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Is Choice a Problem For Android?
New submitter mjone13 writes "Dave Feldman, in a blog posts, says that the problem Android faces is giving consumers too much choice. He cites several studies which state that consumers generally are unhappier when they have too much choice. 'Catering to all individual preferences creates a bloated, bland product. Not to mention a UI that’s impossible to navigate. Furthermore, people are notoriously bad at identifying what we want. And what we do want is influenced heavily by what we know — our expectations are constrained by our experience.' He then goes on to talk about Android fragmentation, app developer problems and bug issues. Finally he says the people who general prefer the choice Android provides are tinkers similar to gear heads who love tinkering with their car. 'I think many who extol Android’s flexibility fall into the tinkerer category, including some tech bloggers. They love all the ways they can customize their phones, not because they’re seeking some perfect setup, but because they can swap in a new launcher every week. That’s fun for them; but they’ve made the mistake of not understanding how their motivation differs from the rest of us.' Is choice really a problem for Android?"
Whether it's a problem depends on what the goals are. Providing a satisfying experience to a bunch of tinkerers is a very different thing from providing a satisfying experience to the multitude of non-tinkerers who buy smartphones.
You can have a highly customizable UI without making the default bland and impossible to navigate. Having more customization does make some things more difficult, since you can't assume all users will have the same setup, but it's still compatible with a decent default interface.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I stopped reading at "Not to mention a UI that’s impossible to navigate."
My bullshit detector went off the scale.
Some of us get their phone, install it the way _we_ want it, and then leave it like that (unless something spectacularly new comes along).
I don't change my keyboard weekly - but I did change it a couple of times, find one that suited me, and leave it that way.
Same with SMS, email client, and web browser. I haven't changed any of these in months, but they're all different to the stock version.
My Journal
"Dave Feldman is a product designer with a background in user experience, product management, and front-end development. Heâ(TM)s the co-founder and chief product officer of Emu. Heâ(TM)s held positions at Yahoo! and AOL. Check out his website Operation Project and follow him on Twitter @dfeldman."
aka mr. "I configured my configurable system to act like crap and by the way I love iPhone".
now, of course if I can make a plugin to handle file saving.. then of course I can install a dozen apps to do it. just because I install two different homescreens for example doesn't mean that I have to choose between the two each time I press home.. I could though, if I wanted.
basically the answer to his problems is to not install extra apps. I don't know what the fuck is his actual suggestion on how to remove the problem of choice. maybe he is working on his own android variant where you can't install anything... more likely he is trying to troll some buzz and score a new gig. that's what his writing looks like. only made more obvious by him submitting these pieces on different blogs to gather maximum buzz since nobody gives a shit about his blog and the product he is promoting(emu.is, some kind of sms frontend where you can attach your position easily. how novel, for 2003).
and the other problems? android phones are so BIG! well fuck buy a smaller android phone.
(oh and he doesn't really seem to understand android multitasking, only sort of).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Seriously that is all I see in this article. Flaming for the sake of clicks/views. Android fragmentation was a problem back in the version 1.5~2.1 days. Back when OEMs were experimenting and the software was maturing. Nowadays, save for a handful of tweaks, all decent Androids devices are pretty much equal. As for the UI tools, maybe not having tons of options will make that guy happy, but removing them will make a lot more people angry. What does he want? A Google branded iPhone?
Even though I subscribe to the Apple/BlackBerry/GameConsole idea of one optimal OS for one or two device types, I'm still mostly a windows and android user. Trying to make everybody happy with the "one OS for them all" strategy is just impossible plus there are many marketing and development problems associated to it for platform providers, OEMs, developers and users. However to say that the Android(and by extension windows) experiences are crap, is pure BS. Like it or not, Android gets the job done, and the experience is without a doubt what I would call very reasonable . At least that is from my experience with Galaxy and Xperia phones as well as a Transformer Tablet. If you got a $0 chinese phone with a shitty firmware that is your problem, not Android.
Sure if I could get my way, each company would have it's own OS and ecosystem, assuming that all tech companies had a interesting and unique vision for themselves. Too bad that is just unrealistic plus there are plenty of practical problems associated to this philosophy as well, but that is a discussion for another time.
