handhelds

"Handheld Usability" is well-organized, articulate, and surveys all of the existing technologies for this medium. The author clearly carefully researched every angle of design for handheld devices.His research is neatly organized into consistent, well-thought-out sections.

It is especialy helpful to see how Weiss applies traditional HCI design strategies to small computing devices. He provides ample examples throughout this well-illustrated, easy to follow volume.

The appendix on Paper Prototyping Palm OS was particularly helpful, with its photographic illustrations and clear instructions on how to produce a paper prototype. I have looked for a long time to locate a book on paper prototyping, and this is the first one available. He covers the topic fairly, presenting its strengths and weaknesses, and gives good instruction on the technique.

This book is easy to read, written in an instructive, helpful style like a good "hands on" textbook. There is a companion web site, handheldusability.info, which has additional materials that supplement the book nicely.

I recommend it highly.

This was the only book specific to handheld/mobile devices that discussed usability testing.

It is divided into short, concise sections that are easy to read and understand. The sections form a good basis on how to approach designing and testing a system. It has some very good pointers. The only thing was that it was too short!

The book was very, very helpful but it wasn't long enough and doesn't provide working examples. It just tells you the points that you should be considering when you are building a usable system. It doesn't go too in depth on any of the sections either.

Zipf's law states that common words are very common, and that uncommon words are combinations of uncommon words. For example if you start typing the letters 'th' then you are probably trying to write the word 'the' rather than 'theologian'. Applying this simple insight to mobile phones gave us predictive text entry, where a small dictionary allows the phone to guess the word that the user is most likely trying to enter. For example if you press the keys '82' while entering a text message on a modern phone, the phone will predict 'the' as your word. This invention allows QWERTY-snobs like me to approach the speeds of Finnish teenagers in tapping text messages on a mobile phone.

Such innovation is just amusingly clever on a PC, but on the small screens of handheld devices, it is essential. A good user interface converts a small device from a limiting gadget to a useful tool. European consumers' 'wapathetic' response to WAP-enable phones was due to over hyping by the telecommunications industry, but also poor usability of the devices.
So a textbook on the topic is certainly appropriate.

Handheld usability defines handheld devices as highly portable machines that can operate with no cables and can be operated within one's hand. In addition, they must either allow the addition of applications or support internet connectivity. So the book's focus includes handheld computers (such as Palm-powered machines and Pocket PCs) and mobile phones (with WAP, i-mode or email connectivity) but excludes devices such as music players.

Naturally the discussion includes details of devices that are obsolete. Such is usually the case with any discussion of the details in information technology. But the principles are timeless and the practices will remain practical.
Perhaps the most useful chapter is the one on prototyping. Weiss' advice is that this should be done with a pen and several pieces of paper. For example the designer would draw the first screen on the paper. The user would then say what he or she expects to see on interacting with each element of the "screen". During this feedback, the designer would draw the next screen, and again ask the user what he or she expects. This technique is of course cheap but I was surprised by its effectiveness. No doubt Weiss' clients also found it useful.

If your team is designing applications for handheld devices, consider hiring Weiss. If you cannot afford that, buy his book. You cannot afford not to.

Review appeared in British Medical Informatics Today, Issue 41