More and more websites are developing innovative user interface designs.

How the interface design change functions

So how exactly does this new panic button work? The panic button is actually an app called „ClickCEOP“. Users have to add the app to their Facebook interface and then a tab appears in the interface design, which contains a clickable button. The button allows the user to contact authorities when he feels a user is acting suspiciously or inappropriately.
While the panic button is no doubt a helpful feature and a strong indication that Facebook is taking the safety of its users much more seriously (or at least succumbing to user demands much more easily), its addition to the British Facebook user interface design shows that Facebook is willing to move its privacy features from a personal to a more public sphere. And this does not come without complications. For example, the Facebook security user interface has generally been very private. You as a user control who looks at your profile and what that person can see etc. It has been about you controlling your own information. While users have always been able to notify the Facebook powers that be of someone’s „bad behavior“ or had the power to block people, Facebook hasn’t before had such a direct interface with public authorities. There is definite potential for misuse with the introduction of the panic button – kids will be kids after all. Thus it will be interesting to see if there is a rise in reported suspicious activity on Facebook, and it will be even more interesting to see how authorities will respond to panic button clicks of different types. This trend shows that social networking is evolving and it points towards a more public understanding of online communities.

Facebook has added a so-called panic button to its security interface design for users in the UK. This new feature will allow minors to report suspicious or inappropriate behavior of adults (or others) to the authorities. The new addition is a part of Facebook’s collaboration with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). The British government-run organization is dedicated to ensuring  that minors are safe when they surf the web. To this effect, they have requested updated security features from various social networking sites. Facebook is recovering from an explosive internet safety controversy in the last few months, so its newest user interface security feature sends a clear message that user safety has become a priority. According to Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes „both Facebook and the CEOP have shared interests in keeping young people safe online.“ Thus, both organizations will complement each other as they work toward the mutual goal of privacy and security for youth.

With the global smartphone market estimated at $2 billion and the iPhone (a product that did not exist 3 years ago) accounting for 40% of Apple’s revenue, it is an understatement  to say its future is anything but bright. According to research2guidance, the market is set to reach $15 billion in 2013. Which players appear set to be the winners and loosers of this boom? As things stand Apple is far ahead of the pack. A January report from the research firm Gartner found that the app market in 2009 was 99.4% Apple’s. Despite this, other stores, particularly Android, are currently growing at a much faster pace.

According to eco (the German Association of Internet Businesses) handset manufacturers seemed poised to continue their hegemony over the smartphone app market despite more and more cellphone carriers, such as Vodafone, planning their own app stores.  But they might be simply too late to the party. With handset manufacturers in pole position, OS platform providers such as Microsoft come in second.  With this in mind it would seem that the combination of creating your own handset and platform is all it takes to challenge the market leaders but one must not forget what made the Apple App Store a success in the first place.
One of the important things that made the iPhone and its App Store a success was their ease-of-use, i.e. high usability and great interface design. Compared to other mobile platforms the iPhone was intuitive and did not have a labyrinthine menu layout. The capacitive touch screen coupled with the interface design of the OS allowed for revolutionary Human-Computer Interaction that was seamless. The app store also well and truly brought e-commerce to mobile phones with an interface design that allowed users to browse apps as if they were music on an iPod. Android would pack a lot of the same functionality but on a more open platform that could be tweaked by handset manufacturers as evidenced by HTC’s celebrated Sense User Interface design. So, really, challengers should strive for a great interface design in addition to whatever features they may be planning to differentiate and market their offerings.

Internet usage and connectivity varies greatly around the world. In Germany, around 72% of all households have internet access. While this may seem high, especially when put into the context of developing countries, it still means nearly one third of all households lack internet access. One of the reasons for this could be age and the age-related habits or requirements of elderly people. In Germany, 60% of adults use the internet whereas 80% of 10-13 year olds use the internet. Statistics from the US reveal that overall 79% of adults use the internet, but on further inspection one can see that the number of 18-29 that use the internet, at 92%, is double the amount of those aged 65 and over, at 42%.

