When most mobile phones have touchscreens we could see some innovative UI improvements

Most mobile phones don’t have a touchscreen which means the user is relegated to operate what can often be a clumsy user interface with a few buttons.  As the cost to produce small touchscreens continues to drop we should start seeing them placed in more and more handsets.  This will open up a potential for some innovations in the UI for these phones that will make them very easy to operate.  David Beers of Software Everywhere has a great idea for such a UI:

Imagine that instead of the usual smartphone graphical menu--a grid of icons to tap--we had the icons arranged in, say, a ring with a tiny "+" to mark the center. That mark is where you begin the gesture to perform a new task. To check your Gmail account you move the stylus from the center of the screen toward the Email icon, which in turn enlarges and moves to greet your stylus point. Other icons shrink and move out of the way--you're not interested in them now. As the pen approaches the Email icon the most common email tasks emerge as icons and text around it: perhaps Fetch, New, and Read. Moving the pen smoothly toward Fetch it expands and account option icons blossom from it: Work, Gmail, and All. Change the direction of the pen movement to meet the Gmail icon and lift the stylus point. The email client launches and checks your Gmail account after a single stroke of the stylus. The visual effect could be stunning--variously rendered as flying into the interface or watching a vine sprout in stop motion video. It would be easy to make this the stuff of a Hollywood sci-fi thriller.

What a great idea, very Minority Report-like on a much smaller scale.  Such a UI could easily be operated with a fingertip, something that phones with touchscreens can do very well.  I hope the OEMs are listening to David.

-jk

Comments

[Vinit]

I've played around with touchscreen displays on mobile devices both as a developer at Adeena and an end-user (the MDA, Treo, etc).

I strongly believe that mobile devices need to maintain the link of hardware keys and buttons. If you are planning on moving forward into the future from buttons, then the right solution is voice. Not to say touch-screen will not or should not happen ... however, mobile UI has to be a combination of voice and touch, almost 80/20 in favor of voice.

I'm going to try to expand more on this on my blog ...