functionality and benefits of the system instead of technology standards.

Fast Task specific development

The task should be completed at a faster rate like checking the train status, passing the message,

sensing the area etc. Mobile devices have become specialized like checking the time-schedule of the

German Railway via WAP-mobile phone, in case one wants to take a later train.


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Allow frequent tasks through shortcuts

To perform repetitive work in hand held devices it is best to include shot cuts. Remember the volume

increase & decrease keys at the sides of mobile phones. Option to set the setting for short cut keys is

also a good practice.

Informative feedback provision

Provide informative feedback as per the user action on the hand held device. If the user performs some

error then give informative feedback by sound signals or beeps. If color screen is provided then use

intuitive colors to display the feedback.

User Experience design considerations for senior citizens

Senior citizens are also using mobile devices. What is the basic design idea that needs to be taken care?

It is important we design the mobile devices for their use. The below features are very important in

senior citizen mobile phones.

Large keypad with prominent keys

Senior citizens hands are less active & not precise when they will punch in the numbers. Their

fingertips are large so the key should be big enough to exactly fit. Elder people visibility also gets a

little dim so a large key pad will help them to dial the numbers comfortably.

Bright Screen

The display of the screen needs to be bright as senior citizens vision deteriorates by age.

Loudspeaker phones

Hearing incompatibility of senior citizens can be handled well by providing loud speakers in the

mobile phones. I got this idea as I see my grandfather facing the same problem & not able to

converse with me on the cell phone easily.

Affordable design

Not all senior citizens are so lucky that their family members will give a mobile phone as a gift to

them. Senior citizens are on a limited income so the mobile phones needs to be affordable enough

for them.


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Mobile phone design is a different aspect in itself as it involves creativity, setting the mental model

for the users mindset. The content to include is less, a lot of filtering needs to be done for the same.

The most important content needs to be displayed upfront, users needs to make the minimum input

from the keypads. The context needs not be wiped form the users mind & so on. The above paper

can be good collections of design guidelines to see forth when designing handheld devices.

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