I also wanted to make a user interface design exercise out of this by adding some constraints and special requirements to make it more interesting:

1)      It has to offer a new angle to notifications

Basically just have some new idea for one instead of rehashing something old.

2)      It has to be accessible from any screen without visual interruptions

User should be able to summon notification screen or otherwise access it with minimal navigation. This requirement for example disqualifies anything that involves going back to Start screen first as that involves a transition through black screen (something that I count as an interruption). Users should also be able to return to where they were with a single tap of the back button.

3)      It has to have a complementary function to the Live Tiles instead of parallel

Notification center in WP shouldn’t be something that competes directly against Live Tiles and their purpose. It should not offer just an alternative mean to access notifications but preferably work together with Live Tiles and all the other currently established notification methods like toast notifications and lock screen.

4)      It has to look distinctively Windows Phone

This is a no-brainer but deserves still a point of its own.

I took all of these points in consideration and proceeded to try figure out something and this is what I come up with:

Notification center concept: Hyperspace

In this concept, notification center is placed in the same space where multitasking cards can be found, accessible by long press of the back button. For some reason I’ve always thought this space similar to how hyperspace is described in sci-fi movies, an inter-dimensional space that can be used to fast travel to other parts of the space, in this context to other open applications. Because of this I eventually started calling this concept “Hyperspace” and the name stuck.

The notification center would be positioned right from the application cards (arrow icon placed as a visual cue), accessible by a flick to the left which will reveal all unattended notification items from all installed applications in a scrolling vertical list. Many of the arguments supporting notification center have been about a need for a place to find all the missed toast notifications which has been an inspiration for this concept. When we get a Toast notification, we’ll either tap it for accessing it or swipe it away from the screen. When we do the latter and discard a Toast, it will fly away to the right side of the screen… where the notification screen in this concept is also positioned. Because of this behavior you can think that if you miss a Toast, it will just be automatically discarded to the notification center on the right. (Note: Alternative name for this concept was “Toast Rack”)

[WARNING - BORING AND LONG DESCRIPTION PARAGRAPH]

While the notification items have some resemblance to the actual Toast notifications, they don’t look exactly like them anymore for two reasons. Firstly, Toast notifications are really designed to work as singular units, to be read one at a time and not as a list. I did try this concept with stock Toast notifications but that did not work out well. The end result was a wall of small text that looked like crap. Secondly, Toast Notification appearance is designed to be subdued and non-intrusive, something that is not a priority number one for notification visuals in a screen especially dedicated to them.

The appearance I end up choosing for notification center and the items comes from my personal preference regarding notifications which is that they should focus on the notifying part instead of trying to give out as much information as possible. In practice this means big icons, large title texts and lots of negative space to make the individual notifications pop up in glance-sized bits, avoiding at all costs that wall of text -feel that plagues notification centers in other operating systems. In my example you can see one way to accomplish that, instead of trying to cram as much info as possible in items, I focus only on the essential information and that’s it.

I decided to use the accent color for the items as the multitasking screen already uses a bit darker shade of the accent color so the items will match the background color by default. Some other color might’ve been more optimal, but this solution is so effortless and works with any accent color I decided to go with it. I also had an idea going that maybe the items could flip in timed intervals revealing more information about the item in the same manner as Live Tiles do but I felt it going too much in territory of the Tiles in the end.

I don’t believe there should be any advanced features like notification history or search; the purpose of this center would be just to make sure you don’t miss anything. When you access a notification from the center or the corresponding Live Tile, it will be gone. If user wants to clear all the notifications, there’s a button for that in the bottom.

Now let’s see if I managed to hold my own requirements.

1)      Check. I haven’t seen any other concept exploring this possibility. It’s new to me at least.

2)     Check. When you press and hold the back button, screen zooms out without visual interruptions (long press is kind of an interruption though if not visual one) and with a quick flick you’re in the notification center  Nice perk with this implementation is that you can return to your original application with a single tap of the back button, and once again without visual interruptions.

