the iPhone's design flaw

Image via Bret Victor

Edward Tufte, author of this classic book, is the world's foremost expert on information design, and always fascinating to read or listen to.

He's composed a short but perfectly-formed essay on the iPhone as a physical object. It follows on from this wonderful blog post by Bret Victor on the trouble with touchscreens, one of my favourite pieces of the year.

Tufte has caused me to reflect upon something about which I'd only been half-aware: my iPhone 4 feels like a hostile object. Its sharp edges dig into the palm of my hand. That subsconsciously affects my whole relationship with it. It feels cold, affectless, unloveable. Here's Tufte:

There is no such hand in touchscreen computer devices. The touchscreen has no texture variation, has no physical surface information, is dead flat, reflects ambient light noise, and features oily fingerprint debris when seen at a raking angle. Also the elegant sharp edges that encase many touchscreens require users to desensitize their hands in order to ignore the physical discomfort produced by the aggressive edges. Last year in Cupertino, I yelled at some people about touchscreens that paid precise attention to finger touches from the user but not to how the device in turn touches the hands of the user (and produces divot edge-lines in the flesh).

What Tufte is writing about isn't just about the iPhone but the whole new category of handheld devices and screens that has sprung up in the last twenty years. Their functionality is way out ahead of their human qualities - of the way they feel. Perhaps one day we'll design a digital device that feels as good as a book.

Tufte again:

So instead let us give more time for doing physical things in the real world and less time for staring at (and touching) the glowing flat rectangle.

Plant a plant, walk the dogs, read a real book, go to the opera.

Comments

[Bonsai]

Weird, a book doesn't feel comfortable to me. When reading in bed it's difficult to read lying on the side. Hardbacks tend to be heavy, paperbacks are a pain to keep open lest you actually break the spine for each new page. Font size can not be adjusted, bookmarking is cumbersome compared to electronic devices. The non-virtual book does not in the least respect the hand. Often it's size prohibits casual reading of you're not sat at a table. Carrying more than one book is a problem compared to ebooks, considering the size some books it can be impossible. Searching a book, even those with indexes, is limited. If I want to check a reference I need to consult a secondary device.

It is also a false dichotomy to say that iPhone or any other smartphone use must necessary cause less 'real life' activity.

The trouble with some commentators on this subject is that they don't live in the real world at all, instead look up stuff on the web that is not necessarily ready for the market at all and then add some anecdotal evidence and personal prejudices.

[ejoch]

Good point about books. I'd extend that to reading in a bath- a Kindle is way more comfortable (suitably protected in a plastic case of course). Read a normal book in a bath, and you're struggled half the time to keep it open without damaging it, which is hardly comfortable.

[Marbury]

Bonsai - I take your point about books, maybe I'm just used to them. But they do feel nice. I'm confused by your last paragraph, however. What is this real world you speak of? And what's wrong with anecdotes and personal prejudices? Without them, I'm nothing.

Ejoch - they're both fucked if you drop them in the water, but the Kindle costs a lot more to replace.

[ejoch]

Amazon sell some nice, cheap, waterproof Kindle covers ('Trendy Digital'). But you're quite right, without one a Kindle dropped in water would be an "arrgh god!!" moment. Although, they're approaching a price where it'd be annoying rather than despair-inducing. Unlike say, an Ipad. No way is that going anywhere near water even if it had a magical water-repellant field around it!
(love to see how the Ipad-newspaper-edition makers solve that one)

[bert]

I liked the Bret Victor post too.
Tactically smart of him to outflank the AppleFanboy herd by using a Windows video (in which Microsoft abjectly surrenders to the iPad/iPhone vision) as the starting point.

[ogilvy]

considering the amount of grease in the western diet i'm amazed the touch screen has gone as far as it has -

[MarkM]

A new interface without touch screen. Microsoft's new Kinect could feature motion sensing technology that is so accurate it would be able to read lips!