Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Not only is it one handed, it's a simple rocking of my thumb. And to say that something is one handed is inaccurate. If I have to use my other hand, or my other hand's finger, nail, knuckle or whatever, it takes my whole other arm. You know, the one I was resting for when I roll on to my other side. Can you say, sloth?

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

I'd rather argue against something with benefit of solid, informative data.

Is there any good use-case data on this subject?

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

and why not? :p

on serious matters, the n810 design is nice having to slide out the keypad to get at a d-pad really isn't an issue.

having no real hardware keys of any kind (return to n800) would be worse than no dpad in my mind. the n97 looks nice and reasonable ;)

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

... I don't really know what you mean by that.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

And how do you actually know that? ;)

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

ragnar, you completely missed my point, and I apologize if that was my fault. However, I think you may be so predisposed toward arguing against the d-pad (et al) and that is affecting your interpretation.

Anyway, I mean to say that inclusion of an auxiliary hardware input device can reduce the stress on the touchscreen. Case in point: one of mine is wearing out in a very specific area. That is due mainly to my mode of use. Eventually I expect that region to be less responsive (and I suspect it is already getting there) whereas the remainder of the screen will continue to be useful. Using a hardware solution could balance my usage to the point that wear-and-tear would be more evenly distributed across the touchscreen.

I cannot emphasize the highlighted portion enough. THAT will turn out to be the hallmark of best practice touchscreen UI design.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

I've used devices which lie in the hand well with d-pad before such as gamepads. Yes, a d-pad lying good in the hand is indeed a powerful d-pad.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that.

For example it scrolls down, but not exactly one line. Lately, I've been using S60Browser with d-pad. I can't express how much I miss being able to touch and scroll around on the screen (and the screen is a little bit too small, too).

The Amazon Kindle doesn't use this either. The success of an application such as Liqbase for e-book reading is also telling that at least the device is usable without a d-pad. Touch screen based scrolling, when implemented properly, is much more powerful and logical than a d-pad. To compare, take something such as X terminal into account, a keypad (d-pad) is pretty useful but there you have everything fixed width, 1 up is one up, 1 to the right is one to the right. In a browser, its not as simple as that.

And without a d-pad I do see some complications. For example, I wonder how exactly I'd use my X terminal without a d-pad. Would require something like Fn key, or something touch based.

Mind you, this is about smooth scrolling using fingers (and/or stylus; that is a different issue).

For most people here, comments based on experience don't stem from the usage of one or two devices. It stems from a lifetime of experience with all kind of devices. From magnetrons to coffee machines. And, possible, several mobile devices. For me not 700/N800 because back then I was still a Sharp Zaurus user...

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Data versus opinion.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Excellent. Let's limit participation in this discussion to those who can speak with the experience that comes from owning both an N810 and an earlier Internet Tablet model.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Although I am reluctant myself to limit discussion that way, I apply more credence to the opinions of people who have lived in two or more worlds. ;)

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Data of what?

Of what the device currently is? If you have a d-pad in the device and ask users if they use it, yes some will use it. If you have an ice cube maker in a refrigerator and you ask the users for use cases or use patterns, yes some people will use it.

But so what? People want faster horses.

You want faster horses. The improved N800 would exactly the faster horse, and you've talked about that several times. (Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting them, but I'm sure you know what the saying implies.)

A more meaningful test is to give two devices to users, let's take one with a d-pad and one without a d-pad and designed for touch, and then do comparative analysis on the strengths and weaknesses of these alternatives and the things that the users prefer in them.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Well, yes, if a hardware solution balances this, i.e. takes away a particular point on the touch screen that the users would press all the them then I agree. the iPhone HW home key does that, supposing that the alternative would to have the Home button on-screen, on a fixed position.

Then again, of getting back to the key we were discussing: I don't see the d-pad doing this, though. Inputs that the d-pad would replace fall rather evenly on the screen.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Well, this only shows that people are different. I have an S60 phone and find using its UI easier (and, above all, more efficient) than that on my N800 when I'm actually walking/riding the bus/.... Its's just press key, keypad up/down, keypad center. Done with the thumb while I hold the device in my hand. It's the holy grail of interface design for a mobile device.