3)      Check. The concept does not try to eclipse Live Tiles but works in a distinct space with a purpose of its own. 

4)     Check. I think.

Now, if you want to try how this would look in a real device feel free to download some of these pictures and look them using the Photos application. You can also scan the QR code next to a pic to get the image.

800 x 480

1280 x 768 

Notification center in action

Like always, comments and critique are welcomed. I do these to learn.

Nokia’s own crowdsourcing site Ideasproject is holding a contest where you can share your design for Lumia 820 cover. Participating in Ideasproject challenges has been a dear hobby of mine for a while now and this challenge is particularly cool:

3D Printing is quickly becoming the next big thing in technology and we want to help you join in the fun with your own designs and ideas. This is your chance to share your design ideas for the Nokia Lumia 820. Simply share a cool design for a Nokia Lumia 820 mobile phone case.

3D printing is indeed a very cool new technology and given that Nokia recently shared their 3D printing templates for making your own Lumia 820 cover designs, we are bound to see some cool fan creations in the near future. As an absolute killer incentive for you to participate in this, designers of the five best designs will get to go to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Feb 25th to Feb 28th and Nokia is paying.

Get cracking!

So there is no universal place in WP7 for all the notifications received. WP8 might bring a new solution for that, but currently there’s no information if any new notification system will be implemented. WP relies on displaying notification information on Live Tiles by displaying a number of new items inside appropriate Live Tiles. While this technically does count as a notification, it’s a very inefficient and uninformative way for doing that. Even with new items, Tile appearance will remain the same (color, size) as other Tiles and the distribution of Tiles require scrolling around to check if there are new notifications.

The problem lies in Metro UI

There have been plenty of different fan-made concepts how this could be implemented also in WP involving third home screens, modified toast notification screens and pull-down menus, but those all require messing with the Metro UI more or less. This is problematic as Microsoft is really committed to the Metro UI and if a new solution deviates from Metro UI too much it becomes unfeasible in reality, no matter how effective the solution might otherwise be. Metro UI has plenty of good points with its fresh, clean look and intuitive animations, but it is also quite rigid in its guidelines. This is especially true when it involves the home screen, the place where notifications should somehow appear as it is the starting point for the user.

Because of this, I feel that the only feasible solution (with the current pre-WP8 premise) for centralized notification system for WP is an application. If the notifications would be implemented by an application, it would give much more room how to display and interact with the new notification items. The application itself would of course get its own Live Tile, which would show condensed info about all the current notifications. As this application would require to have access to pretty much every user data and preferably also have a double-wide Live Tile, it would require it to be a 1^st party application, something that’s available only for Microsoft or Nokia.

Possible solution by Nokia

If Microsoft won’t be changing anything about how the notifications are handled in WP8, Nokia would still have an option to do their own solution for that. While Nokia has said loud and clear that they aren’t going to mess with the WP8 UI with anything drastic like squircle tiles, with an application-based solution they would just be offering another Lumia-exclusive service, something they’ve already done several times before, like for example with Nokia Reading. With Notifications application they would actually have quite nice feature to differentiate themselves in the WP market.

One challenge would still be to figure out only how to effectively inform user about the new notifications (author’s note: Nokifications?) without going against the principles of Metro UI. WP8 might bring some viable options to execute centralized notifications but since we don’t really know much about WP8 yet except that it will have Live Tiles, I’ll only consider next how it could be implemented in the Mango.

Dynamic Live Tile for Notifications

To ensure that the user won’t ever miss a single new notification and that the user also gets condensed information about them with a single glance, I propose a new special Notifications Live Tile (henceforth referred as NLT) for the notification app made by Nokia. To put it simply, NLT would be a double-wide Live Tile that appears only when there’s a new notification. NLT puts itself on top of the home screen above users Live Tiles and remains there until user has acknowledged the new notification by accessing it through the notification app or the said application from which the notification originates. Or maybe simply after exiting the app after opening it. After user action, the NLT simply disappears from the home screen. To push the visibility a bit further NLT would be of different color than the current choice for accent color, preferably something around the complementary color region.

