Design Critique - Pocket App

Pocket Website:

https://getpocket.com

1. Description:

Pocket is a mobile app that allows users to sync online content with their mobile phones and desktop computers for reading offline or at a later time. After logging into your Pocket account users are greeted with a full list of pages which can be filtered by article, image, and video view. Visually, the app is a mix of clean whites and shades of gray, which helps to emphasize the colorful thumbnails tied to many of the entries. Pull to refresh allows you to sync with your latest saved articles, and you can swipe on any entry to reveal options to tag, archive, save, trash, or share with other services. This app is great for someone who likes to surf the internet but doesn't always have time to read lengthy articles at their computer.

(Home Screen of Pocket App)

2. Consistency

Pocket has gone through a number of changes since its introduction, making the app highly consistent and easy to navigate, even when using different devices or accessing through a browser. A quick look at the Mac version of this application shows how hard developers have worked to make the user feel as if they are using a unified service. The other element to Pocket that is important to note is that it attempts to remove all formatting from the original article ultimately giving you a better reading experience. This is a highly important element to the success of Pocket because many people are concerned about the clutter of images and advertisements plaguing their reading experience.

(The Mac Version of Pocket Uses a Consistent UI)

3. Visibility

The goal of Pocket is to make navigating through your saved articles easy while also giving you a comfortable environment to read, tag, save, and share with friends. The article view gives the user many options which allow them the change the size, font, color, and brightness of an article in real time. The bottom navigation bar gives you options to move back to your main list, archive, star, and share. In addition, users can switch to "web view" to see the original formatting of their article if they choose.

(Visibility Options on Pocket)

4. Feedback

The Pocket app gives users many options to produce feedback within an article view by allowing them to favorite, mark as read (causing the article to disappear from main view), or share the article via email, or other online social services. By clicking on the "more" button within the share menu a user can set up one of over 30 social sharing applications and customize their sharing menu to display there most used services. The app also lets users tag articles for easier searching and categorization. Once an item is tagged users can filter by that tag, a feature thats nice if you are saving articles for school or work and want to separate them later.

5. Affordances

While there are many applications that allow you to save articles offline for later viewing such as Evernote, Pocket seems to be primarily about the act of reading and this shows in the way the app is designed and presented to users. The bright color scheme and clean lines of Pocket make it easy to navigate and inviting and helps to encourage the user to stay within the app to perform reading tasks.

(Simple and Clean Menu Interface)

6. Conceptual Model

The conceptual model of Pocket is simplicity and this is achieved by the low number of transition screens and initial settings required by the user. More options and views are available to the user but remain hidden behind a menu only for those users who want to go beyond the bare minimum of the apps functionality. What is great about Pocket is that it remains an app for doing a single task. Even when extra features are accessed they still feel as if they are there to aide you in the activity of reading. One such example is the "Highlights" feature which has categories like best of, quick reads, and long reads. Helping the user parse out the length of content allows them to make better decisions based on the amount of time they have to read (for example, if they are on a bus for 10 minutes). These features feel useful and never get in the way of the overall goal. 

(Highlights Menu Option)

7. Limitations

The limitations of Pocket have mainly to do with restrictions set by operating system makers such as Apple which do not allow for deep integration with these services. To get around this problem Pocket has devised bookmarks which use javascript to forward the article to the service. This workaround is efficient but somewhat clunky and could be improved only if Apple opened up the sharing API. One other limitation is the push of sponsored content atop the article and video views of the app. This is most likely a way for Pocket to produce revenue and is less of a limitation and more of a small annoyance. 

Mobile News-- Typing Related Products

On April Fool’s Day, Sogou declared they would release an evolutional typing product called Typany, which means you can type “anything anytime anywhere”. By wearing this armband, users can use any surface they get to type. Although it may sounds too good to be true, there are still some functions that have been realized, which makes Typany more like a typing product vision in the future than just an April Fool’s joke.

1. Fleksy—Massive Metadata Computing and Autocorrections

“Fleksy is an application that replaces your device’s on-screen keyboard.” It has received a number of rewards since first released in July, 2012. Now it is an app that available both in App Store and Google Play with the price of $3.99. What it really helps is you don’t have to look at your keyboard while typing anymore. Users can type based on their memory and imagination while Fleksy predicts and selects the exact word you typed. It doesn’t really care what you’ve typed, but where you typed. Even if for the blind, the typing can easily get 100% correct. “With 114% larger effective typing area, use traditional buttons like the spacebar or master Fleksy’s unique gesture system to space, delete, capitalize and punctuate.” And the keyboard below can be totally invisible, giving you the freedom of the whole screen.

2. SensorMonitor—Change any Surface into a Keyboard

It will be awesome if the users can type anywhere they want—no matter on a bed sheet, their arms, desks, or anywhere you can imagine. The hard part for this is to catch the three-dimensional coordinate sequence and reflecting this correctly to the typing results. Maybe three-dimension is still a dream, but two-dimension has become true.

Vibrative Virtual Keyboard developed by Florian Krautli can realize two-dimensional typing. This is an app that can turn any surface into an iPhone keyboard. It “uses an iPhone’s accelerometer to sense the location of a tap on any surface and translate it into typed letters on a keyboard”.”Technically, the phone’s accelerometer is measuring vibrations on that surface. Krautli’s software maps those vibrations to a point of origin on the table. And when the phone can “see” where you’re tapping, you can have a QWERTY keyboard on any tabletop.” However, this app can’t guarantee accuracy because the recognition is still not perfect, which means it needs a kind of spell checker. Also, this app is not available for download now.

3. MYO Armband—Two-dimension to Three-dimension, Tactile Feedback Solution

The Myo is developed by a Canadian startup called Thalmic Labs. And it gives a new solution for gesture sensing—sensing the muscles. It can get your forearm gesture sensed as well as relative motion sensed. Eight EMG sensors built around Myo can pick up on the electrical potential generated by muscle cells, then with the Myo on your forearm, “the sensors can read all of the muscles that control your fingers, letting them spy on finger position as well as grip strength.” Now Myo offers wireless compatibility with PCs, Macs, iOS, and Android. And the price of a pre-order is $149.

Based on all the functions that have been realized, what Typany said may become true in the future instead of just being an April Fool’s joke.

References:

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671234/an-app-that-turns-any-surface-into-an-iphone-keyboard

http://www.droid-life.com/2013/05/30/fleksy-keyboard-beta-released-to-google-play-join-the-group-and-try-it-yourself/

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/thalmic-myo-armband-provides-effortless-gesture-control-of-robots

And here's what Google plans for January 2015...

Connect U - Group 4

Group 2: Connect U

Members: Jingya Wang, Khiem Le, Yao Du

The purpose of our app Connect U is to build a Facebook add-on app that allows users to use geo-tracking feature to search new people nearby. Using a flat design, we provided a simple and user-friendly dashboard with several key functions that help users to filter and search people and events. It also has friend recommendation (which was validated as a highly desired feature during our initial user research) and chat function, allowing users to communicate within our app.

Once you open our interactive prototype, you will first see a Login with Facebook option. Once you clicked it, you will be led to Kim Hyun Lee – our test user’s profile. Navigating through the arrow menu button, you will see the main dashboard with the following options: search, geo-tracking, chat, and recommendation.  You need to first turn on geo-tracking in order to use the search function. A notification message will show up if you tempted to search without first turning on the geo-tracking. Geo-tracking can be turned on or off by tapping the dragging button. Once you turned on geo-tracking then navigate to search, our app will provide you people and events nearby.  Clicking on the person or event icon will show you more details. You will see both the map view or list view of our geo-tracking search results, you may choose to filter people by school year, major, interest, language, and distance from you. There is no filter for events at this moment due to difficulty in categorizing events of interests, we might consider to add that feature based on some of your user feedback. Chat will automatically take you to a friend list you have previously contacted. Recommendation will provide you with both people and events that our app recommended based on your profile and interests. Both people and events can be navigated using the bottom menu buttons. You can choose to add the recommended people to friends directly or message them first. Our add-as-friend feature allows you to add people directly through Facebook. Our event recommendation feature gives you all information you need to attend a nearby event: location, time, and contact person. You may choose to call the contact person, or go to the event site using our “open in map” service that links you directly to Google map.

Link to Prototype: http://uof9z3.axshare.com/

Mobile News

1. BGR gives the world an exclusive first look at the unannounced smartphone Amazon is set to debut in the coming months

http://bgr.com/2014/04/15/amazon-smartphone-photos-specs-kindle-phone-exclusive/

After years of development, Amazon is finally close to unveiling the first of several own-brand smartphones.

At a distance, Amazon’s upcoming flagship phone looks much like any other touchscreen phone on the market. But the company has spent years creating a unique and, at times, novel user experience that has two main focuses: Amazon products and services, and a custom 3D interface unlike anything we have seen before on a smartphone.

BGR have obtained exclusive photos of a prototype of the unreleased device, giving the world its first look at Amazon’s hotly anticipated phone.

As can be seen in the images, the device is covered by a protective shell intended to prevent people without authorization from seeing the physical design of the phone. Some areas of the photos have also been blocked or otherwise obscured by BGR.

The device set to debut in the coming months will be a higher-end model that has been in development at Amazon for several years. This sources state that the new Amazon phone includes a total of six cameras.

The main rear camera is thought to feature a resolution of 13 megapixels, and the phone also includes a standard front-facing camera for video chats as well as Amazon’s Mayday customer service feature.

Beyond those two units, the device houses an additional four front-facing cameras that work with other sensors to facilitate the software’s 3D effects. One source tells that these four cameras, which are situated in each of the four corners on the face of the phone, are low-power infrared cameras.

The device’s extra cameras are used to track the position of the user’s face and eyes in relation to the phone’s display. This allows Amazon’s software to make constant adjustments to the positioning of on-screen elements, altering the perspective of visuals on the screen.

2. Could This Be The Samsung Galaxy Glass?

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/could-this-be-samsung-galaxy-glass-15-04-2014/

Google sold their Google Glass to the general public for one day only, the device was available for just yesterday for $1500. Previously the Google Glass Explorer program had been by invite only, but Google are now letting anyone purchase Google Glass today, although there are no details on how many of the wearable device are available.

If you didn’t get one yesterday, how about the Samsung Galaxy Glass?

We already know that Samsung is working on a Google Glass competitor, the device is said to be called the Samsung Galaxy Glass, and the last thing we heard about the device was that it would launch before the end of the year.

We previously heard that Samsung Galaxy Glass may be announced at IFA 2014 in September, and now some new patent filings have revealed a device which may end up being Samsung’s Google Glass competitor.

As you can see from the photo above, the device is a headphone with a built in HUD or Head Up Display, which seems like an interesting idea. If you watched the carton: dragon balls, you might love it because it is very similar to the one of Saiyan.

If this is actually Samsung Galaxy Glass, then this would mean that the device would be used without the need to wear glasses, instead it would be similar to a standard Bluetooth headset.

3. Lechal haptic footwear guides you by buzzing your feet

http://www.gizmag.com/lechal-haptic-feedback-navigation-shoes/30939/

http://lechal.com

This products from Lechal aimed at helping all people navigate the city streets. There are actually two Lechal products – a complete set of shoes, and polyurethane insoles that can be put inside existing shoes.

In both cases, they work by communicating with the user's smartphone via Bluetooth. In order to guide the user from their current location to their destination, it lets them know where and when to turn by causing one of the shoes to vibrate – the left shoe for a left turn, and the right for a right.

Besides its use for navigation, Lechal can also be utilized as a fitness tracking system, as it's able to count steps, track calories burned, and create interactive workouts. It'll also buzz your shoes to let you know you've left your phone behind, or if you're traveling and are near points of interest – in the latter situation, you'd proceed to check the app display to see what the point of interest is.

The shoes have started taking preorders since March 7. Both the insoles and the shoes will be priced at US$100.

http://youtu.be/QCE27-bJRO4

4.Mi.Mu Glove for Music

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mimu/mimu-glove-for-music?ref=discovery

The gloves capture the movements and postures of your hands. Their software allows this information to be mapped to musical control messages which can then be easily routed to users' favourite music software.

Group 1 - Austin City Parks & Events Mobile App

Austin City Parks & Events Mobile App

Group Members - Graham Austin, Ran Xu,  Chinmaya Dattathri

The Austin City Parks & Events app's main objective is to provide local residents an easy and intuitive way to access information about parks and events nearby. This app is intended for all audiences (13-65+) and should be simple, informative, and easy to navigate.

Link To Prototype:
goo.gl/GzOBJx

Group 2 : Austin Parks and Trails

 

Team : Shayani Deb, Xiaojing Feng, Sayali Phatak

The objective of this project is to provide "on-the-go" access to information about Austin's parks, trails and picnic areas as well as events hosted at such locations. The essential problems that we are addressing in our project are (1) the discovery of information needs of Austin's park and trails users and (2) designing an interactive interface that satisfies these user needs. To this effect, we present the Austin Trails and Parks app, a comprehensive and versatile app that will enable citizens of Austin as well as visitors to experience and enjoy all that the city has to offer. The app's strong point is its customizability features that provide a tailored and personalized experience for the user.

https://ischool.proto.io/share/?id=b1983f4d-e01c-4400-b7b8-11a5491d065d&v=2

USER MANUAL

Our prototype is still a work in progress and does not have full functionality. The main purpose of the app is to disseminate information to the user about parks and trails or events based on the user’s filter preferences. It will also provide the user the ability to get directions, save the search results, add to calendar, make reviews, upload photos and so on.The following is a short description on how to use our prototype for evaluation purposes.

1. The Home Screen is completely functional and running a search from the home screen will result in both parks and events searches. For the moment, we only have searches for the keyword ‘Zilker’
2. The Map View screen is a static map of Downtown Austin and one can zoom in and out and look up only a fixed number of places.
3. The explore > Parks and Trails option leads the user to an empty search screen where we have simulated the search for ‘park’. Please remember the user must tap on the search button (magnifying glass) in order to trigger an event. The results that show up are listed in ratings order and have been filtered by the pre-set filter of pet-friendly. The user can view and modify the filters for Parks and Trails search but the results will not refresh based on the filters. This is one of the limitations and functionality features that our app does not currently support.
4. The explore > Events tab leads the user to a populated search screen for all of today’s events. The events are again filtered based on some preset filters that can be found under User Profile > My Filters. The user is able to tap on today and modify the date for any date between May and June, however, the search results will not be refreshed based on the action. Given the vast functionality of our app, we limited our prototype to including those features that the user would not intuitively understand without our examples.
5. On the Home Screen is a tab for User Profile on the top right corner (this can also be accessed by swiping to the left anywhere on the homescreen). The User Profile tab is fully populated but only the My Filters and My Bookmark tabs lead to further screens. The My Calendar tab is similar to the My Bookmarks tab and hence has been left out for the time being.
6. The Settings Screen is fully populated but functionality has not been added since we felt that it was not part of the core functionality of this prototype and could be reserved for future updates.
7. On an event or park screen, the bookmarks tab, directions, add to calendar, trail map, reviews and photos tabs are all functional. The remaining tabs are either easy to understand (such as hours of operation) or do not fall under the core functionality (such as Buy tickets) and have not been activated in this prototype.
8. The Directions Screen currently only shows the directions  from the University of Texas at Austin. As mentioned earlier the locations feature has been underutilized and does not function in this prototype. The open maps app button of course leads to nothing since we do not have the ability to link to the user’s phone’s map application.
9. Ideally the Map View should contain both parks and events for today on the map, but for illustrative purposes, we have restricted the number of activities marked on the map.