游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

分析手机应用功能日趋同质化的原因

发布时间:2013-07-29 11:15:58 Tags:,,,

作者:Himanshu Sareen

你可能已经深深意识到,虽然我们的智能手机功能体验越来越棒,但我们最常使用的应用程序却已陷入一个大同小异的圈子中。

面对Google Play和苹果App Store的1000亿次下载量以及160万款应用,你可能公认为应用功能的相似性并非什么大问题。追随移动市场大潮的人会承认,确有大量热门应用实际上是从其他产品中“取材”而得的成果。并且这一趋势毫无减缓的迹象。越来越多开发者在制作核心功能相似,只是美术设计和品牌有所不同的产品。其中表现最明显的三类应用分别是:

Pull To Refresh(from iphonetechie.com)

Pull To Refresh(from iphonetechie.com)

*第一名:“下拉进行刷新”功能——典型代表:新闻应用

*第二名:“猛击显示”功能——典型代表:社交网络应用

*第三名:“滑动进行删除”功能——典型代表:邮件应用

为何会出现这种情况?

出现这一现象的原因是什么?是开发者已经疲于进行设计创新?我们已经没有必要再探索移动界面设计问题?还是说我们已经到达了应用设计和用户体验的顶峰?也许都不是,但以下几个原因确实值得思考:

1.时间:经历近30年创造、发展和优化用户体验的桌面电脑市场不同的是,移动应用市场仅问世5年而已。开发者没有机会去候冒险尝试未经检验的UI方法,因为他们担心新设计会很快被这个迅速发展的行业所淘汰。

2.平台UI工具:谷歌和苹果在创造界面元素和体验上颇有建树,支持开发者在其IED选择的基础上进行开发,无需冒险涉水未知领域。

3.屏幕大小:开发者创建新界面模式的想法总会受到3*4.5英寸这种屏幕大小的限制,他们很难据此更改信息密度、布局等设计。

总体来看,这些相对来说只是开发者和应用设计公司都无法控制的外部因素。那么,他们创造新鲜的移动应用体验时可以在哪些方面下功夫?答案就是触屏。

人性化的触控方式

缺乏触控和多点触控创新是应用设计停滞不前的一大原因。更准确地说,定制触控方式的缺失是这种限制性移动体验的主要成因。

Android和iOS设备都要依靠点触、轻打、拖拽和捏夹等手势,在其有限的场景中人为地创造更多实际使用空间。从早期的PalmOS和Windows Mobile到现在的移动平台,应用程序都是通过这些交互模式才得以发展变化。但最近看来,我们操控手指的方式并没有多大变化。就像“下拉更新”一样,只要出现一种新触控方式,你就会发现人人都开始采用这一功能。

paper_tools(from imore.com)

paper_tools(from imore.com)

真正的触控和基于手势的改进方式可以创造变革性的体验,这一点通常可以从用户接受程度上得到验证。以Paper为例,这款应用就是由于触控界面上的创新而成为热销产品。这款iOS画板应用含有一种定制触控方式,取代了传统的“取消”按扭,玩家只需用两根手指逆时针方向旋转即可采取这一操作。现在,Paper已经进帐数百万美元,还将进行更大规模的移动生产率创新。

在移动市场这般迅速发展的领域里,设计创新很困难,但并非不可能之事。虽然有些公司确实发明了新的人机交互方式,但这些现象却并不常见。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Why all your apps feel the same

Himanshu Sareen

Himanshu Sareen is CEO of Icreon Tech.

You’ve probably realized deep down inside that while our smartphones are capable of providing amazing experiences, dozens of our most-used apps are beginning to feel like clones of each other.

With 100 billion downloads and 1.6 million apps available in the Google Play and Apple App Store, you’d think this homogenization of app features wouldn’t be an issue. Yet, anyone who follows the mobile market will admit that a plethora of popular apps liberally ‘borrow’ cues from others. And that trend’s not slowing down. A growing number of developers are producing near identical core functionalities, save for slight nuances in aesthetics and branding. A few guilty parties:

Overkill #1: “Pull down to Refresh” – Main Perpetrators: News Apps

Overkill #2: “Swipe to Reveal” – Main Perpetrators: Social Networking Apps

Overkill #3: “Slide to Delete” – Main Perpetrators: Mail Apps

Where does it come from?

So what has caused this? Have developers become bored with the design process? Is there no further need to explore mobile interfaces? Have we gotten to a point where we’ve reached the pinnacle of app design and user experience? Probably not, but here are some key causes to consider:

Timing: Unlike the desktop market, which had close to 30 years to create, evolve, and refine user experience on PCs and laptops, the mobile app market has existed for essentially five years. Developers haven’t had the luxury of taking chances with non-proven UI methods for fear of becoming quickly obsolete in the rapidly evolving industry.

Platform UI Kits: Google and Apple have done well to create stock interface components and experiences, enabling developers to ride on the shoulders of their IDEs of choice rather than venture out further into the unknown.

Screen size: The ability to create new modes of interaction is consistently hampered by the fact that developers only have a 3” x 4.5” area to play around with, making it tough to alter information density, layouts, and the like.

But, by and large, these are relatively external-facing issues, ones that developers and app design firms aren’t in control of. So, what is it that they can control to create fresh experiences for mobile app users? The answer is touch.
A (Touch) Friendly Gesture

The lack of touch and multi-touch innovation have created a stagnant state in app design. More specifically, the lack of experimentation with custom touch gestures contributes to a confined, limiting experiences on mobile.

Android and iOS depend on taps, flicks, drags, and pinches to artificially create more real estate within their environments. And judging from the early days of PalmOS and Windows Mobile, apps would admittedly be nowhere near as revolutionary without these interaction models. Yet, recently there has been little to no change in how we articulate with our fingers. It seems that every once in a while, a new gem, like Pull to Refresh comes along, only to be adopted by everyone else that can find a way to apply it. But they come along far too infrequently.

True touch and gesture-based improvements create revolutionary experiences, and oftentimes, the evidence lies in consumer adoption. Take an outstanding example of touch innovation, Paper, which has become a best seller by reimagining what can be done with a touch interface. The iOS sketchpad app incorporates a custom gesture that replaces the traditional ‘undo’ button with a two-finger counter-clockwise rotation, a unique take that makes the need for the extraneous and cumbersome button completely obsolete. Today, Paper has raised millions in funding and aims to reinvent mobile productivity on a much larger scale.

In a rapidly evolving industry like the mobile market, while design innovation is admittedly difficult, it’s not impossible. And while there are clear examples of companies inventing new ways of human computer interaction, they just don’t seem to happen often enough.(source:venturebeat


上一篇:

下一篇: