Tactile vs non tactile asside, I'd have to agree with the interface complaints. The auto correct feature has had me RETYPING words too often - and to catch it in mid-word with it's imminent sabotage means slowing down typing altogether. If it would stay the hell out of the way (by default) it would be a big help.
I have no problems with the keyboard. Without cut-and-paste and a whole host of interface improvements, it's very much a version 1.0 product.
I think the fingernail example is legitimate. I would actually prefer if the screen could respond to fingernail taps instead of requiring your entire fingertip. Using your nail allows you to tap the screen more precisely than using your fingertip. This would in turn help to reduce mistypes.
For this to be valid, they would really have to compare long time BlackBerry users to long time iPhone users.
This experiment has quite a few flaws.
Or, conversely, they could take people who have never used any sort of handheld keypad and see how they do learning the iPhone vs. the Blackberry (or similar device).
The solid gold quote was the one where they said that no one thought they could safely text while driving with the iPhone. NO SHIT! It is unsafe to text while driving no matter which device you use! I've always wondered why my car's sunshade has a prominent warning to take it down before driving -- now I see where the morons who need that warning congregate: at this study!
a) They are not saying the iPhone screen is bad in any way. Simply that, in the beginning at least, the flat, tactile-less nature of the iPhone’s QWERTY keyboard appears to be less effective than a standard tactile QWERTY keyboard that offer haptic feedback.
As far as I can tell, this study really doesn't measure that. A true comparison would test people that have never texted with any kind of device and randomly divide them into different groups to try to gauge that.
Demanding that people get totally up to speed in half an hour's use to be competitive with a different input type than a different type of input after a year or more of other experience is quite ridiculous in expectations, I'd call that to be a biased yardstick in the least. The typing class I took was an entire semester long. And that's somehow supposed to be matched by a very new type of device and a new input mode in half an hour.
Personally, I was comfortable almost right away. Most phone buttons require a lot of force to press, I don't understand how people can put up with texting on most current phones. Maybe I'm a bit biased in this as well, but I've both used a microwave with a touch panel for decades, and even made an industrial control that used capacitive touching as well.
I don't own an iPhone yet though. I'm putting it off, in part to see what Apple does before leaping, let the platform and ecosystem mature a bit, and in part to take care of other financial matters first. I don't do email or text on a phone, in part because the input sucks and has stiff buttons, though based on my iPhone experience, I think I'll do just fine.
Actually the study is completely valid as a basic usability study. You need to just realize it for what it is ? a basic study.
Yes and no. As a basic study the sample size okay however if it were my usability study I'd have added an additional run where the QWERTY users used the numeric pad and vice versa to measure in-group variance just from switching UIs. The difference between numeric users moving to the physical and virtual QWERTY keypads would have been the most interesting results...
Training time is also suspect. By not training the users to use the autocorrect and predictive features of the the UI at all you pretty much doom the UI to high error rates given these features are there to mitigate the effects of the lack of tactile response.
The study is flawed - people don't 'copy' texts - they write them from their head. A truer study would have been to ask the group to send a text message inviting someone to a dinner - or to text someone telling them about a film or sports event that they had just watched.
The study is flawed - people don't 'copy' texts - they write them from their head. A truer study would have been to ask the group to send a text message inviting someone to a dinner - or to text someone telling them about a film or sports event that they had just watched.
There are several problems, but I really don't see problem with that part. The messages themselves need to be standardized to gauge the relative accuracy of the input systems. The idea is to reduce the number of variables being tested.
They should get participants with no experience at all on any phone. When you select someone who does some certain task several times a week, and compare this operation with a new one in a few minutes, there simply is no baseline for comparison.
Why don't they do the opposite? Take experienced iPhone users and put them to write on normal keypad and numpad phones. Lets see how much more time will they take to do it.
I'm sick of people claiming that the iphone keyboard has no tactile feedback. I can feel the screen every time I tap it. Maybe that's just me. This is not like a data glove or some other VR thing where you aren't touching anything at all. It is nothing like a membrane keyboard either. It responds perfectly to a light touch. As far as fingernails and styli, in my experience (I've owned several stylus operated devices and have had my iphone for weeks now) the algorithm being used to determine the center point of the touch area on the iphone is far more accurate than stylus calibration. I've often found it difficult to hit small targets with a stylus or fingernail but have no problem with the iphone.
I do agree with the previous comment that the keyboard should be multitouch. I too sometimes have a character not register because I type too fast and haven't lifted my finger from the previous character yet. That is annoying and slows me down a little, but really, I'm not using my phone as a courtroom steno machine (though using multi-touch to implement a chording keyboard on it would be awesome.) I hold the phone in my left hand and use left thumb and right index finger to type and find it very fast. I've experimented with laying the phone down on my desk and touch typing with all ten fingers and have found that it's almost possible. With enough practice I could probably do it.