Android offers choice only to tinkerers. Everybody else simply walks in a store and buys a phone that looks shiny. iPhones are having a bit of a problem in that they offer almost a single choice which was the same as that from a few years ago. You can't have a bigger screen for example. Mobiles have achieved appliance status. Who cares about fragmentation ? There is fragmentation in car models as well and fancy cars that have weird ways to switch on. After you master it, you run with it for years. You don't care if the car in the opposite traffic works differently. Fragmentation affects developers, who now have massive budgets to overcome it. There are hundreds of thousands of apps, most people use only a few and the rest they simply forget to delete after they are downloaded. So there are enough that work well out there.
I'd rather have too much choice instead of barely any.
I'm well aware of that famous TED talk where the presented talked about the paradox of choice (http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html), and it does have some merit. But the way I see it, appealing to the masses means that those who don't fit the mold are generally left in the dust because it's not "economically viable" to cater to them. Keeping things open and keeping choice available means that there's something for everyone.
Choice requires a greater level of personal responsibility. You can't (and shouldn't) rely on some corporation to make all your decisions for you without being able to change them if they aren't suitable for you. It might be easier to just go with a monoculture of decision-making, but you'll pay for it once you realize that you aren't like everyone else.
The reason I switched from iOS was because personally, I *want* control over my smartphone. I want the options and customisations, and the ability to decide what keyboard to use and where my music sits. My advice to those who can't handle a few options is "get an iPhone".
Though really, I can't see why both user groups can't be catered for - have sensible defaults and basic options, and put everything else inside an "Advanced settings" button somewhere - no one is forced to tap it.
I agree that there is simply too much "crap" in the Android markets all over. The amount of good, quality, useful stuff is a seemingly small ratio of what's out there. But I get by just fine and enjoy a good quality experience. How?
Just like with Windows computers and the like, you simply have to limit what you do with your machines. Limit the resource consumption. Limit the amount of apps you run. Limit tweaks and [animated] wallpapers and all that junk. Do the things which are useful and stop trying to entertain yourself with a new toy every 10 minutes. I take advantage of the fact that people out there are dumb enough to try every app available. I get to read reviews and comments to assist in the choices I make. Good for me, bad for them when things don't work out.
Maturity is required. The market of available crap is not to blame for consumer behavior. (This statement is in sharp contrast to my position on the food we have available to us in the US... the market *IS* to blame and especially when they fight consumer choice and knowledge by preventing information from being available to consumers so they can make their own decisions.) The users are making all the choices... and they always will.
Make good, informed choices. Give favor to software makers with good reputations. It's not that hard.
The problem that the PC faces is giving consumers too much choice....
Clearly that hasn't worked for the PC, or it would be the 100% dominant platform, rather than just the 99% dominant platform...
And for PCs the be able to run OS-X, Microsoft or Linux operating systems? Clearly wayyyy to much choice...
GrpA.
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Most of the Android fans that I've bumped into choose their device in exactly the same manner as iOS fans: they choose whatever is in fashion at the moment. They also deal with downloading apps in the same fashion as iOS fans: they choose whatever their friends are raving about. They also have a handy way to deal with customization: they usually leave the device as it shipped (perhaps changing wallpapers along the way).
Choice is not making people unhappy, because they usually made up their minds before they ever went shopping.
To be fair, Android is harder to navigate. There are desktop pages (similar to IOS app pages). Then there's a list of apps under the apps button. You can also copy stuff from the apps list to the desktop list.
I find this paradigm very confusing. I've seen Android users get confused on this too.
But, I desperately miss configurability in IOS. Absence of settings has my life very hard in the past... So has the conduit called iTunes. iTunes really sucks when it doesn't work properly, and is clunky when it does work.
Itunes is a nightmare that should have been burned with fire, on Android you do not have this extra layer of complexity at getting content onto your devices.
You talk about reconfigurability and settings...or the absence of them. Ignoring the irony of arguing for additional complexity at the cost of customisability, or that Apple copied the look of this with iOS 7 from Android, you argue that having a desktop(sic) that you can only add applications to is better than one you can add widgets to.
