Nokia's user interface design sucks!
I probably could have expressed myself in a more polite way in the subject, but why bother? Nokia is technically superior to every other cell phone manufacturer but they give way too much advantages to others by sucking in user interface design. Let me give just a few
examples.
I speak with the experiences I had with Nokia E90 Communicator and the intensive time I spent using the device on my 5 days long motorcycle trip. Nokia E90 Communicator served as my cell phone (well, duh), Internet device, camera and GPS navigator. I wanted to really test the device and see if it is up to what Nokia wants us to think it is capable of. I will concentrate on the user interface for now but will continue in later posts on for example the Nokia Navigator (aka. smart2go).
Let's start with the sluggishness of the UI. It came as no surprise to me that Symbian/Series 60 UI is slow. But at times it is frustratingly slow! Why does opening an sms message have to take several seconds? Or loading image thumbnails even longer?
Then the UI inconsistency. If I want to attach an image via a web form with the web browser I only see the file names. That does not come to much help when I see for example 20070806.jpg... But when I attach an image with the email client I get nice thumbnails. It probably isn't that hard to use the same thumbnail component.
Also if I open an image with the web browser I have to see it using the external image viewing application. Why!? Even Opera Mini manages to show pictures inside the browser, and so does Nokias web browser too - if they are embedded inside HTML. Sigh...
Well, let's continue with the image viewing application. I can nicely rotate images but I can't save them rotated.
Related to images it is a nice feature to put your own picture as wallpaper. Quite standard feature nowadays. But Nokia manages to implement it in an aweful way. The image is shown only in the desktop application. So, it is not a big surprise that the clock, application
icons and the backgrounds on selected applet notes are not transparent for example.
Nokia just doesn't get the small details in user interface that makes using the phone FUN, smooth and enjoyable. Now that Apple's iPhone seems to have delivered at least the majority of the hype I hope Nokia takes notice of this and starts focusing on the UI.
1 comment:
I don't know if there is such a thing as a power user when it comes to a phone but I do not press a button and then look at the screen and then press a button. After doing something 100 times I know what state the phone is in and what options are available to me. I just press the appropriate button without having to read the entire text of each screen every time I execute a task. Nokia seems to understand this and designs the interface accordingly. My Sony Ericsson k610i seems to think I enjoy pressing buttons and moving the selector and pressing more buttons. An excellent test is to count the number of times you must move your finger from one button to another and how many times you have to click or press to accomplish one task. Count these on Nokia and Sony Ericsson and you'll be surprised. How about toggling T9 input while creating a text message? Sending a text message? Finding a contact? Returning to the main screen after sending a text message?
The annoyances you describe sounds like 3rd party integration issues which will be resolved after enough whiney bloggers complain. You yourself may even be able to configure the browser to open images inline. I've never used an E90 because I would never spend $800 on something that comes with 128MB of memory unless it was a desktop computer and smashing pumpkins were topping the charts.
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