A New UI is not needed for Symbian ^3, just make the existing one work

That is probably the single most sensible article ever written about mobile device interfaces.

The "single/double tap" problem is so baffling that when I heard about S^3 being "single tap everywhere" I had no idea how that was different from the status quo - until I got a chance to play with an N97 mini and discovered the double-tap rubbish, and couldn't believe anybody had ever coded it, and that anybody else had ever signed off on it.

I think the debate we still have to have is about home screens - I love the information richness and utility of the traditional S60 screen, and see Android as being a dumbed-down version, and 5th Edition as being a differently dumbed down version. I may be wrong, but iPhone doesn't seem to have a "home screen" at all.

I've seen people complain about the way 5th Edition "lets you clutter up your home screen with widgets, but at least the menu is still available", which is a WTF moment if ever I read one.

Having said that: Android is prettier than S^3. Until you add enough widgets and shortcuts to be useful.

I've recently got Android after some years on Symbian and 6 months on iPhone.

The Android is a let down, no great advance on S60 5th edition even.

As for double-tap on S60, how stupid does a person need to be to have a problem with this? Any intelligent human adapts within seconds. I never even noticed it until people mentioned it.

And as for Symbian^3, I'll start listening to peoples opinions when they've actually used the finished release. Until then, everything with a pinch of salt.

I have to agree with this article.

I was testing Android 2.1 and Sense UI out last week for a few days on a friends HTC Legion and to be honest they way I have my Vivaz set up there isn’t much difference.

If you're a Google addict then maybe it's better at syncing with Google calendars than Symbian, or is it? Having listening to the last PSC, and heard the mention of GoogaSync I looked it out. Guess what it syncs calendars (and multiple calendars Tim) just fine. My only gripe is it doesn't do tasks. But the truth is I am 29 years old, my brain works fine and I have very little need to put everything down on a calendar, as I simply remember what I have to do! So will I buy this app? Probably to support the developer but I doubt I will use Calendars much.

Yes I use Gmail and all my email accounts go through it, but for the amount I actually email on the phone setting it up in the default Symbian mail application works just fine, and then keep an active data connection. alas Push Email. I might try Profimail some day but as of now I am happy with this element, as I do agree with a comment made (Ewan I think) that where possible its better to use the default tools rather than adding another layer.

SPB Mobile Shell for the UI, have been using this since the early betas on my Vivaz and it truly does make Symbian devices UI very easy to use, some exciting things coming in the future for this as well.

MS gives me a very nice interface to look at whatever agenda items I do have and once they add the 3D message/Mail viewers I will have little need to use the default UI when viewing a message.

I use my phone to store long customer numbers, passwords etc and this is taking care of very well by SPB Wallet. (getting harder to remember numbers lol)

I use Gravity as my Twitter client, Google News reader etc. Some improvements can be made here, such as the Facebook client and maybe media in the Google reader, but will have to see what Janole comes up with.

Just recently put Sports Tracker on and it works fine, no need know to carry the ipod touch when I am out running as the phone will do it all, one less thing to carry so all is good 😊 Walk to work every morning and never realised it was 2.35 miles till I traced it yesterday in ST lol.

Use Google maps if I am away and need to find somewhere, and it works fine, just think OVI Maps would be better here, but does the job.

My only real gripe about my Vivaz at the moment is the bugs in the firmware that SE doesn’t seem to want to know about. I will bide my time before deciding on which Nokia device to buy next now and leave any decision till 2011.

I am about to switch the new One Plan from 3UK so that will solve my Voicemail problems due to SE disabling the call recorder apis in Symbian and such apps then don’t work.

I use various other apps on the phone but one thing I am on the lookout for is a good way to hide messages and emails, whether pass word protected or what, any suggestions?

i guess people are tired of looking at the old icons. if they changed the icons maybe people would say, " this is different." Transition effects on s60 5th edition is somewhat sloppy compared to iphone or android. they made the device sluggish and somewhat inconsistent. people would want it different not just on hardware but also in interface. the icons are reminiscent of the s^1, which i think for some who would want to move on should be changed. they want to forgive and forget but when they are presented with something that is nostalgic of the past, some maybe forced to go sideways.

