Yes, I think the iPhone is not easy to use. Here's my example:
I bought my iPhone about a week ago, and a few days later I had a
personal safety issue arise. With my old phone in that instance, I
would have quickly dialed 911 and kept my thumb poised over the "call"
button. The motion involved in that would have been:
Flipping open phone.
Feeling for raised keys on a keypad very like every other phone I've
had since 1978.
Glancing down for the call button.
Placing my thumb on it.
Holding phone in my hand.
With my iPhone, the motion involved:
Waking up the phone.
Unlocking the phone.
Getting out of the last app I was in when the phone fell asleep.
Clicking the phone button.
Finding and clicking the button to bring up the phone keypad.
Dialing 911.
Realizing I couldn't easily hover over the call button because I was
so nervous and the touch screen so sensitive.
Holding phone in my hand.
**/Waking up the phone again to check it.
Unlocking the phone
Holding it in my hand./**
In the midst of this (and with a creep possibly following me on a
dark, empty street) I began to realize that I could probably change
the settings so the phone would not fall asleep so quickly, but was
too scared to attempt it. I also wished for a panic button, but
certainly was not going to browse the App Store in those circumstances.
There was some clear user error in that scenario - I should have just
made the potentially needless 911 call and had the police talk me
through my fear -- but given the occasion I wasn't really thinking
straight. I'd hoped I was wrong about being followed; talking to
police would have made that fear paradoxically seem more real. That's
silly, yes - but perhaps understandable, nonetheless? When I've been
in similar circumstances before, I've noticed a emotive cycle of "fear/
feel like a silly ass," and I believe that is typical - and for us in
this discussion, illustrative of the real emotional user contexts for
which we designers need to account. Note that my old conventional
phone accounts for this emotional context by providing a hard button
that can't easily be pressed accidentally. I haven't figured out if
the iPhone accounts for this at all - it didn't in a way that was
easily learnable at the time.
So yes, I think the iPhone is hard to use. I've since downloaded an
app called "911" that is a panic button: it would be good to have that
installed with the iPhone from the factory. At the time, I certainly
needed it more than I needed a "Stocks" button, for instance, which
does come pre-installed.
So in conclusion, I do feel strange about sharing so much. I've
shared this because I believe it's a classic example of the "don't
make me think" rule - in this instance, my needing to think just may
have come at the cost of my life, for all I knew. Also, please
forgive me the slight snideness of the "since 1978" line, above - I
realize that there may also have been a learning curve involved if I
were using an unfamiliar conventional phone, but I still don't think
it would have been as great a curve as the learning I had to do with
my iPhone. My iPhone still took eight unfamiliar steps instead of
five relatively familiar ones banking on established phone interface
designs, and I think that makes it hard to learn and hard to use.
I'm fine, and there's been no sign of my stalker, since.
Thanks.
On Aug 27, 2009, at 11:18 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:
Which part of this are you asking about my believing - the "not
easy to use" part or the "we don't care because it's fun" part?
The claim that the iPhone isn't easy to use.
Joan Vermette
email: [email protected]
primary phone: 617-495-0184
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