I never quite understood what liqbase is supposed to do (learning now it's an e-book reader is interesting - maybe I should re-install it), let alone how to use it. So can't say much here. (Maybe except that "at least the device is usable without a d-pad" doesn't seem a very strong point against having a d-pad.)

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

My post was just a bit facetious. I could put forth my own opinions on the topic at hand, but I might as well detail a case for why my favorite color is superior to all others.

Pot shots at the proud folks who won't touch an N810 for fear of contracting inferior D-pad location cooties though?. That's good, clean fun.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

benny, liqbase is just me learning and trying out a lot of ideas and principles I've thought about for a while.
Its evolving again and being cleaned up and has been split into specific apps (one of which is a book reader).

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Thus allowing the screen to last longer. Good point! ;)

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Sounds good, except for the chronological refresh fallacy. When a company refreshes hardware, it's generally perceived that all changes are improvements. I'm assuming, of course, that the n810 was an n800 refresh. Thus, exclusive n800 users would be unaffected and hybrid n8x0 users would be tainted. Exclusive n810 users wouldn't count. So, no, any n800 owners would be aloud to participate in a d-pad discussion, but more weight would be given to exclusive n800 owner comments. :)

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

My statement refers to browing with S60Browser compared to MicroB. Both the stock browsers of the devices. My statement is not about S60 with touch screen interface, nor about S60 in general. I love using the d-pad through my messages on S60, and I love using GNU Screen. But, there are good, practical alternatives.

I tend to lean that a designer has to pick either one. Go for non-touch, with a keypad and keys and with a tree in which you can navigate fast. Or, something more visual and aesthetic which makes use of finger-based touch screen. A stylus toch-based screen design is a dead path IMNSHO.

I am not saying is d-pad is required, or useless. I am saying that, if properly designed (and with existing references) it is possible to not have one and still have a different yet good (potentially better) experience. Is this easy to achieve? No. Is it possible? Yes, since others have archieved this as well.

Exactly, and when you walk you don't hold the screen still. For touch-based usage this is a problem. A stylus requires accuracy though, and you'll notice this is easy to achieve for the finger optimized paradigms even when walking; but those optimized for stylus are even difficult when walking or in general being on the move.

Not so sure about that given the failure of Nokia N96 and rising popularity of HTC Diamond Touch, iPhone, iPhone 3G, Blackberry Storm and many other touch/finger screen based smartphones. It implies theres room for both. BTW, its interesting to look up the hardware design there. Some have less hardware keys, some still have a d-pad, some are slideout.

That is one of its many features. Its like a swiss army knife suitable for many things.

If you want to experience smooth scrolling on your N8x0 device, try Liqbase as e-book reader. There are even demos which show this.

This experience is very much different than the robotic d-pad which isn't smooth. Smooth is harmonic/peaceful, like round. It also allows one to read with no interaction because of the speed of the smooth scrolling.

Fennec also demos this, and Clutter will allow it even easier... :)

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

And let the fun continue. What if the n810 came out first? I can just imagine what the n800 owners would say to the n810 owners, "Wudda ya mean, 'Where's the keyboard?' It's inside the screen, silly."

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

liqbase works with the dpad as well ;) and its personally what i use more for actual reading.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

No.

I was specific: I said use-case.

Ummm... that's exactly what I was implying. But you were making a guess at what the majority wants.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

I see it the other way round:
One device, two input methods: Keys/D-pad for quick and mobile use, touchscreen+stylus for couch and desk, so you can do things that require accuracy. I don't really see the use case for touchscreen+fingers... it's something inbetween that fails in both situations. Neither fish nor fowl.

I tried the iPod Touch and the jPhone and my experience was as I described above: I can't use them at all when moving around. When sitting somewhere, the large, clumsy UI-elements make OS2005 look like UI-paradise in comparison. (Which is true to some degree for OS2008, too.)

What I see is that the market moves away from touch-screen only designs before it ever got there. You would have expected that, after all the hype around the jPhone, most recent smartphones would be touch-screen-only. They're not. (Actually I believe there are more models now with even a full keyboard than ever before.)


Is it faster than scrolling page by page or dragging a scrollbar directly to the desired position?
If not, I guess I don't want it. :p

No, seriously, I've had my share of "scrolling" experiments with Quiver (was it Quiver? I guess so...) and Canola. Pretty. But incredibly inefficient and getting in your way each time you really want to do something. (At least Quiver has some other advantages, so it remains installed on my N800.)

