Category — Prototyping Software

VP8 seeking to become a de facto video codec standard

Much like Android, VP8 came to be a Google product by way of acquisition and, likewise, then released as open source code and available royalty-free for a number of uses such as online and mobile video. The VP8 video codec is paired with the open-source Ogg Vorbis audio to form the WebM container format which is directly aimed at providing high quality video compression for use with HTML5 video. Is there an immediate impact on the interface design of websites? Not really, but interface designers and web developers have to think carefully about which users they’re targeting when implementing video into their interface design. These decisions are more pronounced when developing a website that requires natively hosted video (i.e. not using YouTube embedded videos) because one has to decide on which format(s) to use. For now Flash is still the most popular player but, say, you are targeting a significant amount of iPhone users you’d have to use an alternative. And since Apple has embraced H.264, the use of that codec brings with it its own set of baggage as we saw with Nero. So, is open source the right way to create a video codec standard? Quite possibly, but we will have to wait and see what lies ahead.

Challenges preventing a universally accepted video codec standard

With HTML5 looming, video codec standards have recently become a hot issue popularized by the oh-so public feud between Apple and Adobe. Up until now Flash has been the preferred video format on the web due to Adobe’s Flash Player being installed in most web browsers. The HTML5 video tag is intended to become the new standard way to show video online. The question is which formats should be supported in the tag. Despite its tremendous popularity Flash remains the property of a single corporation, Adobe. Apple favors the H.264 codec and due to the success of the iPhone, iPod Touch and now the iPad (which don’t support Flash) many popular sites such as YouTube, Vimeo and CNN, to name but a few, now have all or a growing number of their videos available in the H.264 format in addition to Flash. Criticism of H.264 is centered on the patents leading to most users of the format to pay licensing fees leading to the software company Nero to sue the licensing authority of the codec. This is where VP8 comes in.

In a bid to usurp Google as the world’s most popular search engine Microsoft’s Bing has been continuously updated in the past couple of months. And it would seem that Google is taking notice if its introduction of a Bing-like background picture to its interface design is anything to go by. Bing’s interface design is attracting the sincerest form of flattery for good reason. Both search engines have a winning interface design that displays search results with minimal noise, but there are some differences between the two that deserve mention.

In what ways does Google have a better interface design?

At first glance I found Google to score higher on usability. Firstly the advanced search option was more clearly labeled on Google as ‘advanced search’. The blue letting immediately made it clear that it was a clickable link. On Bing this option was only labeled ‘Advanced’ and even though underlined it had the same font color as the text next to it. The news items results for my search input (which in case you were wondering was Snoop Dogg) appeared much higher whereas on Bing I had to scroll down all the way to the bottom of the screen. Google adheres to the quasi standard of showing the login option in the top right corner, while Bing puts the ‘Preferences’ option in that spot, requiring users to search for the login.

In what ways does Bing have a better interface design?

Where I found Bing to be better was in displaying related searches on the left side whereas Google displayed them at the bottom. Another neat feature of Bing was when hovering over search results and having the option of activating a pop-up box on the right of the link with more information from the website without leaving Bing. Clicking on an image in Bing revealed a better interface design. In Google a frame of the interface design reveals metadata about the image but only that image. Bing allows you to view the information contained within the website where the image comes from right within Bing but also shows all the image results on the left with a scrollbar. The start page of Bing offers a more compact setup for entering a search, while in Google the user has to move his mouse quite a distance to search for images, videos and others. The background image serves to unify the main parts of the page, while all peripheral options are faded back into the grey frame. Tooltips for search categories in Bing also enhance its usability. Finally, Bing does not distract the user by offering an equivalent to Google’s famous “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.

What strategy is Bing adopting in order to one-up Google?

Bing has also added a new ‘Entertainment’ section dedicated to music, movies, TV and games. What this essentially means is that Bing once more incorporates a lot more into its interface design even allowing users to play videos, songs and online flash games right within Bing. Where Google seeks to be your transit point connecting you to your destination, Bing seems intent on being the destination.

Increased storage

It is rumored that the new iPhone 4G will have up to 64 GB of storage capacity—almost the same amount as the iPod touch.  This will allow users of the new iPhone to store more for entertainment purposes: photos, films, tv programs etc.

Ebooks

Apple has launched a literary equivalent of iTunes: the iBookstore, which is currently available via the iPad. The new iPhone 4G interface design will likely include this new application, giving users the capacity to download and read books from the comfort of their own phone.

New Design

According to rumors coupled with the viewing of leaked images, the new iPhone 4G will likely be smaller and lighter than the older model, with a smaller yet higher resolution screen.  Since the iPhone supposedly is vamping up its storage and camera abilities, it is likely that a higher resolution screen is more than just a myth.

The expected release of the iPhone 4G at The Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 promises to vamp up the public’s interest in the event. If the rumors surrounding the new iPhone 4G are true, then customers have much to be happy about and competitors better get back to the prototyping board!

The Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 promises to be full of surprises when it kicks off on June 7 in San Francisco.  Apple’s chief executive officer, Steve Jobs, guarantees that the customers „won’t be disappointed“ by Apple’s newest developments. The focal point of the WWD will be the new iPhone 4G.  Apple was furious over leaked images of the iPhone a few months ago, but since the images did nothing but stir the public’s interest in the new device, the expected release of the iPhone 4G at the WWD will likely double the event’s publicity and excitement.  Here are a few things to expect from the new iPhone 4G interface design (these features are still firmly rooted in the world of speculation):

New Operating System

The iPhone 4G interface design will likely be powered by the new iPhone OS 4. The key new feature for this system is the facilitation of multitasking—users will be able to run apps simultaneously and switch between them with fluidity.  For example, users will be able to instant message a friend, look at photos and listen to their playlist all at once.

A quick example: Say your presentation is centered around 3 keywords or themes. These can be displayed as really huge items with further information on those themes much tinier and clustered around the keywords. As you go through your presentation you could zoom further down in which ever direction and angle. Prezi’s interface design for creating presentations is a breeze to learn and use thanks to very little noise and a few but powerful options (to adjust size for example). Prezi is also optimized for editing. Say you were going to perform your trusty presentation to an audience but wanted to leave something out: simply change the path to exclude the parts you wish to exclude rather than deleting slides. Just drag and drop all you may want to work with onto the canvas and the world is your oyster! Google wave users can look forward to embedding Prezi presentations allowing for non-locking, realtime collaborative editing between multiple parties on multiple devices. Considering that Prezi is similar in functionality to the Microsoft Office Labs pptPlex concept project, a look into my crystal ball tells me that the next iteration after Office 2010 will also include a zooming user interface design of some sort. But for now Prezi seems the leader of the new school.

Prezi is a Flash-based app that is also taking a revolutionary approach to presentation tools by employing a zooming user interface design approach. A ZUI is a type of GUI where users can change the scale of the viewed area in order to see more details or less and thus peruse through documents. Traditional presentation tools, such as PowerPoint or Keynote, use an interface design based around the use of linear slides modeled after traditional slide projectors. By using a zooming user interface approach, Prezi’s presentations are more like one giant slide or a blank canvas if you will. All the different components of a presentation (text, pictures, video, audio etc…) or added on the canvas and a path through different objects and frames can be defined non-linearly as a visual map that users zoom in and out as the presentation unfolds across the matrix of ideas on the virtual canvas (and making slide transitions so last century)!

Real-time collaboration capabilities

One of the main benefits of cloud computing is its facilitation of real-time collaboration among users. Cloud app mobility allows people to work and access their material from anywhere.  When designing your cloud app, think about ways to facilitate communication among users. For example, provide users with chat features or the ability to simultaneously access and edit documents (features already provided by Microsoft’s competitor, Google Docs, or by other more specialized tools like the wireframe tool Pidoco).  If your cloud app is related to gaming, make sure that players can easily communicate with each other.  The beauty of the internet is its capacity to provide the world with instantaneous forms of communication.  Don’t forget to make your cloud app a shining example of why real-time collaboration is one of cloud computing’s main benefits.

Interface design

It is important to have a cogent and executable concept behind your cloud app, but it is even more important to have an interface design that supports your app’s usability.  Cloud apps are completely dependent on internet access.  Many of them are accessed through a web browser. Think about internet connections. It’s great to have a high fidelity interface design, but is it usable for those with slow internet connections?  Think about the simple things like browser bars, the back button, page linking, even a possible search engine.  Do all of these seemingly simple features assist your user or do they detract from your interface design’s usability by making the user experience convoluted? Do they integrate well with your applications navigation flow and processes or are they misleading? Your interface design should be so simple to use and seamlessly integrated with the browser navigation options that your users don’t have to think about or notice it (well, maybe you can add some flair—it should look nice).  If you want users to appreciate the substantive value of your cloud app and what it potentially offers them, you have to make sure that the structure is clean and usable.

Google seems to have done pretty well on these points. Now it remains to be seen how the new Microsoft Office Web Apps will fare.

Microsoft delivered a clear one-two punch to Google with its announcement of the simultaneous release of Office 2010 and the new Microsoft Office Web Apps in June 2010.  It’s no secret that the two technology giants have been at each other’s throats over the last few years, but “a lot of people say we will see pigs fly before we see Microsoft Office running in the clouds” said Microsoft’s senior director of platform strategy, Tim O’Brien.  Many in the technical realm never thought Microsoft would offer Office as a cloud application.  This new turn of events emphasizes just how critical web-based applications and their battle with Google has become — you could even be so bold as to call it a software usability war.

Micrsoft is clearly capitalizing on the popularity and usability of cloud apps. Cloud applications provide users the ability to instantaneously access and use software via the internet, avoiding the hassle of messy installation processes and facilitating a convenient user experience.  Cloud computing is cost efficient, flexible, and completely mobile. As the world of technology continues to evolve, cloud apps could become the software usability staple of the future. If you are thinking of designing your own cloud app, remember two things to ensure usability success: Real-time collaboration capabilities and interface design.