Example illustration of Notifications Live Tile. When new notification is received, new Live Tile appears on top of the home screen and pushes the other Tiles down. In this example, the user has previously dismissed notifications from the Twitter and Mail without accessing them. New notification makes the NLT appear again, as new Whatsapp message is received.

This implementation could be one way to effectively solve the native notification problem for many people in Windows Phone without intruding user experience too much or deviating from the Metro UI, which is the biggest challenge. While it does allow access to notifications only from the home screen instead of everywhere like for example in iOS, similar transient notification logic has already been proved to work very well in the MeeGo Harmattan of N9. There is also plenty of alternative options to handle the NLT, such as keeping it static but changing color when new notification is received making it effectively act almost the same as Symbian Anna notification widget. I personally prefer my original suggestion, as I feel that one would provide appropriate amount visibility for the notifications without sacrificing any screen estate.

Notification application functions

The notification application itself would only be a repository of notifications displaying condensed information about new notifications, eg. New e-mails, messages, twitter mentions, software updates etc. Items in the application would be only links to their native applications. It’s not wise to enable any further functions than that as it would require plenty of unnecessary coding effort. It could possibly be used also for browsing other notification-related information in separate pages, like reminders, today’s calendar items or to-do lists. Perhaps an option to generate notification from those items (when due) could also be useful.

Example illustration of Notifications application. Notifications application will show condensed information about all the notifications received. Note that this is just a quick  illustration, I didn’t bother to polish the UI for the application so there’s stuff missing, wrong marginals etc.

There you go. Simple proposal how to add a feature missed by many people.

after reading the following quotes after the announcement of N9 from Nokia spokesperson Mark Squires,

We did the alliance after they announced Mango and we’ve jumped on a moving bus. That means the majority of early products will be based on that.”

“However, as we move forward, you will see more of that ‘Nokia stamp’  in those future devices. People right now can only see pieces of the puzzle, they can’t see the whole picture.”

I decided to do some concepts what those statements might actually mean. Since those statements were said during an interview regarding N9 and MeeGo, I believe it might mean that Nokia is considering using some of the more innovative elements of Harmattan UI in the future, eventually showing up also in Nokia’s version of  WP7 as well. One of those elements is the multitasking, which is what this particular concept is about. As we know, Harmattan UI has a whole homescreen reserved for handling multitasking showing all currently open applications. It can be accessed by swiping from either left or right edge of the screen, depending of in which homescreen the user currently is. While it can’t (nor should) be translated to the Metro UI as it is, here’s a concept how some parts of that could be adapted to WP7:

N9-style multitasking in WP7

I would change the current  way of handling multitasking in WP7 which is a long press of the physical Back button to something similar seen in N9 and the Harmattan UI, accessible by a single swipe from anywhere. I don’t like the current way because I feel that the long press takes time and the button itself is not very conveniently located if using only one hand. Additionally, the current way shows only the two latest applications after the long press requiring several more swipes to reach the end of the list, which I find inconvenient (I personally would prefer seeing all the open applications immediately, like it’s done in N900).

So in this concept swiping right from the left edge of the screen anywhere (home screen, Applist, inside an application) reveals the Task Manager, which is a narrow screen on the left side of the screen showing scroll able card list of currently open applications. This would provide a very fast and convenient way of switching between applications.

N9-STYLE MULTITASKING CONCEPT FOR WP7

But hey, see it for yourselves, I made a video:

What do you think, could this work?

Frequently asked in comments:

1. Are you affiliated with Nokia?

No, I’m not. I’m just a Nokia fan that likes to dream.

2. Since WP7 uses a lot of scrolling from left to right in the applications, hubs and etc. don’t you feel it might be a problem?

No I don’t, the curved screen used in N9 (and presumably in the Sea Ray) actually makes it very easy for user to separate the two gestures.