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

You may not, but your use-case isn't everybody's use-case. Personally, I rarely use my tablet any other way. :)

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

why does it have to be one or the other?
kinetic scrolling is simply intuitive on a touch device, you grab and move the actual document.
A scrollbar works as well and also helps to relate your current location within the document.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

NOT having some sort of grabbable scroll list means that over 90% of the touchable area is useless and you have to aim for a tiny little scrollbar.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

A huge part of my frustration stems from forgotten or delayed promises. Specifically, the "scroll bar bug" was dismissed because a new, better means of moving the web pages was coming. Ok, I'll bite: where is it?

Granted, some of the delays/stops are due to growing pains of the product line and OS-- but knowing that doesn't help lessen the frustration much.

So any talk of new and better ways of doing things (ie, a d-padless tablet world) has to be filtered through the sieve of dashed hopes...

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

@ lcuk, my mistake. Then it is a given smooth scrolling is viable w/d-pad as well, which is good news.

I can't see the use of some parts optimized for d-pad and/or hardware_keys, other parts for stylus, and yet other parts for finger. I'td imply every UI developer must keep 2 or 3 modus operandi in mind which would start at Nokia Fremantle development. Assuming Nokia would be able to pull this off (it looks like they won't) 3rd party developers must also keep this in mind. This big difference might fracture this community BTW, or on a grander scale, create 2 (or more) UI paradigms based on touch screen usage.

I would not want my S60 device to have some odd touch capabilities here and there because its fully optimized for hardware buttons. I suppose I would love some kind of scrolling mode in S60Browser though (smooth scrolling using d-pad?). The ability to wade through SMS and e-mail on my S60 device is magnificent. Its as fast as GNU Screen with some keyboard, while slightly less powerful; very impressive. Could you imagine your S60 device having a few touch capabilities? I think the XpressMedia tries to limit stylus usage as much as possible.

On a side note, if you believe the paradigm of finger touchscreens is indeed non-existant you must believe these people who buy devices such as iPhone, BlackBerry Storm, HTC Touch Diamond, Nokia 5800 are lunatics; IOW, not understand how they're able to even use their device, let alone prefer the device.

I don't buy this. Something which is completely junk and does at its core nothing cannot become popular. There must be something right, and it cannot be placebo. The happy hormones gained from buying device X whither away at some point after which ratio takes command. If it was utter crap, we'd see 'em sold en masse on eBay, and any kind of hype would sooner rather than later vanish.

This isn't the case. These folks, while most here disagree with the business practices of the corporation which innovated the new paradigm to populary are doing some things right. I say: lets steal from them the right things, and let them soak in their wrong things such as their lock-in (which many of its user hate) while making something better. The way I see it many are attempting to do this... and its certainly a challenge!!! :)

How long did you use them? You say this only occured when moving around?

It takes some time to get used to a new UI paradigm. Put a Windows XP user behind a GNOME or MacOSX interface and he has to adapt. Put a Windows 2000 user behind Windows Vista interface and he has to adapt. Put an Amiga user behind a KDE interface and he has to adapt. Being used to your Nokia N95-2? Lost it? Switching to a BlackBerry Storm? Again, the user has to adapt; relearn cq. unlearn & learn.

The quality of virtual keyboards and touch screen interfaces also differ so we must be careful when making global statements.

I can also imagine some people just don't like a screen of that size with their fingers touching it. Texrat mentioned the lifetime of the touchscreen. I'm sure there are other examples. Like people with big fingers. A stylus is a fixed size; fingers are not. Besides that, you must learn your muscles to adjust --so to say. Acquiring decent precision takes time. Same is true for painting, or spinning vinyl. Some might never learn it, other have a gift for it, most take some average time to 'get acustomed to it'. Which is why I wanted you to reflect about how long you used these devices you mentioned.

There is huge difference between touchscreen-only + some hardware keys and suitable for finger touchscreen usage and stylus touchscreen usage.

What I see is a corporation which innovated a mostly right product at the right time with many [but far from all] UI aspects right or in the right direction; at the very least, making sense; understandable. Only because I looked into touch/finger based usage of applications in an application such as Fennec I started to understand why certain features such as copy/paste were left out of the user experience.

