Studio 4 - Usability Tools

Usability Goals

These are the goals we want built into the technology we use. If these goals
are met, the system should be usuable, and people should be able to use it
straight away without using a manual.
They include;
Effectiveness
EfficiencySafety
Utility
Learnability
Memorability

Design Princibles
These are things that need to be kept in mind when making a device, they
include;
Visibility
Feedback
Constraints
Mapping
Consistency
Affordance

Function: Predictive text

The predictive text option can be toggled on and off using the hash button.
When you are not using predictive text you have to press on button multiple
times, just to type one letter. When making long text messages this can take
a long time, and become slightly tedious. When predictive text is being used,
you just have to press each button once, and once you've pressed a
combination of buttons, the phone will guess which word you are trying to
type. For example, abc are all linked with 2. If you were too press 2, three
times the phone would make a word out of a,b and c. If predictive text were
turned off, you would just have the letter c.

This is very helpful, because it enables users to create and send messages
quickly. It shows the design princibles and usabilty goals were used quite
well in this phone, since you can easily see what buttons you have pressed,
it does exactly what you need it to, it is quick and simple to use and it's
not hard to learn and remember how to use. It also stops the user from typing
extra letters in, if there is no possible word, to match the combination of
letters, in it's ditionary.


Function: Lock the phone

The phone can be locked very easily by pressing the 2 specific buttons. These
2 buttons are far away from each other, so you are not likely to unlock your
phone if you sit on it.

One problem with this, is that you will only know how to lock the phone if
you have used a Nokia before. If you havn't you would have to read the manual
to find out about it.

Apart from this it shows the design princibles and usabilty goals were used
quite well in this phone, because it is easy and quick to do, it's hard to
undo accidentally, you won't do something else accidentally while trying to
do it, it's easy to remember how to do.

It meets the design princibles because the phone displays a small icon,
indictating the phone is locked, which shows it gives you feedback, it stops
the user from doing anything else with the phone until it has been unlocked,
and the mapping of the phone stops it from being unlocked accidentally.


Function: Search for a contact
There is an option in the main menu to go to your contacts. This is easy to
see. Once you have selected this you can click on search. Once you are on
search you can either go down the whole list, or type in letters to search
for specific contacts. As you type in more letters, the phone will narrow
down the possibilities. For example, if you press m, you will only be able to
see the contacts beginning with m.

I think this shows the design princibles and usability goals were used quite
well in this phone. This is because all of the contacts are kept in
alphebetical order, like you would expect(logical constraint), it doesn't
take long to find contacts, it updates the list as you type things in, which
makes it quicker to use(feedback). It's not hard to find, it's easy to learn
and remember how to use it. It is also clearwhat you can do while on the
screen, there is one button for options, a space to enter text and a list,
which makes it clear what options you have.

All of the functions mentioned show consistency, since they all work in the
same way each time you use them. They also do the same things you would
expect them to because of other parts of the phone.