Exploring a Web Phone: Getting Physical
As part of the Concept Series, we’ve been playing with what a phone that is optimized for the Web. That is the web.
We’ve been working with Billy May, just like we’ve been working dozens of other talented designers as part of the Concept Series, to envision what such a beast looks like from a physical perspective. He’s got some initial sketches of what an phone with a change-on-the-fly OLED keyboard would look like. It’s a throw-away first concept and I know that we’ll see additional concepts from Billy May and other Concept Series participants soon.
I’m not normally a fan of changeable/contextual keys — you end up with a buttons that change in the night, but if executed very carefully with strong guidelines they can provide a platform for physical innovation. They can provide the benefits of a touch screen with actual tactile feedback.
I’m also happy to say that Billy’s work on envisioning an open Web phone was picked up by NPR. Mozilla Lab’s is its community, and it’s exciting that main-stream press is starting to pick up on that by highlighted the virtual members of our team.
Here’s the interview from Future Tense:
[MP3]
One of the strengths of the iPhone as a platform for user experience innovation is the wealth of physical inputs: a microphone, a camera, an accelerometer, a GPS, and a touch screen. That gives the freedom to make our interfaces more human, by allowing us to interact in physical, personal ways.
Question: What are the physical aspects of a phone that you think are missing? What would your “Mozilla Phone” look like?
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Tags: concept series, phone
sep332
How about a small, thin, flexible computer encased in a sturdy plastic cover with the words “Don’t Panic” inscribed on it in large, friendly letters?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/gallery/images/1024/babel3.html
tylerstyle
No keys (only tiny power button on top), only screen, black back, almost no edges on front, fennec with gestures, running on android. Thats how!
Ahhhh, dreams…
Dan Cardin
I am actually quite liking the look of that phone :P. The interface is as simple as you want it. when browing the internet, or something similar you could use bookmarks, history, tabs, most used sites, etc all with only the buttons.
It would have to be a customizeable type phone, which being called the moz phone automatically will make it so.
Sam Hasler
A touch screen that looks flat but feels bumpy so you can tell where your fingers are on it without looking.
skrat
this is silly, what are physical buttons with icons for? we have touchscreen for icons, the only case where physical buttons are usable is QWERTY keyboard, for input.
keys with OLED display are cool, yeah, they are so cool. but not usable.
tactile feedback is nice, but not in this form/context. this is fugly
umair
balancing a full touchscreen with a physical qwerty keyboard is simple: a plastic cover that snaps onto the screen. you press the plastic button which in turn presses the screen. no electronics in the plastic keypad which allows it to be extremely thin. however, it still provides the tactile feedback that the touchscreens forego.
in the case of this change-on-the-fly prototype, the plastic buttons could be clear, so you could see through them to the screen.
Tobias
I dont want the phone to ‘be’ the web. I want it to be integrated into my own processes and flexible to adapt to them. Therefore I want it to be extandable on hardware and software side. For excample: It it has a camera, I want to use it to take pictures to store on the phone. But also to be able to allow the flickr webpage to use the camera. Or to connect the phone with my computer to use the phones cam as a webcam. Or the other way around if i have a better camera, nearby, tell the phone to use this one instead for the pictures…
The same excample can be told with recording audio or playing audio…
So what we need is massiv standarisation so that a all the device-creator can build uppon this standard…
ps: sorry for the bad english :)
Philip Ganchev
I have always found it so ridiculous how uncomfortable it is to hold a phone and punch the buttons with the thumb of the same hand. The grip is very loose and the curve of the thumb is very unnatural. So I thought a lot about how to make that more comfortable. One of my designs has the buttons above the screen rather than below. This is much easier to hold.
The obvious objection is that you have to look lower than your hand. I don’t find that a problem, so I think it warrants user testing. Another objection is that the palm partly obscures the screen. To avoid that, the phone could be slightly curved to put the screen out of the way.
Moody Loner
For me personally, the “physical” design of the phone is far less important than the software running it – my ratio would be 70/30 in favour of the OS/apps over phone size, shape and weight any day(a la G1)
I like where this is going though, and I am using the G1 at the moment and it is somewhat restricted by the design (poor battery life for example) but the main thing is that; and this goes for ALL phones which interact with the web; the size of the screen and the resolution needed for a readable webpage are never going to be compatible at the sizes they[screens] are at the minute. Even mobile specific sites are poorly formatted compared to pages that laptops and even netbooks (7″+) screens can display.
Looking at the design presented, do the hard keys really need to be there? How about virtual OLED keys, they can change at will and provide more screen real estate that a hard set would take up. If, like UMAIR mentioned, you implement a plastic keyboard over the screen for tactility you would have the best of both options – why not have it flexible enough to be rolled under / over from the bottom of the screen (concealing the main part of the keyboard inside the back of the phone) to slide over the screen and back in again when the user doesn’t require it. Sort of like the way a roller shutter works, except – this keeps the keyboard flat when not in use. If you look at the G1 keyboard for example, the actual height of the keys from the body is very slight – why couldn’t this be implemented in a plastic overlay? You could also design the virtual icons to rotate when in landscape mode with no need to change the orientation of the keyboard.
Just a thought…
kbotond
A similar software based implementation can be found at http://www.mizu-voip.com/Products/WebPhone.aspx
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A touch screen that looks flat but feels bumpy so you can tell where your fingers are on it without looking.