Cheers for N8!!!

I agree with the above. It seems like people has have become visual oriented when it comes to UI. These fancy icons and transitions are unfortunately at this time the most important thing to the common consumer. We may blame apple for it but it really goes way back. Now, more than ever gadgets have become a fashion item. (much like those toy dogs) And it needs to look good and dare I say it "cute". But that is not the case though with us reading these tech blogs, we mostly want high specs and functionality. But honestly, I wouldn't mind if it looks good 😊 . I remember buying those Nokia phones in the late 90's because the had interchangeable colored faceplates ;p

S60 has had the option of changing the menu view eversince the N95 but the sad part is we never received any menu view plugins. Nokia did experiment initially with horse shoe menu etc but then forgot about it, the option itself is still there even on S60v5. They should've pushed out multiple menu types atleast that would've given some options for people to try.

i don't think a total overhaul of symbian's UI is essential, how the UI "FUNCTIONS" works for me just fine. But what i hate is how the UI "LOOKS" it needs to be fine tuned to make it look every bit desirable...

case in example... the font-icon ratio/size (if there's such thing) on most symbian devices are HUGE and wastes a lot of space all over. Try to compare the size of the icon and the size of the text (app name) on the main menu of symbian VS iphoneOS/iOS4 (or whatever they're calling it now). the text and icons in symbian are wasting a lot of real screen real estate whereas the latter had every bit of screen display the aligned and occupied neatly...

another area where i hate symbian's huge font is the music player... instead of offering us as much info possible. Like, i have entitled "You Give Me Something" and all that gets displayed on the screen is something like "You Give Me Som..".

little things like font tweaks, nice looking icons, animated backgrounds AND wallpaper, smooth transition effects, etc. will give symbian that much need breath of fresh air...

heck! i even think that S40's UI and how it works is much better and much improved over the couple of years than on S60/Symbian...

SIMPLE FACT OF THE MATTER: Symbian^3's UI is now EASILY as good as the latest iPhones and Androids. No question. Someone may prefer one over the other of course, but that's purely personal taste. No longer can anyone say Symbian's UI is crap or uncompetitive.

Now, given that, you then have to compare on OS quality and engineering - Symbian wins by a mile being far more mature, efficient and well engineered and designed than Android or iPhone.

And you have to compare on hardware. Well, looking at the N8 it's not really worth making a comparison - the hardware and featureset of the N8 is so far in advance of anything else out there (if you're comparing processor speeds you don't understand how to compare, and as for screen res, yes N8 has lower than some but touchscreens are all the same physical size more or less, so how are you going to see those tiny invisible pixels on iPhone 4 anyway? Text is so small you have to zoom in too, so N8's lower res makes no practical difference).

Finally, you have to compare on apps. Yep, iPhone and Android do have better choice (I don't think better quality) but this is changing, and will continue to change, rapidly.

After seriously investigating the latest iPhone 4, Androids and the N8, the N8 will be my next phone. For me it wins by a long way.

Seems that it is not enough to be fully customisable and theme-able as S60 is.

Font size is controllable in themes. As are icon designs.

I agree that the whole UI VIEW is not revolutionized during these years.
yes, the iconic grid layout of main menu/homescreen has not changed.

iOS/Android/Meego shine in other part of the UI ecosystem.
The whole subsystems should be considered when a UI is technically discussesd. to name a few:
User interaction with commands (S60 old Option menu style or iOS on screen widgets?, ...)
notifications to the users
shortcuts
displaying data which can to be fitted to the screen (scroll bars, combobox, listbox, ... ex compare old style WinCE/WinMo scrollbars with kinetic scrolling)
...