One participant tried to use their fingernail to press the keys and couldn't.
What kind of bufoons devised this survey.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hauer
"Specifically, participants did not think they could text message on the iPhone safely while driving."
OMG, what a tragedy!
Last time I "checked" (years ago)the fine was some 25€ (30+$) when handling your cell phone in the car. That was not even for typing, just talking.
So what are they talking about "text message on" *anything* "safely"?!
(An whom are you sueing after crashing, Apple or BMW/Lexus/whatever? )
GH
Agreed. Using anything other than handsfree for mobile while driving is 110% totally irresponsible. I try to use some speakerphone function if I am in the car and I think it is safer than fiddling with non-Bluetooth "handsfree" stuff. Even then ideally if I am travelling in the car a lot, Bluetooth is the only way to go. Fines notwithstanding, if you use your mobile while driving without *any* handsfree at all, let alone, frack me, trying to type on your phone, you might as well drink 5 beers at the bar and leave your phone there before getting behind the wheel.
Within the next 6 months there will probably be a lawsuit against Apple for causing car accidents due to "forcing the driver to use the irresistibly dangerous CoverFlow™ or PinchZoom™ feature while drinking StarBucks, listening to Linkin Park, and trying to overtake an SUV while trying to sneak a few glances at one's date's cleavage, having had just one drink at a mainstream, responsible bar". That or "causing severe bodily harm and totalling a vehicle due to the inability of the iPhone to allow using one's fingernails to type a text message at 100 words per minute".
I'm sick of people claiming that the iphone keyboard has no tactile feedback. I can feel the screen every time I tap it. Maybe that's just me. This is not like a data glove or some other VR thing where you aren't touching anything at all. It is nothing like a membrane keyboard either. It responds perfectly to a light touch...
Personally I would like a soft glowing purring sensation in my loins whenever I touch any keyboard. Damn the iPhone to hell for not having this LoinResponse™ feature !!!!!
Well, for the first time yesterday I actually got to play with an iPhone for about 10 minutes (while I was supposed to be doing calculus), and I can say that I am very impressed that the keyboard is so easy to use. I never text anyone with my phone, and I have never used a phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard, so I'm essentially unbiased. Now all I have to do is find a person with one of the other phones and test out my typing speed. I found I could type very fast and that the 'small buttons' were not a problem at all. In my small amount of time spent with it, I had no typing errors, and I found that the word prediction was excellent. The only problem I had with it was I had trouble with the landscape mode switching. After it was explained to me that I had to have it vertical to use that, I got it to work fine though. Love pretty much everything about it. I didn't get to test out the actual 'phone' feature (it has one of those?), but the rest of it made me very jealous of this person.
Comments
Here is another study:
Select a group of 20 people required to type a page long document using a standard key board and a Dvorak keyboard.
Provide them 5 minutes of familiarity with both devices prior to the study.
Do not discriminate against people that have used a standard keyboard.
Aim of study: Determine if the Dvorak keyboard slows down or speads up the ability of a user to type a document.
Obviously this is just as flawed.
Boy what people pass for science!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Excellent example.
Tactile vs non tactile asside, I'd have to agree with the interface complaints. The auto correct feature has had me RETYPING words too often - and to catch it in mid-word with it's imminent sabotage means slowing down typing altogether. If it would stay the hell out of the way (by default) it would be a big help.
I have no problems with the keyboard. Without cut-and-paste and a whole host of interface improvements, it's very much a version 1.0 product.
I think the fingernail example is legitimate. I would actually prefer if the screen could respond to fingernail taps instead of requiring your entire fingertip. Using your nail allows you to tap the screen more precisely than using your fingertip. This would in turn help to reduce mistypes.
uummm eeerrr ah forget it.....
For this to be valid, they would really have to compare long time BlackBerry users to long time iPhone users.
This experiment has quite a few flaws.
Or, conversely, they could take people who have never used any sort of handheld keypad and see how they do learning the iPhone vs. the Blackberry (or similar device).
The solid gold quote was the one where they said that no one thought they could safely text while driving with the iPhone. NO SHIT! It is unsafe to text while driving no matter which device you use! I've always wondered why my car's sunshade has a prominent warning to take it down before driving -- now I see where the morons who need that warning congregate: at this study!
As far as I can tell, this study really doesn't measure that. A true comparison would test people that have never texted with any kind of device and randomly divide them into different groups to try to gauge that.
Demanding that people get totally up to speed in half an hour's use to be competitive with a different input type than a different type of input after a year or more of other experience is quite ridiculous in expectations, I'd call that to be a biased yardstick in the least. The typing class I took was an entire semester long. And that's somehow supposed to be matched by a very new type of device and a new input mode in half an hour.
