Video: Marko Ahtisaari on N9, “I know we have out simplified the iPhone”. Swipe to come to lower price points and possibly next Billion.

Just found this  video of Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia’s Chief Designer, speaking about Patterns of Human Interaction in Phones – N9 in particular of what Nokia’s trying to do. Some of the things he talks about were previously discussed in that very revealing video last year that hinted towards the innovations in the N9 but also possibly a move to Windows Phone.

Some things of Key interest:

1) In the new patterns introduced, N9 is just a first step. Just the beginning. More gestural interactions beyond the glass is expected

2) Two patterns introduced to Nokia, Swipe and Windows Phone. Both the beginning of multiple products, and in case of swipe, coming down to more accessible price points. MMM.

3) Swipe at Next Billion type price points? Even at mid-range that would be highly disruptive. Think about the new batches of 1GHz S40 devices. Now think about those utilizing swipe. This is great forms of interactions, but very friendly on the pocket.

OK the video

• Marko is interested in improving things people use 50-100 times a day. He’s not interested in using a wow feature that you use every 90 days and never remember afterwards.
• Scene on pattern: Phone market – over medialised, so hot that sometimes under false impression that all innovation is done – that it’s about adding the 537th feature or cloud this or that or ecosystems. 1890 – tillers – took 15 years to switch to steering wheel.
• Nothing could be further from the truth. He likens the automotive industry
• Dominant candidates: pattern of iPhone – multiple screens of apps (old pattern from computing industry.) Model is elegant and simple. Getting anyway – just go through the front door. It’s easy, but it feels silly after a while.
• Evolved a little – you can press buzzer on door twice, skip on one leg from dining room to living room.
• Asks how many uses iPhone and how many uses multitasking – less use multitasking, confirming Marko’s point of features that aren’t used by its users so often.
• Marko says – clearly there’s a better design than that.
• Second model – faster growing – multiple homescreens with widgets.
• Bet of pattern that personalization is so organic and easy that it happens over time, usin the device through homescreen (oh boy, did I ever with N900)
• Marko says with this interaction, folks don’t use the full potential.
• This is a pattern of Symbian and Android. Marko says that Belle is the most accessible to learn and snappiest version of that pattern on the market
• Biggest task in N9 – make room for possibility that there is better design than those two patterns.
• Someone he was working with said it lacked homescreen and widgets so it’s not a smartphone. Marko says that means they have restricted their imagination to a pattern already.
• To look for N9 pattern, they set themselves a task to make an all screen phone with no physical keys. People want larger screen no matter what size phone. They are still too big in and out of a pocket. If they could design an elegant overall experience with just a screen on the interface it would allow to make a larger screen to product ratio. That would allow more screen essentially.
• People wanted (even without explicitly saying) a design with full mobility. Marko says it’s something Nokia was known for, one handed use and going about other things.
• Most touch screen UI are immersive, requiring much more of our attention than they ought to.
• Folks head down pinching and zooming.
• N9 is just a first step in this
• Team’s goal is to give people their head up again so they can be more present to the world around them.
• Why is this important? Big human fundamentals. Latest research on MicroSociology shows humans can make each other feel like they are welcome – multitude of things – eye contact, physical things done subconsciously. Part is eye contact – if we are designing tech then shame on us for taking that away.

• This means;

1. Better one handed use
2. Better slopier use (so you don’t need such perfect actions to use it, not about making things smaller, beautiful, requiring precision.

• Display and glass flow seamlessly – gives a clue how we’ve solved the pattern.
• All starts with a simple gesture – swipe. When in any app e.g. clock and I’ done – just swipe from anywhere – the swipe away is that simplification.
• No physical homekey, no digital home key that you have to press. But wheneer you are in any app, just swipe from any edge
• Waking up the device is just a double tap. And then swipe – means you can wake it up with one hand.
• This is what I’m interested in, things people use 50-100 times and improving those on a daily basis.
• It doesn’t stop there. The three most important things – start activities (launching an app) notifications and switching between activities – something most phone designs have not yet succeeded on.
• Home has three views proceeding in carousel.
• [a few minutes I’ve ignored]
• When you swipe away, you go back to the view of home from where you came.  You don’t always have to go through the front door. This makes this pattern very fluid – it feels like you’re flowing. The only way you’ll believe that is by using it.
• We prototyped both. Living with it for a week and sharing with outsiders.
• You have to live with it to see if it improves things and it was clear that the fluid version – though may seem to be harder to understand – is more fluid and  you don’t actually lose your sense of place.

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/28758945]

Here’s another video with Marko

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/28755505]

Category: Maemo, MeeGo, Nokia