How does the scrollbar know whether you are using your finger or your stylus? By default it cannot. You'd need either a hardware key, or detection on-the-fly. In the case of the latter, a big scrollbar optimized for touch UI uses already space of the screen so why use the smaller one for stylus if you want to allow either? And suddenly, slowly but surely your whole UIis finger optimized... woops! Again, I don't think either would be easy to implement so one has to pick either finger or stylus.

Yes. Although this is IMO a hack.

Alternatively, the user is scrolling by definition unless [...].

When reading an e-book a user usually wants to either read or scroll. When browing a user usually wants to either read or scroll.

What are the other reasons? 1) Clicking on a link (to go to there, or to copy it) 2) Selecting text to copy/paste it. Well, hypothetically these 2 can be tightly integrated with this copy/paste paradigm. If you leave some room for a user to push hardware buttons or virtual software buttons the gestures are at full command for scrolling; callibrating for perceiving information.

To inform the user about where he is residing in the document you can provide a preview of the document minimized. Or show a percentage. Not sure whats best of bread on this one, but there are possible alternatives.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

I'm only going to address this one point and let the rest go. ;)

One of ragnar's rebuttals against d-pad inclusion is that coding for and around it is hard. My reply: so what?

I'm not simply being trite either. I've made a partial career out of creating code that, in many cases, was declared by some to be impossible. So if one part-time programming guy can overcome the impossible, can't others handle something that's merely difficult?

Semi-facetiousness aside, I don't think keeping the d-pad (or similar) in future products is the bogeyman that some make it out to be. I'm betting there are solutions for every con brought up, and doubtless some are things as yet unconsidered that could be game-changers.

But how far does naysaying get a product? How far does a "can't do" attitude go?

Let's back up a bit and consider the most key aspect of this debate: the 770 had a d-pad. So did the N800. So does the N810. So, many people are arguing for continuation of the existing scenario, whereas a few are championing its death. Sorry, I think the burden for the stronger argument is on the latter... and so far all I've seen are protests of how difficult something might be. I'll be swayed by data and sound logic, but not by impassioned opinion-- at least not in a case where functionality is being removed.

EDIT: lol-- this topic is making the Nokia 5800 ad come up a lot. :D

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Shouldn't have? I'd say you don't need a focus element, but that doesn't mean that having one to accomodate sequential focus->actuate input methods is bad; it need not interfere with simultaneous focus+actuate from the touch screen.There are options out there that don't fit your two descriptions well, because you're making no distinction between different types of inputs . Particularly, I'd like to point to FVWM, though this method is rather common in the X11 realm. Because your stereotypical UNIXhead can't stand repetitive inefficiencies, walking through a menu tree with the pointer (via touchscreen or mouse) is performed without the need to click on each branch.

• If the menu was initiated with a keystroke (or with an odd button click-and-release), the pointer is stroked through the menu tree with all buttons released, and the first click selects and actuates the item.
• If it was initiated with the mouse in the usual way (or with a touchscreen), the button is held down while stroking the path, and the item is selected and actuated on release.
• Finally, if the menu is initiated by either the keyboard or a press-and-release, focus may be navigated through the tree by the cursor keys, and pressing return actuates the focused item.

While F does show focus on mouseover as well as cursor key selection, that's a trivial cosmetic difference,, and the actual behavior is compatible with both touch (simultaneous focus+actuate) and d-pad->select (focus->actuate) modes (and a couple of inefficient, clunky, mouse-driven modes). And it's been doing it for over a decade -- not all good UI ideas are new, even for new hardware.There are only three sane non-focus approaches I can see:

• Verb-noun order. This works fine with focus, too, though, as you can select the operation, focus the target with the dpad, and select it just as well.
• Context menu from the item, in two varieties:
  • Menu always shows up upon tapping an icon; "default" action is really just the top item.
  • Menu actuated by some gesture (including things like tap+hold); default action, which may not even be on the menu, occurs with plain tap.
  The former, of course, is simply handled by mapping the d-pad->select the same as tap, bringing up the same menu content (although possibly with different presentation). The latter can be harder, but can be implemented by prepending the default action to the d-pad menu presentation, by using a second key or gesture (e.g. select for default, long-press select for menu), or, crudely, by mandating that the default action must always appear in the menu.
• Dragging the file to the operation (on a toolbar or menu), or dragging the operation from the toolbar to the file. (Possible, but with no obvious advantage, and much accidental droppage. I hope nobody ever tries this on a touchscreen device.) Still workable (though rather clunkily) with d-pad->select, the item is visibly marked, focus is warped to the toolbar and the operation may then be selected with either d-pad->select or touch.

