We've given you
your chance to choose a champion amongst the iPhone, HTC Touch and LG Prada, and while the latter wasn't included at LG's request, the other two were recently pit against Nokia's N95 in a study of
usability. The test was reportedly conducted by Perceptive Sciences, a Texas-based usability consulting firm, and relied on data from just ten individuals who had "never used any of the three devices." The group was asked to "perform a series of tasks on each handset with quantifiable results, such as the time needed to find and use the on / off switch," and when all was said and done, the iPhone managed to snag the gold. Of course, we wouldn't take these results to be the bonafide truth, but if you're interested in seeing what all the mobiles (and guinea pigs) went through before a winner was chosen, head on over to the read link.
[Via
iLounge]
posted Sep 24th 2007 10:35PM
10 people?!? Give me a frigging break! That's about as useful as... the iPhone! LOL!
did these people never use even a semi-smartfone before?
did these 10 people ever even use a semi-smartphone, they were prly too computer illiterate to use them
4 hours to setup the WLAN on the N95?!?!
If the N95 is that hard for people to use, then I'm more really glad Jobs invented the iPhone to protect them from themselves.
took me 1 minute
I wonder which phone they got to use first, and which last... considering the volume button and power button is in almost EXACTLY the same place on the N95 and the iPhone how was it so much more difficult to find on the N95? Also, the order of tests within each phone also - for example if you've discovered the N95's power button, then you know how to put it on silent (same button/menu). Not to mention the fact that they used "Look and Feel" as well as "Functionality" in a Usability study... wow, some great researchers there.
Oh... and if these people were able to figure out that you had to hold down the unlabeled little black button on the top of the iPhone for 5 seconds (without any visual queues or prompting) and then slide the slider sideways, and not too fast and make sure you slide it all the way or it will "slide back" and not shut off... wow, they must be some kind of apple iPod Touch users or something because to me, that was WAY less intuitive than "pushing the button with the power symbol on it and then selecting Power Off from the menu with the D-Pad/Soft Key."
The iPhone is beautiful and the UI is gorgeous and you find yourself just doing stuff to watch it be beautiful but intuitive and easy to find things (finding the @ sign, doesn't rotate when you are in the keyboard, figuring out if it's in 'shift mode' to get capitalization or not as the letters on the keyboard are always caps, figuring out how to put caps lock on... and that's just the keyboard :D)
Just my $0.02
How many of these people came in thinking the iPhone was THE coolest thing in the world and just wanted to play with them and found it as a novelty?
Whats that? All of them? Thats what I thought.
*yawn*
Wake me up when there's actually something not-entirely-pointless to report about the iPhone.
notify the public: iPhones popular
America doesn't even see usage of much s60 devices
like other places thats why its not intuitive. bust out the old nokia handsets, u know which ones im talking about, the old 1000 2000 series; bring those out and everyone will know how to use one play with it text( if the phones had it available haha). everyone is assaulted with iphone ads of course they know how to use it
thanx i needed my iphone propaganda story for the day....
The iPhone brings the dumb out of people. Ooooooh, perty... If you're familiar with WinMo at all you can install a prog called WM5NewMenu and with one click of any predefined button(without hacking) you can bring up a menu of a limitless amount of things to do:
Call
Launch anything
SMS to anyone
...etc
So I guess it's easier to close out totally what your were doing just so you can launch another thing?
As soon as a WinMo device get's that screen(or someone puts WinMo on the iPhone) it's over.
It just seems to me that this study was not particularly neutral. Rather, it was more like, "Is the iPhone better [or as they claim, more 'usable'] than these other two phones?" As someone pointed out, which phone were they given to use first? That could completely sway opinions. As could the fact that most of the participants had most likely seen iPhone commercials which show how to use several features. Also, both Touch and the N95 are based upon previous OS platforms which no doubt make them more difficult to become accustomed to for people who have never used such platforms.
I guess I can't disagree with the study's outcome...I just don't think that it's a particularly useful study.
Someone said it best, Apple is about usability, the Iphone is very intuitive and simple but still advanced. Windows Mobile is complicated and takes much more time to master, but is a more powerful system. As a Windows Mobile user, haven't used S60 much, I totally give props to the Iphone. As a power user, I chose Windows Mobile because it has THIRD party app support. If something isn't built in, you don't have to wait for a firmware update to come along. Now as stated it's a usability study, so Apple will win. I can do full blown Youtube etc. I would recommend windows mobile, but also the Iphone depending on how hard you want to work to get your phone to the level it should be.
1. No statistical validity in this sample (too few subjects for an adequate cross-over)
but the results are pretty simple to discern...
2. WinMob is about the possibility of doing everything if you can figure it out and find the right software and registry changes
S60 is for smart-phones only (no touch screen devices), slow and boring
UIQ was the best phone IU before V3.0 and over a VERY stable and robust Symbian core, but it pretty much committed Seppuku with the P990
iPhone is about what you have figured out and can demonstrate to others (and the self-sustaining bliss of not knowing what you don't know)