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Windows Mobile Devices with no Hardware Buttons

Posted by Gil Bouhnick on 10/11/08 in HTC, LG, Opinion

imageHave you noticed a new “minimalism” trend in Windows Mobile phones designs?

New devices (for example: HTC HD, LG Incite) come with really few hardware buttons.

No ‘OK’ button, no ‘Start’ key, and even… have mercy… no D-Pad buttons!

(hmm… is it something I said?)

 image  

Knowing the limitations of Windows Mobile, I wonder how good the user experience can get without having some of the traditional hard buttons.

Most of the new applications are designed in a way that does not require a stylus or d-pad: they are what we call: finger friendly.

But the problem is that up to this point - the vast majority of Windows Mobile applications is not yet finger friendly: mails, SMS, calendar, files explorer, different settings, word, excel - all of those are older applications not well designed for finger use.

Few examples:

image 1. Menus: I often find myself navigating through menu items using the d-pad.

Since Windows Mobile was originally designed for stylus use - the menus are too small to be clicked by a finger. The workaround to this problem is the d-pad - can you imagine using a finger or pulling the stylus each time you need to click on a menu item?

image 2. Lists: Let’s say I need to scroll down a bit in order to select an image when I’m using the default files explorer. Currently, the fastest way (for me) would be to use the down arrow button (leave it pressed) and this would move the selection down 1 by 1 until it will scroll the entire list down. I personally hate using the scroll-bar with my finger (or pulling the stylus out of its’ endless sleeping mode…)

I assume that if I try harder and can come up with some other examples, but I feel that those 2 are strong enough to prove that Windows Mobile is not yet ready for finger navigation only.

 

This, I hope, is something that will be solved in windows Mobile 7. I’m really anxious to see how the user interface will look like, but until that point, I would rather stick with some hard keys to ease and speed things up when I’m using my phone.

What do you think?

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Written by Gil Bouhnick · Filed Under HTC, LG, Opinion 
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  • TOCA
    You're right, what I'm looking for is more options for scrolling, since a full page is a bit too much, and one line per click is too slow.

    On my PC, I can set the scrolling to do 1, 3 or 6 lines per click, or a full page, why are those two medium size scrolls not available on a WM device?

    Oh, and why don't they all have the jog dial on the side?
  • Pony99CA
    Scroll wheels tend to repeat the same functionality as the buttons, though. On my Motorola Q and Q9m, each notch of the scroll wheel is like pressing the up or down button. Pressing in the scroll wheel is like pressing the OK button.

    It sounds like you're asking for more than just the hardware -- you want a settings applet to configure its behavior (or, more difficult, different behaviors depending on your context).

    I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but you may want to clarify exactly what you hope for.

    Steve
  • TOCA
    There is one button that I have been missing since my first PPC, and that's a scroll wheel.

    I do a lot of news and E-book reading on my PPC, and scrolling with the D-pad is not the best way, since it only allows for scrolling one line or one page at a time, while I would like to scroll one paragraph at a time, even half a page would be nice.

    How hard can it be to put a small wheel on the side of a PPC?
  • siemens
    You are abselutely right. I have a Windows "Smartphone" now, and while I love all the buttons, I really miss the touch screen for panning and scrolling. Xperia is here within a weeks time, and i's soom Christmas :-)
  • @W. M. Miller
    My main concern is that I really like being able to map buttons in various applications (media players, Resco audio recorder, etc.) to do things like start, stop, skip forward or backward, turn on and off the screen, change the volume, etc. If you don’t have buttons, you can’t map buttons to do those functions, and that’s really unfortunate.

    That (and games, as TOCA mentioned) are why we need buttons. In fact, I've long wished that devices include more hardware buttons, not fewer.

    Of course, with larger screens (like 240x400), you could probably make a virtual button pad for games. It wouldn't be too bad for gaming, because you're always looking at the screen. For controlling applications without looking at the device, though, it wouldn't help at all.

    @siemens
    If it it is designed for one handed operation, then finger friendly has some sense, but still - in that case hardware buttens will be much better so you don’t have to look where your finger are.

    Touchscreen devices are inherently two-handed devices -- one to hold the device, the other to touch the screen. If you want a one-handed device, look at Windows Mobile Standard (Smartphone), which is entirely controlled by buttons.

    The problem with that is that you can't scroll quickly. Navigating a long Web page with only up/down buttons is tedious. Scroll bars making navigating much faster.

    Steve
  • TOCA
    Now, how am I going to play racing and flying games, without a D-pad and 4 buttons for fireing different types of ammo? And my daily round of 18 holes, how am I going to get that exercise with out control buttons? ;)

    Seriously, I have gotten used to use both D-pad and a few shortcut HW buttons on my devices, I don't think it will be easy to reverse that. Maybe it all depends on how you use your device, and for what?
  • Cirrob
    I agree siemens. I get so Much more use out of my ppc than I ever did with my Iphone, not only because the better OS but because the hardware Keys and stylus ... its simply faster to do things and navigate. More fits on the screen because they don't have to acconidutl fat fingers

    Mapping hardware keys just makes things that much faster.
  • siemens
    Finger friendly touch screen is simply a poor excuse, and a 'hip' or 'fashionable' but ultimately dead end substitute for the lack of hardware keys.

    If it it is designed for one handed operation, then finger friendly has some sense, but still - in that case hardware buttens will be much better so you don't have to look where your finger are.

    For two handed operation, a stylus give a much more precise feel.

    Finger friendly is really all fashion and no sense but for the simplest of tasks.
  • W. M. Miller
    I seldom use the D-pad for navigation through lists (the exception is in Contacts, where holding the down button starts skipping by letter instead by entry after a couple of seconds, which is pretty convenient) and never for menus; I often use my fingernail to select menu items and other things on the screen (I have a Cingular 8525 running WM5). I generally only use a stylus when I need to enter text (I use SpeedScript, the best third-party SIP no one's ever heard of).

    My main concern is that I really like being able to map buttons in various applications (media players, Resco audio recorder, etc.) to do things like start, stop, skip forward or backward, turn on and off the screen, change the volume, etc. If you don't have buttons, you can't map buttons to do those functions, and that's really unfortunate.
  • lapurd
    Folks at Microsoft will have to come to grips with the fact a vast majority of people (consumers or business) prefer "finger friendly" designs over whipping out a stylus on their minimalist layouts. Besides, long lists are nothing up or down page swipes can't cure. MS just needs to get their fingers out of their behinds ;)
  • surur
    I dont know if you have used a HTC Touch Diamond Pro, but HTC has managed to increase the font sizes in ALL menus (even 3rd party software) to easy finger-friendly sizes, while lists are usually easy enough to use by finger.
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