The Tension Between Simple and Obvious

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There is some great conversation going on right now about the role of obviousness in product design. A few products have touched off this debate, including a drawing and writing app called Paper, a task list app called Clear, a create your how-to guide called Snapguide, and Apple’s very own photo editing software iPhoto.

The basis of the debate is that products like Paper and Clear use very few buttons, toolbars and other visual guides for how to use the software. Instead they rely on gestures almost exclusively. All you get is the thing you are interacting with. This has been typical of games for a long time but productivity apps have generally used buttons as a guide post. A few articles, most I found via Daring Fireball, worth checking out on the subject if interested:

The argument for is that it creates a beautiful experience that focuses you exclusively on the task at hand. By learning a few gestures you get an extremely simple and elegant application. The argument against is that no chrome and too much reliance on gestures means a steep learning curve that is easy to forget if not using the app all the time.

It’s a good argument to have, I believe, and is at the heart of my Single Box Theory of design. The beauty of a single box is its simplicity. The problem is that it removes much of the obviousness. This means the box itself has to be smart enough to decipher whatever the user intended. Look at Google’s own search box. We all know it can search but did you also know it can calculate, convert and graph? How about get you flight information, sports scores, and stock quotes? It can do hundreds of things to get you real time results if only you know how to structure your query. And that’s the blessing and the curse. Would it have been more obvious for Google to add a list to the screen and ask you what you are looking for? Maybe but it wouldn’t have been as simple.

There is a constant creative tension between these two: simplicity and obviousness. Frankly, it is that tension that makes product design so much fun.

Announcing powerOne version 3

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I’m proud to announce that in the next two weeks we will release powerOne version 3. While the look and feel will remain the same we have added some key features for our iPhone, iPod touch and iPad customers. This is a free update and hope you find these improvements as exciting as I do!

Graphing

The biggest new feature is the introduction of graphing. We offer function graphs, scatter plots and bar graphs. Graphing will be added to a number of existing templates plus our Scientific Pro customers will get a Function Graphing template added to their product automatically. (Finance Pro customers will be able to download it from the Library and see In App Purchase below if you are a Lite customer.)

I played with some 15 or so graphing packages for the iPhone and iPad over the past few months and found most of them confusing and unintuitive. I believe we have done one better here. To zoom, pinch. To pan, drag a finger across the screen. Tracing is where we really shine. Hold down on the screen for a second and a function trace line appears and/or a scatter plot closest to your finger highlights with the appropriate information. Drag around the screen to see the data change or enter a specific ‘x’ point to evaluate a ‘y’.

I couldn’t be happier about the implementation and believe it was done in a way that will make Apple proud!

Filtering and Favorites

We added two new capabilities that should make it easier to find the template you are looking for. The first is that you can filter your template list by category. This makes it easy to see all your Finance templates or Engineering templates, for instance. The second is that you can now designate your often used templates as Favorites and filter just on this list.

Advanced Math

Not only did we add graphing but we also made advanced math functions available for our Pro customers (see In App Purchases for our Lite customers). The trig tab now is the advanced math tab. Choose from 7 keypads or select “More” for access to over 160 functions covering everything from programmer’s math, complex numbers, trig and hyperbolic, matrices, statistics, probability, calculus and more.

Template Creation

I already mentioned graphing. We added two new row types: an equation row for entering function graphs and a graph row for plotting the required data. Up to three data sets can be plotted at a time using the new graph() function call. We also added a new constants section, which is similar to macros but creates a constant result (rather than just substituting). This is particularly good for look-up tables where you don’t want to replicate the entire table over-and-over, or when you need results in more than one row.

In addition to new template creation features we also added the ability to create up to 10 custom categories and name them as desired.

VoiceOver

For our sight impaired customers we have added comprehensive VoiceOver support. Now buttons say their names and calculations are read out-loud upon touching equals. Templates are also supported. For instance, tap a row to have its contents read to you!

In App Purchase

For our powerOne Lite customers we have added the ability to purchase some add-on template bundles and features right within the app. Options include our advanced math package, graphing, finance, business, conversions and more.

Android Is Fragmented. How to Deal With it.

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Back in January I proposed a hypothesis that, as a developer, we no longer consider writing for an operating system. Instead, we focus on writing for a device family. For instance, you don’t write for Android. You write for Samsung phones that use Android. I’m seeing more momentum in this direction.

The first was a story sent to me by a friend entitled “The shocking toll of hardware and software fragmentation on Android development.” In short, developer David Smith released AudioBooks, a free app, into the Android market. With 1.3 million downloads it has been run on 1,443 different Android devices. This, obviously, is insanity. There is no way to guarantee compatibility with all these devices with all the various versions of the operating system on them.