I don't think you really understand your own argument.
Went to a presentation on a project that's released its web tool as an app (iSpot - a nature spotting community tool). the project leaders said that at the point they decided to develop an Android app version, they asked the technical team to identify how many different versions/configurations of Android were out there that they'd need to make sure the code presented well on, to ensure a good user experience for all (you really don't need your first reviews on Google Play to say it sucks on their device in their preferred configuration). Apparently the technical team identified 123 versions/configurations of Android (approximately early 2012).
The project leader said this makes it a nightmare to test for a small development team (about 4 employees on the project). I am not sure what the solution is but it sounds like it causes them a lot of pain and requires a lot of management to ensure the majority of users get an equitable and positive experience of the app.
What? Their definition of 'Must-Have' is rediculous. You must be able to apply textures to your photos? You must be able to browse KickStarter without using their website? You must play Plants v Zombies 2? You must have information regarding airport lounges?
Maybe these specific apps aren't available on Android, but suitable alternatives certainly are for most of them. I have absolutely no use for most of these, so I don't know, for example, the best Android twitter app or photo manipulation app. Cool Reader has a completely customisable interface, as a replacement for MegaReader. Also the main 'feature' of 'iA Writer' seems to be that it has punctuation keys on the main screen so you don't have to change keyboard modes - Android allows you to use a different keyboard anywhere you want, so just choose one with punctuation visible on the main screen and use it with any text editor you like.
I can't be bothered to search for the rest, but I've seen many apps that can scan business cards like the LinkedIn one, and there are several KickStarter apps.
The only thing on their list which offers something unique and novel seems to be IFTTT.
Being the cheapest in the market usually gets you the most market share. That doesn't mean people *want* to use it.
Ironically *expensive* features like high resolution; large screens and waterproofing is why android is 80% of the market, The iphones low cost low resolution; small screen water adverse with massive mark-up is why its profitable but unpopular.
and MSFT was thinking, why are we even talking about problems, we have 90% of the market. until they didn't.
marketshare size doesn't mean everything is dandy.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
How about a file manager and be able to plug your idevice into computer to transfer files without the much "loved" itunes?
I tried android for a couple of weeks to see what I was missing. I asked all my android owning friends "OK, what should I check out that I can not do on my iPhone". About the only useful response I got was wifi scanning tools. That was it. Which i don't use my phone for anyway.
Then your friends either aren't very smart, or are simply happy with their stock Android and have never wanted to change it.
Homescreen widgets, a decently-sized screen, NFC file sharing, third party keyboards (or a physical one if you prefer), custom launchers, completely customizable app icon placement (including whitespace where you want whitespace), ability to add a huge micro sd card to double your storage size (or swap it if you're bored with the media on this card and want something different for a road trip), ability to add and remove arbitrary files directly to/from the phone over cable without having to use iTunez spyware to do so, ability to go to pretty much any store and pick up a replacement charger/data cable for $5, support for a pointy stylus (on some models) instead of trying to use a marshmallow-on-the-end-of-a-stick capacitive stylus, etc., etc., etc.
Not to mention being able to take a video in any orientation and have it display correctly (i.e., not rotated 90 degrees) on any system...but from your comments, I'm guessing you partake of the entire apple pie, so you may not have seen this particular defect before if you only view your vids in your phone or on your Mac or via your Apple TV box. Oh, I didn't even know this one: apparently you can't email anything but a photo or video using the stock iPhone email app...huh. Guess you'll have to use the GMail account for business stuff, then...other Android advantages such as haptic feedback are pretty 'meh' for me, as I just turn them off anyway.
Looks like Apple is finally allowing homescreen widgets (?er, maybe? looks like you still need to buy an app?), so that's *one* thing off the list...once developers catch up and start providing more widget types, that is.
All that without having to root or 'jailbreak' the phone. If you root it, sky's the limit. True, most of the things you can do if you root the phone are things that your average Joe won't care much about (custom ROM's, complete bit-wise phone backups, ability to software-switch more system settings, ability to remove the stock apps instead of just disabling them, etc.), but to the tinkerer, they are delightful :)
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant