[IGDA Mobile-SIG List] Hi

[Andrea Fryer]

Did someone say usability? Interface design? Nokia.

*perks up*

And before I go any farther, I simply must tell you how endearing I find the
word "grouchy". They have a word for it in Finnish as well: "kärttyinen"
which is nearly as cute.

Welcome to the list Wendy. If we're all being quiet, it's most likely
because a whole wallop of people were at GDC and are still recovering, or
then there's the rest of us who didn't get to go and are still pouting. I
regret to admit I'm one of the pouters. I hope you'll forgive us. ;-)

Wendy asked: "What the state of user interface design and usability in the
mobile
gaming industry?"

When I used to work at Nokia creating user interfaces, the most commonly
used word in our discussions was USABILITY.

Now after having worked at Digital Chocolate for a year, one will often hear
usability being mentioned, but even more so PLAYABILITY.

When it comes to games, this pretty much equals the same thing, doesn't it?
Point being, I think that even though mobile game developers are
more conscious about the playability of their games, they are - without
realizing it - including usability at the same time. I think the developers
talk the same language as you Wendy, it's just that they are using a
different word for it. Or can someone think of a game which had excellent
playability yet the usability sucked? I don't really think they can
co-exist.

Wendy said: "A presentation at Mobile Monday comes to mind where a DChoc
product manager with a development background designed the UI."

I'm sure there are some games which are spawned through different people
working in the studios of Dchoc, who naturally have a strong say in how they
want their "creation" to look and feel. Those who are producers and product
managers are most likely in that position because they've already mastered
the skills developers are still learning - so I definitely don't see
anything strange in that type of scenario you describe. But at least so far,
all the projects I've been in, it's been the whole development team thinking
about these things together. Especially the leads of game design, art
and programming wrestle with these issues on a daily basis in their work.
Why I can think of several usability related issues we were
tackling yesterday alone.

Wendy said: "there's so many, that impact the design of the game that it
makes it difficult to design one usable user experience that can be utilized
across all the phones and carriers."

*sighs grimly* Aye indeed, at times it causes quite a bit of distraught to
know that you -could- implement something on 8/10 phones which would
increase usability (and playability) drastically, but due to that 2/10 you
simply can't, and have to settle for a poorer solution. It kills me all the
time, believe me.

John wrote: "Surely Nokia must use professional UI designers"

* Yes sir-ree. At least in all the projects I was involved in (9500, 9300,
N76 cover UI), there were a whole group of UI designers assigned . In
addition, a group of graphic designers separately. So these roles certainly
didn't equal to the same thing, as can be commonly found I'm sure. Projects
involved both research and usability testing.

Wendy you seem knowledged about the mobile game platform restrictions and
you are also a UI designer. In your eyes, what are the most blatant, obvious
faults in usability you see, which you know could be definitely improved
upon by developers?

- Andrea
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