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Edward Tufte Weighs In on Apple's iPhone
An anonymous reader writes "Via Daring Fireball, a post from design guru Edward Tufte's site discusses his views on the interface used by the Apple iPhone. The post includes a video presentation by Tufte on the subject of video resolution on the phone. His argument is primarily that while the iPhone does a lot of things very well, Apple hasn't quite realized the platform's full potential by making screen real estate all it could be. "
Kudos to Edward Tufte for providing good detailed constructive criticism on the iPhone, including specific examples of improvements. I hope that Apple will pay attention to the FREE ADVICE that Tufte is giving and incorporate it into their next iPhone firmware update. I am sure that the UI advice that Apple pays for is likely not as good.
Personally as a product developer myself, I would welcome such good detailed constructive criticism for free from a UI guru such as Tufte. Remember that there are all innovation is based on prior innovation, so it is good to have analysis done on existing products in order to improve on future versions.
BTW, on a side note, I hope that someone at Slashdot deletes the offences racist postings above.
He's not making a point about the technical limitations. In fact for the most part, it seems as though he actually likes the interface. Truth be told, the idea is so novel that it deserves some examining. A multi-touch interface is a unique concept by itself. Combined with the way it's being used make it stand out from its competitors.
I'm sure when you first saw an OS GUI thoughts went through your head on how to improve it. Perhaps YOU should have thought of something more novel than critiquing previous works.
If you look at his examples, his primary argument is that you can cram more information on the screen because of the iPhone's high resolution. I can't agree with him that this is a good idea.
Part of the reason that people BUY the iPhone is that it's simple and stylish, rather than the existing information heavy devices like Pocket PC phones. In particular, look at his example about the Weather- Apple's widget is small and sleek. It shows you the vital information, and it does it in strong fonts and bold styling. It's clear, and it's easy.
He squishes all of that information into a tiny corner, so that he can add a large repeating satellite view- Sure it's useful in some cases, and it's certainly a neat demonstration of the iPhone's abilities, but it fails when it comes to the task of quickly giving me the important information.
It makes me squint to see the tiny version of the temperature, and shows off, rather than helping.
Sometimes developers fall into the problem of working so often because they can, not wondering if they should.
Note- He dismisses this argument, saying that information density isn't the problem, it's laying it out clearly. I agree with him in general,in that complex information can often be presented simply, but in most of his cases, increasing the density would diminish it's usefulness.
Colin Davis
Just because an average human eye can tell apart a 600 dpi print from a 1200 dpi print doesn't mean it is more 'usable'. 1200 allows fancier or more elegant fonts (like a subtly waisted Optima) and nice printouts, but I have never met anyone who would have printed all his texts at 5 pt size just because his printer could.
UI design regarding resolution is mainly about legibility. Using sub-pixel anti-aliasing and optimized fonts you can get excellent, and I mean very excellent results below 200 dpi. Anything higher can show more detail in theory, but not more significant information. Nobody would chose a waisted font over a optimized one on a portable device, so why waste money (which could be used for other features) on displays which -could- display them.
I've been a Tufte fan for almost 20 years. I was introduced to his work, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, while an Architecture student and multimedia developer in the early 1990s. This man is to graphic design what Newton was to gravity. He really defined the rules and explained why and how they are applied, technically. His statement, "Thus the iPhone got it mostly right," is him basically saying, "It's great, but I would have done some things a little differently." From a man that knows what he knows, that's the highest praise any contemporary could ever hope to get! I don't mean that sarcastically, either. I'd be ecstatic if he said anything like that about my work. Of course, I'd think it was a prank, but I don't think I'm that good anyway.
Besides, it's always easier to critique someone else's work than create something novel yourself.
I'd call both sparklines and the data-ink ratio pretty good and novel innovations.
You can't credit the man with "creating" information design as a discipline, but he's done a great deal to evangelize it, and you certainly have to give him plenty of credit for its currently elevated profile.
Tufte is not just some crank. Intelligent, useful, compelling information display is what he's all about. You don't have to agree with him, but his thoughts are usually worth weighing.