Jakob Nielsen, often hailed as “king of usability,” published results this week on a follow-up study examining iPad app interfaces and found that iPad apps today are considerably “less wacky” and therefore easier to use than they were last year.
“We really came quite a long way in a year, and a year is a short amount of time,” Nielsen told Wired.com in a phone interview. “If we think back to when the web came out … there were five years when the web got worse before it started getting better.”
Software makers have a lot to do. It's not easy to think in the customer's point of view and design the interface. They have take a deep thought on what the customer mostly emphasizes in his new device.
On the iPad, it can be especially challenging to nail usability, because multitouch gestures are invisible, and it’s up to the user to figure out which gestures do what.
User interfaces in the initial batch of iPad apps were all over the map, with little consistency among the various apps. Apps would behave differently when we swiped or pinched, and some apps used complex interactions such as running three fingers diagonally across the screen, Nielsen said.
Today, iPad apps have become more simple and user-friendly, Nielsen said. He found that magazine apps, for example, would display a cover with the top stories, and tapping on a top story would bring you straight to the content, rather than make you turn to the table of contents and flip to the article manually. His study also found that more apps included Back buttons and broader use of search,according to wired.com
“For the average user, technology is a means to an end,” Nielsen said. “People want to jump in and get results. If I see a cover with three interesting stories, I want to tap and read right away.”
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| (Source: Google Images) |
Software makers have a lot to do. It's not easy to think in the customer's point of view and design the interface. They have take a deep thought on what the customer mostly emphasizes in his new device.
On the iPad, it can be especially challenging to nail usability, because multitouch gestures are invisible, and it’s up to the user to figure out which gestures do what.
User interfaces in the initial batch of iPad apps were all over the map, with little consistency among the various apps. Apps would behave differently when we swiped or pinched, and some apps used complex interactions such as running three fingers diagonally across the screen, Nielsen said.
Today, iPad apps have become more simple and user-friendly, Nielsen said. He found that magazine apps, for example, would display a cover with the top stories, and tapping on a top story would bring you straight to the content, rather than make you turn to the table of contents and flip to the article manually. His study also found that more apps included Back buttons and broader use of search,according to wired.com
“For the average user, technology is a means to an end,” Nielsen said. “People want to jump in and get results. If I see a cover with three interesting stories, I want to tap and read right away.”
Source: Wired.com
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