Palm picks up UX designer from Emblaze 30
by Dieter Bohn Fri, 21 Jan 2011 3:23 pm EST
As a Palm fan, you may remember the Else from Emblaze, that handset with the lovely, futuristic User Interface built on top of - get this - Access Linux Platform, aka the OS that resulted from the code that Palm sold off and abandoned in favor of webOS. Oh you tangled webs of mobile hiring.
In any case, Engadget found one of the few entries in LinkedIn involving HP Palm employees that isn't a reference to somebody finding a new home elsewhere: Itai Vonshak, who helped design the Emblaze's UI and is now working on UX strategy for HP Palm.
30 Comments
if some of thise ideas get incorporated into webOS than we got a new Matias :)
What's a 'UX Strategy'??
user experience
Ahh... As in "Was it good for you too?"
Thanks :-)
PC: looks like "UX" would be a good term to add to your webos dictionary.
welcome!
Hopefully he's as much of a genius at UX as Matias Duarte was...
I don't know if I should be excited, disappointed or just informed.
aaahhh yes... :-)
well I'm just glad there bringing in ppl familar somewhat with the OS.
Plus think about what was said about him helping develop a futuristic UI. That alone is agreat thing that fits into the the "Think Beyond" part.
Well, let's give a big thanks that Palm didn't pick "ELSE INTUITION" and the name for webOS.
And if you look at the original UI, it appears to have been some of the inspiration for WindowsPhone! (now there is another product name that doesn't roll off the tongue).
Glad he's back. Clearly a visionary!
I thought the company name ELSE, especially considering what they were trying to do, was pretty clever and lends itself well to marketting.
TV commercial tagline: "Are your ready for something ELSE"
the ui for that first else device looks wicked: http://m.youtube.com/#/results?is_adult=True&hl=en&gl=US&client=mv-googl...
UX ideas I really liked from that video:
- one handed zoom
- e-mail, phone, text logs of contact grouped under contact
The Pre is meant to be very usable one-handed, but multi-touch requires two.
HP/Palm has also attracted some talent from AMD: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODg5NA
hp move that ass hurry up !!! Apple's ipad 2 is coming !!!!!!!!
that thumb UI is super cool!! True one handed usability!! I don't even care about his super-villain accent: Bring this UX to hp Palm!!!
webOS is very thumb orientated.
The funny thing was the company he used to work for was as corrupt as hell. His boss borrowed money from what is essentially a marginally legal loan shark. When his boss was jailed for running the company in the ground/bilking investors, said loan shark shot up his car.
I would like that if webOS in the future had several HP supported skins that you could use, depending on your style.
Here's hope to something fantastic in the future. I just wonder, why wait nearly 6 months to just announce when ppl like HTC and Samsung haven't let up in the past 6. I'm not even positive a future with Sprint exists anymore. Verizon is gonna take em on cuz they won't lose, now with the iPhone and the gazillion droids. AT&T well..who knows. Sprint? The primary adoptee of Palm and webOS is now out of the game. I, like others can't just switch to other carriers on a whim. I have a contract and Sprint is well priced. What a shame. What a shame.
Here is a nice video of the Else UI being demoed:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/812/
My God that's ugly. The techie side of me likes the sci-fi/futuristic feel of it, but I can't imagine trying to convince the average joe to use that UI. webOS looks so much better than that! Please.
I've learned way back when I took formal UI/UX training and have confirmed over the years that this sort of thing is pretty cool the first time you see it; it increasingly becomes a pain in the butt starting with the second time you try to use it. There is so much wrong with this visually and ergonomically that it's not even funny. For example, look at the position of his thumb when he needs to access the buttons on the front near the edge of the screen. Horrible.
It reminds me of the scroll wheel used on some of the early Sony Viaos.They were cool...at first.
Taharka, can you expand on why you think that UI is visually/ergonomically 'wrong'? I thought it was pretty intuitive....
It's hard to do it justice in a blog comment but here is the tip of the iceberg.
1. It's basically a futuristic take on the "nested menu". Nesting one level is not a big deal but nesting 3, 4, 5+ levels deep is just wrong on multiple levels (pun intended). Lots of articles on this. One example: http://www.webmasterymadesimple.com/blog/why-99-of-all-drop-down-navigat...
2. The old "a picture speaks a thousand words" is very true. We are visual creatures. The brain can interpret pictures much faster than a string of text (on the conscious level). While that backup menu system looks cool (the one that looks like sections of a honeycomb), it is just a bunch of the same items with text in them. The user has to initially work much harder to get used to the system until muscle memory sets in. This is one of the reasons icons (well designed) work so well.
3. I mentioned the ergonomics of having to bend the thumb uncomfortably in order to access those side buttons. If you look at the video again, you'll notice that the user has to sort of lay the phone on his 4 fingers in order to not bend his tumb too much when reaching for those buttons. I'm speaking of the buttons on the front near the right edge (I think there is a back button along with some up/down nav buttons there). Experiment: Take a square dishwashing sponge and grip it normally (as if it were a screen). Then try bending your thumb to where those edge buttons would be. Imagine doing that day in and day out.
4. The master-detail metaphor used for lists works only if the detail is kept to a minimum. So you tap an item in the list and it jumps to the center panel with details. If the details grow, that panel becomes unmanageable because it starts to cover too much of the list. Navigating this way becomes an issue in practical use (again, unless the details are kept to a minimum).
There is so much more but this reply is already too long; so I'll stop here.
I agree UX ought to be added to the WebOS dictionary... I thought maybe they were referring to HP-UX : HP's own flavor of UNIX.
Hmmm.... Fresh minds is good.
Sounds like a talented guy. Nice to see them bringing in some talent after the recent exodus. I'm optimistic.
That is one awesome phone! I put off switching to the Pre from my Treo for quite a while, and one-handed usability was one of the main reasons. With physical buttons that I could navigate by feel, I would be able to do simple things while pushing a shopping cart, driving my car, etc. Now I have to stop whatever I was doing to give my attention to the phone with my eyeballs and (usually) both hands.
The improvements and benefits that the Pre brought were definitely worth switching for (especially with the patches!), but I think that it would be great to incorporate some of Else's features in future webOS phones. Smartphones of today are cool and powerful, but I think they tend to be attention hogs.
he would definitely bring some innovation to the webos .
if they keep find more engineer designers that's not afraid to be more creative like this guy, this will definitely revolutionize webos to a higher level.