The Impact of Tablets on
Information Availability
User Interfaces
Apple's Human Interface Principles:
What motivates Apple's user interfaces? Apple's webpage on iOS interface guidelines gives a great inside look into what motivates Apple, but also what makes a good mobile interface in general. In Summary:
Aesthetic Integrity
- An app should look consistent with what it does
Consistency
- It should take "advantage of the standards and paradigms people are comfortable with"
Direct Manipulation
- It should provide natural, direct engagement with the task at hand to acheive a greater sense of control
Feedback
- It should constantly provide cues that your action was processed and that the device is responding.
Metaphors
- It should use interactions and associations that people are familiar with so that users grasp how to use the app. The classic example is the files and folders metaphor.
User Control
- People expect to be able to cancel lengthy operations or confirm their intentions to execute potentially destructive action.
All of these principles extend outside of the iPad, but in particular the principles of metaphor and consistency suggest that once one company provides a product with a successful metaphor and people get used to it, an expectation has been set. Any new and similar product should have an interaction consistent with the metaphor that people are used to. This accounts for why Windows, Mac, and other desktop user interfaces are all pretty similar, using files, folders, windows, trash cans, etc. But what happens when successful interaction metaphor that should be universally consistent is patented?