Another reason could be differences in income or social status. On a macro level, the countries with the highest number of computers per people and households with internet tend to be those with the highest GDP. Within those countries, households from a lower socioeconomic background tend to have less internet access. In Britain, this led to the then premier Gordon Brown to start an initiative to provide 270,000 economically disadvantaged families with laptops and free internet connection. China, with 298 million users, has the most internet users in the world, but considering its huge population that only means that 22.4% (below the world average) of their population are using the internet. Africa by contrast has an average internet penetration rate of 8.7%.
Could the reason a third of the population in countries like Germany do not use the internet be due to inadequate interface design and/or usability issues in general? While many popular websites have interface designs that are designed with the best usability principles in mind, they often focus on younger age groups – not only in content and functionality, but in important areas of interface design. These include small to medium font sizes or navigation elements that require good eye-sight, screen layouts that are unfamiliar to people used to print products, complex navigation schemes and a plethora of options to select, as well as terminology and language which often includes modern non-native terms like “Home”, “Account”, “Login”, and the like. All these elements of an interface design pose potential barriers to use by older people.

Aside from other reasons for the lack of 100% internet access at home – such as people not feeling the necessity perhaps having (free) internet access at work, school, wireless access at their favorite cafe, or even from their mobile phone – usability and interface design issues may help explain part of the large portion of the population that still doesn’t use the internet. This shows that in order to improve and facilitate internet use for certain groups in the population, such as the growing group of elderly people in developed nations, their special requirements in terms of usability and interface design will have to be catered to. This may well open new market opportunities, such as accessible internet and others. Yet, there needs to be more, perhaps even special arrangements by providers taking into consideration the needs relating to content and layout of interface designs with special settings or access options for certain population groups.

While internet access is a good indicator of internet use, statistics on this indicator do not tell the full story. Consider these facts: The mobile phone application market is expected to grow to $15 billion by 2013. In places like Africa the leapfrogging aspect of mobile phones means that it is easier and cheaper to access the web via a phone than to have internet access at home, leading to a large percentage of internet users not accounted for by internet access statistics. In addition, it is worth noting that internet use can never be 100% of the population considering that some people, like those in prisons, are often not allowed to use the internet.

Better co-operation can solve hardware and user interface design compatibility problems

As technology continues to evolve, hardware designers are packing more and more processing power into smaller devices.  The convenience factor of a small portable phone or laptop is clear, but are they now becoming so small that it is becoming progressively more difficult for users to interact with the actual interface? In the case of the iPhone 4G,  it is anticipated that the small and sleek design will force the interface design to adapt, i.e. force the controls to be packed closely together, potentially making it difficult for users with large hands or fingers.  This would obviously frustrate users and lower the iPhone’s overall usability. Perhaps it seems like a picky point (maybe not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things), but the bottom line is that interface designers need to be thinking about the constraints of the hardware that serves as vessel for their apps or websites.  Thus, there should be a clear line of communication between the interface and hardware design teams.   This can only help create smooth and streamlined interaction between the two mutually dependent parts – the hardware and the user interface.  Apple’s recent reported and anticipated iPhone 4G problems aren’t really all that horrible or astonishing—but they do provide fruit for thought and bring to light the importance of hardware and user interface design working together.

Over the past few weeks numerous iPhone 4G users have been complaining that the phone has a faulty antenna. They claim that they easily lose reception when holding the phone at its lower left-hand corner.  Apple’s solution?   Steve Jobs simply says “don’t hold it that way”.   Apple also has a more concrete answer, insisting that the problem can be avoided by using a case that covers the phone (presumably an iPhone case purchased from Apple).  While this hardware related usability complaint may seem trivial, Apple’s newest hardware usability problem is a springboard that we can use to explore a growing area of concern for many technology users: the increasing gap between hardware and the interfaces required to use them.

What are some things that smartphone OSes can learn from each other?

