Nouns, verbs and iPhone interface design.
Last night, as I struggled through the iPhone’s clumsy contacts search, it struck me that the reason I still have difficulty with the interface after almost a year of usage is that Apple has deviated from the noun paradigm in the iPhone interface in a couple of important areas. In an interview with the NYT in October 2007, Jobs was quoted as saying:
“People don’t understand that we’ve invented a new class of interface,” he said.
He contrasted it with stylus interfaces, like the approach Microsoft took with its tablet computer. That interface is not so different from what most computers have been using since the mid-1980s.
In contrast, Mr. Jobs said that multitouch drastically simplified the process of controlling a computer.
There are no “verbs” in the iPhone interface, he said, alluding to the way a standard mouse or stylus system works. In those systems, users select an object, like a photo, and then separately select an action, or “verb,” to do something to it.
While that’s true for many of the items like calendar, photos, maps etc. it’s not true for vital ones like SMS, Phone, and to some extent Mail. I consistently find myself going to a contact (noun) in order to send them an SMS (verb). Likewise I find it annoying that I have to go through phone (verb) in order to get to my contacts.
While this is apparently due to be remedied in the 2.0 interface, I was thinking that multitouch opens up a bunch of new opportunities to take the noun-verb paradigm even further by allowing verbs to be accessed through gestures.
For example swiping a contact could send them a text, while double tapping could send them an email. Searching through contacts could be performed by gestures, imagine writing a “v” with your fingers to navigate to V in your contacts list. This line of thinking allows for some other simplifications (or condensing).
Camera can be a verb of photos; clock a verb of calendar and so on. While this scheme might not fit everyone, it could be an advanced customisation feature available to advanced users.
In case you couldn’t tell I’m a bit eager for June 9th?
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