All these solutions can be implemented cleanly with two very important characteristics: the branch between modes is determined freely and unambiguously by which input device is in use, and the actual decision tree the user navigates remains substantially unchanged between the modes.That holds true for those touch UI optimizations which don't have a natural focus->actuate analog, but I don't see many such optimizations that are actually desirable even from a touch-only perspective. I don't claim it's a free lunch; I am aware that implementing a second mode incurs development cost, sapping the touch UI from a budget perspective, but I just don't see the general trend of actually blocking touch UI. And honestly, though I am supportive of the touch emphasis, I think the dpad is worth some sacrifice in touch usability if it is necessary.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

How far this D-Pad debate can go before a new device is launched with/without it together with the corresponding UI?

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Until the more stubborn among us run out of steam. Or ragnar gives up. :D

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Do you realize that no matter who 'wins' here, device products are designed by other teams taking into account many other considerations?

You are pushing the debate as a yes/no for all devices to come, while ragnar is basically saying that the Maemo platform needs to be prepared to support a UI without a hardware D-Pad. Then the device programs willing to use Maemo can decide. As they could decide to have lock screen key or not, camera button or not and etc.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

I'm not too proud to touch an N810.

I always wash my hands, afterwards, though.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Thanks, Texrat, for pushing ragnar on this. Nothing in your NDA says you can't bark at the heels of those in the know to get them to justify themselves ;-)

It is fairly obvious to me; the new Maemo5 device is going to follow in Apple's glorious footsteps and it will be a nokiaTouch; it isn't going to have any way to set "focus" on an element.

Quim is, as always, doing his best to smooth-over and de-emphasize here; but I think he's basically agreeing with me here :)


I'm with Naranek here, however. The new processor is going to have the power to run OpenOffice well, so I hope they don't mangle the UI so badly that OOo can't even be used.

All I can say is -- if you're taking away my HW keys because the iPhone doesn't have them, you'd better throw in an accelerometer instead!

Seems to be working for Nokia so far ;)

Hear, hear!

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

I think you answered the question yourself:

Has something like this been done?

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

It has been fun to watch this fight over the D-pad... :p Personally I do not use it much, but it is very helful when need to edit few characters in the middle of long text field, say a file path.

Instead of D-pad I'd like to see a general purpose "Function keys" around the display, similar to what you see at ATM or gas pump. The keys can be freely programmable by the application. App can place a small icon next to the button to show the current function, and one function can be the "D-pad" in certain circumstances.

One of the best example which miss programmable hardware keys is media (MP3) player. If there was a reasonable amount of HW keys available you can use the tablet as MP3 player never watching it and/or taking it out of pocket! Very useful feature, in my opinion. To bring this feature further there should be separate lock mode for display and buttons: If you use the tablet as MP3 player you want to lock the screen from not reacting touches, but want to keep buttons operational to user input.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

N810 sucked 110 MB last month through my phone with daily light web browsing and email.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Pay attention much? ;)

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

Wow, nice grab GeneralAntilles! :) It also sounds like the long rumored n900 will be definitely worth waiting for. :D Assuming of course I had patience to spare. ;) I'm crawling out of my shorts right now in anticipation.

BTW, on a side note, if they take away all the hardware keys (which I wouldn't mind really, just so long as there's some easy way to reset the tablet should it barf up it's digital guts like the n810 is fond to do periodically) how will navigation and other things be done? Will everything be on screen? And how big is the screen rumored to be, now that I think about it. hehe.

Re: Where is Nokia - no announcement no product - still in hibernation
 

I realize that teams who decide to use Maemo will have to use Maemo as it is provided to them. I understood Ragnar to previously say that the OS could not support two UI paradigms. We are not concerned in this discussion with things like a lock screen key or a camera button. We are concerned with removing UI related HW keys.