Any of the would-be challengers (here’s looking at you MeeGo, WebOS and Bada) wishing to gain a sizable chunk of the smartphone pie is going to have to try and emulate these aforementioned strengths in their respective OSes. The iPhone still remains the OS to beat proving that a great user interface design, solid usability and positive user experience will be a winner with consumers. While the bare-bones Android’s interface design is not the most pleasing (Motorola Droid/ Milestone users can attest to that) it can be tweaked as shown by HTC’s Sense User Interface design (which is based on the TouchFLO 3D user interface design) to enhance  user experience. The iPhone would also do good to pick up some of Android’s tricks such as allowing tethering effectively turning the phone into a WiFi modem. The iPhone also needs to improve cloud functionality to match Android as, for example, if you download apps for the iPhone on your desktop the only way to transfer them is through a pesky cable.

What impact does the smartphone market have on the tech industry?

This current fiscal year has been a great one for Apple as they, for the first time, surpassed long-time frenemy Microsoft to become the second largest US company by market capitalization after Exxon Mobil. This achievement would not have been possible with a product that did not exist just over three years ago. That product, in case you were wondering, is none other than the iPhone which now accounts for 40% of Apple’s revenue. Smartphones, this goes without saying, are the hottest game in tech town! And everyone seems to want a piece of this ever-growing pie if HP’s purchase of Palm is anything to go by.

How are the two biggest players in the smartphone market seeking hegemony?

The iPhone’s biggest challenger comes in the shape of Google via their Android OS which can be found on a number of smartphones made by manufacturers such as HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG, Samsung, and more. The Android OS, with its royalty-free license, manages to compete with a hardware item like the iPhone by going the route of Windows in the 80s of targeting volume to create a ubiquitous platform that will in turn attract developers to create apps that add to the OS’ functionality. Although the iPhone is a hardware item the real attraction is the exclusive, beloved OS. This is evident in the fact that, so far at least, the iPhone is the leading smartphone OS in terms of market share despite Android boasting phones with better hardware specs such as the HTC Desire. Both Apple and Google have announced future iterations of their respective smartphone OSes, namely iPhone OS 4 and Android 2.2. According to tech blogger John Gruber “Apple and Google are jostling to shift the comparison between the two platforms to their very different strengths. Apple’s strengths: user experience, design, consistency. Google’s strengths: the cloud, variety, permissiveness”. And just to be clear, design here also refers to interface design, of course.

Who are the others?

It would seem, however, that social networking has reached a critical mass and is at a crossroads. Until now, there have been largely closed and centralized environments along the lines of mobile phone carriers that only allow you to call others who use the same provider for free. In addition to a solid interface design and usability foundation, the best ways (David’s slingshot, as it were) to challenge Facebook is on issues of privacy, data ownership and decentralization. Already a number of notable projects are in the works that address those issues and I shall briefly mention a few. The Appleseed project is working to create an open source, fully distributed and decentralized social networking software. In effect any entity would be able to create compatible websites which users can join. And if you decide you don’t like the site you’re on, you can sign up for another Appleseed compatible site and immediately reconnect with everyone in your network. OneSocialWeb is creating protocols that allow for communication between social networks meaning that if you meet a friend on another network you wouldn’t have to create a new profile just to connect with them. Perhaps the project that picked up the most buzz is Diaspora, “the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open-source social network”, after it received pledges of $175,000 from over 4,600 people on Kickstarter after asking for only $10,000! It will be interesting to see how social networks will evolve over the next couple of years.

Facebook’s staggering rise to prominence (if it were a country it would be one of the most populated) has seen its privacy settings shortcomings becoming truly globally contentious issues. The backlash has even lead to the creation of Quit Facebook Day, which is effectively a call for alternatives to sprout up and teach Facebook a lesson in consumer power in a world of perceived corporate hegemony! Taking on Facebook is a David vs. Goliath situation. For starters Facebook is just oh so convenient. There are nearly 500 million people on there making the chances of connecting with your friends and family much higher, and thus the value users get from using Facebook ever greater – a phenomenon known as network effect. Facebook Connect also allows all these users to use their accounts to login to, ‘like’ and share content and many other websites. This automatically makes users more dependent on the service as they can centralized a large chunk of their online lives and interactions with a singular account rather than constantly having to register for a gazillion websites for added features and functionality. Facebook’s interface design and usability, for the most part, is also great. People new to the website can register all in one step with very little information required thus creating a low barrier of entry.