Little Springs Design | Blog | seeking the perfect phone form factor

Seeking the Perfect Phone Form Factor

Man, I gotta start coming up with my own ideas, instead of just riffing on everyone else's. Every few years I run across someone talking about the latest trends in mobile handset design, usually seeking to codify the best parts in a manner that will lead us all to some nirvana of design, and everyone will want this. I've seen reviews that rip some particular design as not appealing to everyone equally.

This article from All About Symbian yesterday reminded me of all this, in their desire to find the one, true form factor that – naturally – everyone will want. I think, as usual, I reject the premise.

For some years now, Alison and I have had two vehicles.

A station wagon which is our primary people transporter. Right now it's a 1999 Volvo V70, with an extravagant roof rack, but before that it was a series of Suzuki SUVs, which we also considered just tall wagons. It serves well as a transporter for Alison and myself and our personal effects and Atka (the dog) but can carry three more people without undue effort, lots of luggage and actual cargo from bikes to pipes if needed. Most of our friends and family think it's a bit large and ugly, and like their cars-with-trunks instead.

And a pickup truck we use regularly because we garden, and build and generally do work requiring "dirty cargo." The 1996 T-100 recently replaced a 1994 Chevy K-1500 we drove into the ground. We really need this vehicle. But most of our friends and family mock it as redneck and silly and large and inefficient (less so the Toyota than the Chevy, though). Until they need me to haul something, at least.

I think my mobile computing device selection is exactly similar to this.

My phone is an N95. Partly because Alison won it at a developer conference (and I, having a SIM, stole it) but I had coveted it anyway, and had an N75 before this. It's my "everything phone" but is still fundamentally a phone. I triple tap well, but it's not a message device. It plays music, but somewhat less excitingly than it could. And a lot of people think it's too big and has too many features. In many, many ways, this is my station wagon phone. (Alison has a waterproof Casio, so except for the terrible Verizon software that makes the features hard to use, essentially has a Suzuki SUV phone).

My heavy lifter is a laptop. Wait, but you thought we were talking about mobile. Sure. We're talking mobile computing. But my needs are not gaming, or email, or music or anything conveniently done on a small screen. So I don't carry a PSP, iPod or anything else. I jump straight to a MacBook. With an aircard. it's got wires hanging, but I am online everywhere. I have streamed internet radio when we cannot get actual radio. This is my pickup truck, that does all the heavy lifting, but still has comfortable seats and a stereo.

(I guess desktop computers would be houses in this analogy?)

This proves my point precisely. Mobile computing is variable, individualized and broader than you think. Let me break it down for you a little more. Here is how I personally categorize mobile computing devices today, and in the near future:

Sub-micro – I am thinking of stuff like the Livescribe pen and iPod Shuffles, things that have a limited or different interface more than they are just small. This is also a near-future category, as all of these are cable-synched, and I want them to be network-aware devices before I really consider them mobile devices.

Simple Keypads – 10 key phones. Simple here doesn't mean simple devices, but simple and expected entry methods. The device as a whole can be any size and have any set of capabilities. Small devices with complex keypads (fastap, etc.) do not count.

Thumb-boards – Anything with a more complex keypad than 10-key for the primary entry method. These days, really the full QWERTY systems found on all the message phones and exemplified by the Blackberries. I would not be surprised if some other keyboard arrangement does emerge, even if only temporarily, but learning on the most compact ones (like chording systems) is likely to be a barrier to mass adoption.

Skateboards – It's my generic term, to avoid longer or more specific labels. These are generally what you all call "touchscreens," trending towards few or no keys. My nickname is around the shape (generally longer one way) and manner in which it's a featureless surface. Get it? Includes mass market things like the iPhone and nerdy things like the Maemo tablets. A key distinction for use now is that I am preferring to call these "point screens" as there is NO feedback except that you touched the screen. Good haptics will allow sensing before clicking, and feedback from input. Then I'll call them "touch screens" and a whole new set of users and applications will open up.

Media Players – Portable game consoles, media playback devices, or anything with a set of controls dedicated to the I/O of the primary, expected media. Some game players especially are network aware and are just at the edge of being important mobile communications devices. Especially as they become internet connected, I am comfortable placing digital cameras into this category. And certain industrial tools, like for measuring and test. Input devices like lenses and sensors are just as valid as buttons and touchscreens. Note the name is sorta terrible, as these can be media capture or media interaction devices just as well as players.

Ultra Mobiles – The UMPC, which I define as any truly general purpose computer whose primary input is less than a computer. Very small keyboards, pure tablets and so on. Some PDAs in the past fit into this category nicely, which amusingly confused things by using a portable OS. Except these should all be connected, all the time. The new UMPCs with WiMax are the best of these now, since WiFi is so local it's hard to consider that really being connected

Computers – Since we're talking mobile, I mean laptops (or notebooks, or whatever makes you happy). I do not care what they look like, but they have to have a broadly full-sized keyboard, and a high resolution pointing device. Oh, and they have to be connected. Preferably, all the time, so WiFi as we know it today doesn't count. Think embedded LTE and WiMax.

It is important to know that these are device classes. And that users will thwart you. As I envision a near future, each of these devices is in at least some way network connected and general purpose. While the PSP is designed to be a gamer, it's network access and ability to load software (general-purpose computer) also supports messaging

Like a lot of technology, while waiting for this to happen, it snuck up on us. How many of you use Skype when travelling? Phone calls on your laptop. Who has typed an email, or written the start of a blog post on the mobile? We all use the cameras in our phones. I don't have enough need for music to carry an iPod, so I use the music player in my phone. I have made presentations with the video out on my phone. These are all blurring the lines between these device classes. And making detailed design decisions (slide vs. flip) much more akin to styling and paint colors than really thinking about where devices exist in the ecosystem, and how to best address user needs in their environment as a whole.

Blog

Seeking the Perfect Phone Form Factor

Comments

Add your comment