The slides of my talk at UX Camp Europe '12, on Designing for E-ink devices. Focuses mostly on the set of design guidelines I've devised for E-ink devices.
6. Results
• IA on the readers’ OS
• Touch interaction
• Long response times
• Little visible feedback
7. Guidelines -
General Design
• Links should be underlined.
• Use font faces with slightly contrasting
stroke weights.
• Use highly contrasting shades of gray
together.
• Use black for the main text, and grey
(italics) for secondary text.
8. • Use bold & bigger font sizes to highlight
text importance.
• Display each page’s content in one
screen, no scrolling.
• IA should be intuitive and similar to that
of familiar tech devices.
• Be efficient with screen space.
• Don’t fill the screen with clutter.
9. • Optimize your design for e-ink.
• Use clear, intuitive graphics.
• Leave no room for user-error.
10. Guidelines -
Interaction
• Show a change in color to highlight an
element’s change of state.
• Tapped keyboard buttons should pop-
up magnified, for visual feedback.
• Visual feedback should be given after
actions (such as loading indicators).
• Button sizes on touch-screens should
be large enough for easy access.
11. • Have sufficient space between
interactive elements, to reduce
imprecise tapping.
• Respect & apply Fitt’s law!
• Double pressing a navigation button
should speed up navigation.
• Button-based devices should follow
mobile usability guidelines.
• The cursor should be displayed in
selected input fields for easy text editing
editing.
12. • Filters & other sorting methods should
be provided for faster browsing in
pages.
• Provide signs of orientation to the user.
Editor's Notes
Readability: -stable image, can be read in direct sunlight, contrast ratio similar to that of newspapers, font size can be adjusted Portability: -Light, portable, holds hundreds of books, progress, notes & bookmarks synced among devices Battery: - e-ink technology allows readers to hold static text and images indefinitely, without consuming any additional power.
Ghosting: - The shadow of a previously displayed image (ghost images) may be visible after refreshing parts of the screen. Ghost images are usually cleared out after the screen is refreshed several times . Interaction: - low refresh rate => no transition effects or animation. dynamic menus, scrolling, smooth zooming, page turns -long response times, bad feedback Design: -No guidelines, each reader has its own OS and browser => Different UI & Chrome
To find and identify the most problematic usability flaws and frustrating UX issues that users come across during interaction with e-ink readers.
-IA: Not intuitive, doesn ’ t conform to the patterns the users are used to. -Touch: problematic, takes too much accuracy and precision to hit target successfully, small-sized buttons & targets, 5-way navigation slow and frustrating -
-Links: maybe even dotted so regular underline is used for highlighting other aspects -