As I said in January, with Samsung owning huge market share among smartphones, does it make sense to develop for other Android smartphones? And with Amazon owning (presumably) huge market share among Android tablets, does it make sense to develop for other Android tablets?

Charlie Kindel also wrote an interesting article on Google and what he believes is its Android strategy. He believes that Google will de-emphasize the Android brand in favor of its new Play brand, including releasing its own tablets under the Play brand (emphasis his):

Google will start distancing itself from the Android brand completely. Why? Because Android has become an ill-defined mess of a brand that Google does not control. If Google wants to create a phenomenal end-to-end user experience that has a chance of competing with the iPad juggernaut in the tablet space they need to control all aspects of the experience. If they are smart (and I think they are) they will recognize that brand is as much a part of the end-to-end experience as the user interface, device, OS,  apps, and services. 

Of course, this doesn’t help Android fragmentation at all (which Charlie addresses), but it does once again focus the mind of this developer. If I decide to write Android software then I’m going manufacturer by manufacturer, not platform by platform.

Pulling for RIM

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I meant to write this morning and next thing I know it is this evening. That seems to be happening a lot lately. What I wanted to link to today was a great article by Michael Mace on Rebuilding RIM. In it Michael prescribes the steps moving forward for RIM. It is instructive for any big company in trouble, I think. In step 4, Create Differentiation, Michael advocates focusing on three core features that RIM can do better than anyone else. Michael’s writings on RIM very much match my own thoughts, although he is a little softer than I am. 🙂

I have a soft spot for RIM, although I’m not certain why. I really want to see this company survive and thrive. I’m pulling for them like I didn’t pull for Palm or Microsoft in the smartphone space. I think it is because, unlike everyone else in the mobile computing market, RIM is actually focused on a different group of people then the rest. They aren’t a consumer company; they are a company focused on busy professionals.

These are the same people I sell to. I acknowledge that the company went sideways, forgetting the date that brought them. But if a smart company like RIM can’t focus on the professional market and succeed then maybe none of us can.

Why RIM Could Thrive If It Could Extract Its Head From Its Rear End

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In 2005 Palm release its last handheld computer: the T|X. It was, in short, one of the nicest devices Palm ever made (the Palm V was the nicest) and finally had the features everyone wanted: built-in wifi, full screen mode (you could hide the keyboard), a nicely designed product, good battery life, at least for the time. But that was it. From that point on out it was smartphones and every one of those smartphones had a physical keyboard.

Between 2003 and 2007 every smartphone shipped had a physical keyboard. No one at these companies thought that the future was a soft keyboard. Microsoft, Palm, RIM, Nokia all had physical keyboards. Even Android was originally written for a physical keyboard.

As we all know in 2007 Apple announced the iPhone and the iPod touch and the whole world remembered that physical keyboards, to many, was a pain in the rear end, that it would get in your way. RIM came out with touch screen devices, some with and without physical keyboards. Palm did the same, all with slide out physical keyboards. Android was quickly re-written for devices with soft keyboards. The world, short of a few BlackBerry models, dropped them all together.

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As always Horace Dediu wrote an excellent post taking RIM to task on dropping consumers to focus on enterprise sales:

The idea of focus has huge benefits. Focus and the art of saying no are keys to greatness. However, you only succeed if you focus on the right thing. “Enterprise” is not the right thing. It’s not a valid target. Enterprise support is a feature, not a product. I don’t mean that as opinion, but as a point of fact. Focus on a set of customers whose only characteristic is a job description is missing the whole point of focus.

I am in complete agreement with Horace. There is no enterprise market. To lend credence, I started a conversation with a guy on the street last week, a guy carrying a BlackBerry. His comments went something like this:

I can’t carry an iPhone. I need to type for a living. I can’t answer emails fast enough and text messages fast enough by typing on glass. And my wife! She has long fingernails and couldn’t use an iPhone or Android if she wanted. The screens won’t pick up her finger presses correctly.

RIM: this guy is your customer. He is an info worker who needs access to stuff quickly. He’s not going to carry around a junk device that looks like crap. He still wants the web and music on the go. But he needs email, messaging, phone calls, security and everything else your standard issue info worker needs. He needs all that stuff syncing seamlessly across his systems. And guess what? He needs a physical keyboard, which you excel at. The beauty of the cell phone world is one size doesn’t need to fit all. There is room for a physical keyboard and you are in luck since everyone else abandoned them.

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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written a variant of this post before. The odds of Thorsten Heins pulling it off, in my mind, are slim to none. Not because RIM isn’t capable with excellent engineers. But because the company’s management seems to have its collective heads stuck up their asses.