Personally, I was comfortable almost right away. Most phone buttons require a lot of force to press, I don't understand how people can put up with texting on most current phones. Maybe I'm a bit biased in this as well, but I've both used a microwave with a touch panel for decades, and even made an industrial control that used capacitive touching as well.
I don't own an iPhone yet though. I'm putting it off, in part to see what Apple does before leaping, let the platform and ecosystem mature a bit, and in part to take care of other financial matters first. I don't do email or text on a phone, in part because the input sucks and has stiff buttons, though based on my iPhone experience, I think I'll do just fine.
Actually the study is completely valid as a basic usability study. You need to just realize it for what it is ? a basic study.
Yes and no. As a basic study the sample size okay however if it were my usability study I'd have added an additional run where the QWERTY users used the numeric pad and vice versa to measure in-group variance just from switching UIs. The difference between numeric users moving to the physical and virtual QWERTY keypads would have been the most interesting results...
Training time is also suspect. By not training the users to use the autocorrect and predictive features of the the UI at all you pretty much doom the UI to high error rates given these features are there to mitigate the effects of the lack of tactile response.
Vinea
......haters
The study is far from reaching the criteria of a basic study for several reasons:
1) Small sampling - makes their results statistically invalid
2) Perform the same study with user proefficient with iPhone use
3) Perform another study in which proefficient users on both types of devices switch devices and try the test again.
4) Perform a trend study in which those switched users use the opposing devices for at least a month.
Lets see those results. I think the clients of the testing folks would be dissappointed.
The study is flawed - people don't 'copy' texts - they write them from their head. A truer study would have been to ask the group to send a text message inviting someone to a dinner - or to text someone telling them about a film or sports event that they had just watched.
There are several problems, but I really don't see problem with that part. The messages themselves need to be standardized to gauge the relative accuracy of the input systems. The idea is to reduce the number of variables being tested.
They should get participants with no experience at all on any phone. When you select someone who does some certain task several times a week, and compare this operation with a new one in a few minutes, there simply is no baseline for comparison.
Why don't they do the opposite? Take experienced iPhone users and put them to write on normal keypad and numpad phones. Lets see how much more time will they take to do it.
I do agree with the previous comment that the keyboard should be multitouch. I too sometimes have a character not register because I type too fast and haven't lifted my finger from the previous character yet. That is annoying and slows me down a little, but really, I'm not using my phone as a courtroom steno machine (though using multi-touch to implement a chording keyboard on it would be awesome.) I hold the phone in my left hand and use left thumb and right index finger to type and find it very fast. I've experimented with laying the phone down on my desk and touch typing with all ten fingers and have found that it's almost possible. With enough practice I could probably do it.
Terribly structured study.
Need I say anything more?
OK, well I will anyway. AppleInsider should know better than to repeat blatent falsehoods in their titles.
People shouldn't text while driving.
One participant tried to use their fingernail to press the keys and couldn't.
What kind of bufoons devised this survey.
"Specifically, participants did not think they could text message on the iPhone safely while driving."
OMG, what a tragedy!
Last time I "checked" (years ago)the fine was some 25€ (30+$) when handling your cell phone in the car. That was not even for typing, just talking.
So what are they talking about "text message on" *anything* "safely"?!
(An whom are you sueing after crashing, Apple or BMW/Lexus/whatever? )
GH
Agreed. Using anything other than handsfree for mobile while driving is 110% totally irresponsible. I try to use some speakerphone function if I am in the car and I think it is safer than fiddling with non-Bluetooth "handsfree" stuff. Even then ideally if I am travelling in the car a lot, Bluetooth is the only way to go. Fines notwithstanding, if you use your mobile while driving without *any* handsfree at all, let alone, frack me, trying to type on your phone, you might as well drink 5 beers at the bar and leave your phone there before getting behind the wheel.
Within the next 6 months there will probably be a lawsuit against Apple for causing car accidents due to "forcing the driver to use the irresistibly dangerous CoverFlow™ or PinchZoom™ feature while drinking StarBucks, listening to Linkin Park, and trying to overtake an SUV while trying to sneak a few glances at one's date's cleavage, having had just one drink at a mainstream, responsible bar". That or "causing severe bodily harm and totalling a vehicle due to the inability of the iPhone to allow using one's fingernails to type a text message at 100 words per minute".
I'm sick of people claiming that the iphone keyboard has no tactile feedback. I can feel the screen every time I tap it. Maybe that's just me.
Personally I would like a soft glowing purring sensation in my loins whenever I touch any keyboard. Damn the iPhone to hell for not having this LoinResponse™ feature !!!!!