3. How is this any more efficient than the current multitasking screen, since you see only two (or three) open applications with this as well?

I heard that Mango has a maximum limit of six open applications at the same time, so it would require only one flick of the card list will show you the rest of possibly open applications.

4. Can I follow you on Twitter?

Sure. It’s @PeterLackman.

I am Peter, a Nokia fan and mobile phone enthusiastic from Finland.

I’m also the guy who made that ‘What if Nokia’s version of WP7 had themes?’ concept published here at My Nokia Blog a while back (something I actually plan to revisit soon, this time with Metro UI in mind). I’ve since had a few other ideas regarding Nokia’s implementation of WP7, this time focusing more on functionality, and I would like again to share them here.

During MIX2011, Microsoft introduced a new option to have multiple Live Tiles for same application. This enables an access of additional functions and content for applications straight from the home screen. One such example would be the familiar “new email message” shortcut. Touching it will take you to the email application, straight to the new message part, ready to write. I’ve had an idea for a few months now for a somewhat similar UI concept for WP7 which actually started out very much like the one MS is now introducing. I ended up ditching most of that idea though, because I disliked the idea of sacrificing a tile worth of home screen estate for each extra function I would like to have.

I eventually figured out a way to implement this without extra Live Tiles – I call them Live Cubes.

Next evolution of Live Tiles – Live Cubes

(Click for full size image)

Live Cube looks and functions exactly like a Live Tile, but in reality is a cube which can be interacted by rotating it in its equatorial axis. Since a cube has 4 equatorial sides, a Live Cube would then have 4 square faces that can be accessed by swiping the Live Cube left or right. These additional three faces would then have optional application-specific extra content or functions. The sweeping gestures of up and down would still be dedicated to scrolling through the homescreen and would not be used in Live Cubes.

Using the application shortcuts from the cube is fast and there is no break in the user experience (loading animation through black), like in the original way, which requires starting the email application, finding the new email button and tapping that button. Having this option doesn’t make that much difference on paper, but on every day usage it would quickly become the preferred choice.

Live Cubes will reset themselves back to their original position showing the front face if the user does not interact with the cube for a certain time period or if the user taps on the negative space. Applist is accessible as it is now, by starting the sweep gesture from the negative space in the right part of the homescreen.

Best part about this in my opinion is that while modifying the user experience, it still complies the original design guidelines of Metro UI. Original appearance would be intact, since a cube face looks exactly like a Live Tile. Only thing extra would be a more direct interaction with the content and adding more dimension and depth to the UI, something that the Metro UI aspires for anyway.

Some examples of Live Cubes

Live Cube video example

Live Cubes

Secondary Tiles

For this concept, I also would also introduce something called a Secondary Tile, which is used to display additional content from the Master Cube. This content can be anything from the application, like new emails, RSS feeds, music control, who’s online for IM, etc. Secondary Tile will point to its Master Cube with a small arrow and can be opened/closed from the back side of a Live Cube.

Secondary Tiles would be sized either 1×2 (double width) or 2×2 (double height, double width) and there is also option in some tiles to expand 1×2 Secondary Tile to 2×2 if desired.

Please don’t concentrate on the appearance of the Secondary Tiles in these pictures too much, those are just examples and not fully thought out.

Secondary Tile examples

Live Cube extra features

Some Live Cubes can also be interacted by a long press of a selected cube, which then will turn all the cubes on the homescreen except the one pressed. Those other cubes will then show content from the Live Cube that was pressed. User can exit this mode by tapping on the negative space on the right, which will reset the cubes and turn them back to their original positions.

Long press explained with IE Live Cube

Extra features sample video

Live Cube extra features

Other examples

This implementation will naturally replace the previous function of long press in the homescreen, the rearrangement of the Live Tiles. That would have to be reassigned someplace else, for example under settings. Rearrangement of the home screen tiles is something that you don’t do every day, so the replacement is justified.

That’s all this time, thank you for your attention!