Five Interesting Mobile UX Links
Welcome to our link list for Mobile Experience. Each week we'll list five links we thought were interesting or cool and add our thoughts about the impact on the mobile user experience.1. Firefox Sync for iPhone
Firefox are showing off a video of a beta iPhone app, called FireFox Home that aims to make moving between the PC and mobile web browser seamless. When opening the app you can access your Firefox browser bookmarks, and even the tabs you had open on your PC browser.
I'd use this alot, as I'm always leaving tabs open to read later. It would be great to access them on the go, especially there was an iPad version.2. Android Fragmentation
This is an article on a few of the issues with the fragmentation of the Android OS. I also think that apart from the technical aspects of fragmentation, the fragmentation of the Android user experience is also an issue for discussion. From a customer point of view, there isn't an Android user experience this allows the manufacturers to add their own UI tweaks on top.
This has both positives and negatives. For example, Mark Pesce has been using an HTC Desire for a week (that was given to him by Telstra) and isn't fan of the HTC Sense UI but likes the benefits of Android (see: http://desire.markpesce.com/).
I've been waiting for a few months for HTC to come out with an update of the Android OS on the HTC Hero, which is stuck at 1.6 because they need to update the design of their UI layer to match the updated OS.
But diversity and experimentation in UI and UX is also good, and manufacturers like it because they can create the "Sony Ericsson" UI, and if customers like it they'll buy another one of the same brand next year.3. Archetypes and Their Use in Mobile UX
This is a great article on Johnny Holland that looks at archetypes, and the potential archetypes for Mobile User Experience with some interesting examples of each. The application centric archetype is the most popular one currently, but it will be interesting to see the success of the other approaches.4. Gestures Blog Post by Lukas Mathias
The brilliant Lukas Mathias discusses the recognition vs recall aspect of gestures for interfaces. Some gestures will be taken up very quickly and expected by users, e.g. swipe to turn the page on an iPad book, while others will be harder to discover and less frequently used.
We expect people's memory of expected gestures to increase, as more people engage with touchscreen devices and look for faster/more efficient ways to interact with them, but of course the important functions shouldn't rely on invisible gestures.5. iPad launches in Australia
Last, but not least, Australian iPad apps are starting to make their way onto the App Store in preparation for the launch of the iPad locally tomorrow (Friday 28th May). We know many companies who are working away on iPad apps and are helping out a few ourselves.
Rod & I have been using our iPads for over a month now and it's interesting to note the different ways you use an iPad to an iPhone or normal mobile device. It's a very different user experience. While we've had the WiFi version, we're also waiting for the delivery truck to arrive and bring us a 3G version (We'll complain about the TNT Express user experience another time...).
And now for the link: Here's a quick interview with the 1st people in line for their iPad outside the Sydney Apple Store
