User Centered

For no particular reason...


For some strange reason, on a Mac keyboard, I'm CONSTANTLY hitting the help key when I want the delete key. I never thought I would miss the "insert" key. Oh useless Windows keyboard, I now realize how much you've acted as an "enabler" of my poor typing skills.

I can't explain it at all, my spoon thumbs aren't anywhere near being involved in this one. Just one of those things I guess.

If you've ever seen the show "The Weakest Link" you're familiar with the "bank!" concept. In the game, they ask each player a question. Each correct answer builds onto a running total. When a contestant yells "bank" that total value is stored off the to the side and the counter is reset to zero dollars and they start to build again (more info). Of course if you don't "bank" it and you get the answer wrong, you start back at zero anyway with nothing saved. The idea is that you're chaining together correct ideas and every so often you have to say "yes, this is on the right track... lets save this progress" or gamble that you can get all the way though without stumbling.

This is how predictive text entering is supposed to work in my opinion. You start punching keys on your phone and every once in awhile you "bank" it by picking from a list to put the software on the right track. Of course, this takes time to pick and choose in the middle of typing.... so you could hope for the big payoff by just hammering out all the letters looking at the garbage on the screen until you get to the end and if you're lucky the software will end up with the permutation of letters that results in some form a legible, desired word. If not, you get garbage and you have to delete the word and start over again. You are the weakest link. Good-bye!

This is essentially how it worked on my Motorola phone. It wasn't perfect but I was very pleasantly surprised by it considering I was sharing three or four letters per key (T9). My new phone has a qwerty layout keyboard that has one key sharing two letters (pictured above) and a different kind of predictive software that I have heard good reviews about it on youtube and web forums...where the "users" are. (notable exception: David Pogue). I honestly expected based on the reviews and feedback and experience with Motorola's offering that I would rarely have to correct typing again. Sure-Type learns names and complex words as I go and I think it even scans the email I'm responding (don't quote me on that). It all sounds (and actually is) great. But I think it just might be a little too smart for me. The biggest stumbles all come from Sure-Type trying to assume what I'm thinking and it has caused me many more headaches than my junky old RAZR that I lament. It's a man vs. machine problem where the machine isn't always that great at figuring out what this man really means.

The good news is that in general, I'm very happy with Sure-Type. I've learned from the BlackBerry Forums that if you just look at the keyboard instead of trying to figure out if the prediction will come though, it's much easier to type. I've also learned tips and tricks on tweaking the auto text work with the sure-type (auto text is like the auto-correct in word... you can define your own so it's easy to create shortcuts...example a "sm" will insert a for me for my cute text messages). Sure-type is about a million times better than the multi tap method, and it works pretty well overall. As I've said, the biggest problem here is with me and my typing skills. When I screw up, the software doesn't know *what* to do with me. But well, this is user centered blog, so we better hash all this out...


Back Up Back up 'cause it's on
If you typo a word then backspace to correct it, the software thinks it predicted a word wrong when you really just typed it wrong. Of course sometimes (oddly enough, when it predicts a word wrong) this is a good thing. But in the case of a typo it's absolutely frustrating...

Example: I want to type "Ive" (which the software will politely put the apostrophe in for me). I type i,v, and it's highlighting "iv" combo, so we're going down the right path. Oops, spoon thumbs strike again and I accidentally hit the QW button instead of the ER button. Now it's recommending "ICQ" as the desired input. so I backspace and hit ER and "space" and end up with "ice" as my word.

Wonderful. So I just delete the whole thing and retype and just get "uce" (?) as my primary recommendation because it thinks I'm not interested in iv* or ic* so it now tries to figure out what I want by starting with "u" and I have to scroll over to ive. That's a lot of work for I've just because I made one typo! Granted I should have corrected it by paying attention after deleting the Q from ICQ, but it's a strange idea to delete the last character and then have to reevaluate the entire word. My mindset when I was typing "iv" was "I'm on the right track..." and now the entire word is wrong? I can't even see the track anymore.

Take it to the bank

That leads me to problem number two which is related to, but bigger than the first. It doesn't remember your forced entries. Forced entries are what I'm calling the "bank!" you do with predictive text software. Steering the software where you want it to go; you build a word and select which combination from the possible choices you'd like and it uses that as the baseline for further entries.

As an example again. This time around when I spell "I've" I type i,v, then I "Bank it!" by selecting the iv combo:

I'm telling the software. Ok- we've gone this far. Lets stop and double check our work, calibrate and mesh. This is what I'm after.. got it? Ok. So then I go on to press the "ER" key and see ive & ivr (so far so good...) and then!: ice|uce|ucr|icr

.... wait...what? I thought we went over this already? I said "iv" so why are you bringing up old stuff we already settled? It's like a bad relationship.

As I mentioned though, it's got ive right there in its sights, so all is well, but with longer words it's frustrating because backspacing/deleting still triggers all these other suggestions to come up which just adds unnecessary noise. The end result is that there's an oppotunity lost here. Yes the software works great. But there's a chance to make it better by remembering what I've banked. I'm not going to choose "Iv" then later on in the word choose "Ic.." instead, I'm just not quite that fickle. So leave that stuff off. If I don't bank it at any point along the way for longer worlds, and just look at the keys & hammer away, the word "California" ends up being "Validpenis". No, I didn't make that up, that's what it really ended up being. But at least I feel comfortable that my phone thinks that's important. I'd sure hate for it to be invalid.

Hey! I got a good idea for a dress shirt. Lets make the annoying task of buttoning the top of your dress shirt even more cumbersome by reducing the size of the buttons, and putting more of them where you can’t see them without a mirror! Brilliant!

Until I can afford bespoke (I've read every article there- fascinating stuff), I’ll have to make due with some department store’s two button collar shirt. I really wish I would have paid attention to this before I bought it. It is the first thing I avoid when purchasing shirts since. Really, is one button not providing the stiff/rigid appearance in the collar region? It's like one inch of material to deal with that is completely covered up and reinforced by the tie!

I have on regular occasion-
1) Fastened the top button to the bottom loop, and vice-versa
2) Exerted undue stress on my buttons trying to operate in such close quarters
3) Exponentially increased time spent on my collar button fastening from 3 seconds to 27 (on a good day). This statistic has been scientifically measured in a controlled environment, because that's the kind of effort and accuracy the readers expect of User Centered

Can someone tell me the benefit of two buttons? I can't say it looks too much better than one when the day is done, and when it comes to user experience, one button seems to take the cake for both those making the shirt, and those putting it on in the morning.



Disclaimers
1) Spoon thumbs may factor in. Based on this trend, I'm now introducing the "Spoon thumbs" tag as my way of saying "eh, maybe it's just me..."
2) …and yes, of course my neck size is appropriately fitting.

Seriously- am I the only person on earth that thinks the iPod scroll wheel should be up on the top part where the thumb most comfortably rests (where the screen is)?

Instead I have to hold it more like this*:

...which isn't all that comfortable to do one handed (and as pointed out in the comments below, is getting difficult as the iPod continues to shrink). I usually pull it out from my pocket holding it like the first image, then "hike" it up in my hand to easily get to the scroll wheel like in the second picture.

I'd like to swap the screen and the thumb wheel. Oh- and FYI, the Shuffle has the thumb controls on top. Oh, and FYI again- I actually *have* tried to get used to holding it upside down. It just wasn't cutting it for me.

So, while I think that might be feasible- this is not: I'd also like to see (in addition to being on top of the display) the wheel rotated 45 degrees counter clockwise (lefties can take a long walk off a short pier... or rotate 45 degree clockwise- either one really). Personally, I think the prev/next controls are the most commonly used, especially when blindly controlling it in your pocket. So by rotating the controls, this facilitates next/prev to be the easiest and most natural movement for your thumb- try it:

Here's an activity for you readers-
1) flip your iPod upside down. (you don't have one? -use your imagination or sit next to a student that does)
2) Pretend your prev/next controls are at 7:30/1:30 positions respectively. (ok lefties, since we're pretending here, you can pretend we're using 10:30/4:30)
3) Act like you're flipping through your playlist like a mad-man.

Oh man, is that fun or what? It's not exactly aesthetically pleasing, so I guess that wipes that whole idea down the drain.

ps- No, I don't think this is directly related to iPod thumb, but I'm sure the goofy wheel placement and odd iPod holding has something to do with it.


*Note how I held it with my thumb on the bottom part exaggerating the awkward thumb position? That's the "User Centered" equivalent of those "before and after" pictures where the before guy (Cletus) is wearing a BBQ stained white tank top in a black and white pic, and the after looks like Troy McClure...except I don't have a "Troy McClure" picture. How 'bout it Apple?