One the most important parts of a UI system (which is completely hidden from endusers) is the code behind it. The biggest evil hidden inside S60 is Avkon. This old, sluggish, complicated GUI subsystem is a complete mess.
Symbian.org and Nokia finally accept their weakness (but it was too late) and decide to replace it with Qt (S^4)
The problem with S^3 is not the VIEW section (as you mostly point in your article), merging Qt into symbian underlying system is not that easy. it takes time.
The 3rd party application developers need to migrate to Qt framework and rewrite their applications, and this process is not fast either.

Another problem of S^3 is it is not a neat OS, it's just a bridge between S60v5 and S^4. combining Avkon and Qt means two ecosystems on the same platform which ends in more RAM/resource requirements and cluttered experience. This only suit to developers who want to adopt from Avkon to Qt.

Nokia should respond much quicker. market-wise, S^3 is already about a full year behind the competition right now, S^3 has never shown any thing special and endusers have not any specific reason to choose the S^3. The only reason to pick a S^3 phone is a decent hardware like N8 (not the OS itself).
I hope nokia move to S^4 asap and abandon S^3 as they did with S^2.

"SIMPLE FACT OF THE MATTER: Symbian^3's UI is now EASILY as good as the latest iPhones and Androids. No question."

You're kidding, right? Try asking your mum or dad (Or hell, wife if you have one) to place a call on Symbian^3 (Whatever the hell that arrow is meant to mean anyway?) and then ask them to do the same thing on the iPhone and see which one is easier/more pleasing for them 😊

"Now, given that, you then have to compare on OS quality and engineering - Symbian wins by a mile being far more mature, efficient and well engineered and designed than Android or iPhone."

Efficient? and you know Symbian is more efficient how? all those hours you've used it? Wow what blatant fanboyism :-/

"And you have to compare on hardware."

Yes, lets.

"Well, looking at the N8 it's not really worth making a comparison"

You're kidding again, right? iPhone 4 with it's retina display, 32gb internal memory, A4 processor, 512mb RAM and Camera Optics are easily on par or better than Nokias N8, all Nokia are doing are KEEPING UP, not surpassing 😉

"the hardware and featureset of the N8 is so far in advance of anything else out there (if you're comparing processor speeds you don't understand how to compare, and as for screen res, yes N8 has lower than some but touchscreens are all the same physical size more or less, so how are you going to see those tiny invisible pixels on iPhone 4 anyway? Text is so small you have to zoom in too, so N8's lower res makes no practical difference)."

You say if people compare Proc speeds they don't know how to compare then go on to say screen resolution means nothing?? Take some of your own advice my friend. I can honestly say right now confidently that you have never, ever laid your eyes on the new iPhone 4's Retina display. all those 320PPI are absolutely JAW DROPPING and it makes SO MUCH difference even on the tiny display it's unreal :-/ Try it, THEN comment about it, until then, quit spouting rubbish as if it's fact.

"Finally, you have to compare on apps. Yep, iPhone and Android do have better choice (I don't think better quality) but this is changing, and will continue to change, rapidly."

Clearly.........CLEARLY you haven't owned or tried an iPhone (Again, can't speak for android as i've never tried it)

the apps are CLEARLY better. There is literally (To use the phrase) an app for everything. And don't even get me started on games, does ANY Symbian phone have a FULLY 3D MMO for thier phone? The APPS are 100 times better than anything Symbian has to offer.

"After seriously investigating the latest iPhone 4, Androids and the N8, the N8 will be my next phone. For me it wins by a long way."

I highly doubt you've "Seriously investigated" any other phone other than the N8, which is fine, just don't spout rubbish as if it's the truth 😊

Great article. Hits the nail squarely on the head - the problem isn't with the core UI, it's with the way it's been implemented. Consistency and ease of use are king and that only seems to be dawning on Nokia now.

By the way, until this article I never realised how similar Apple's and Symbians app launchers are, take away the home screen on Symbian (Or put one on the lock screen on an iOS device) and what you essentially have are the same things. Just apple tends to go horizontally and Symbian vertically 😊.

Oh and here's the difference between an iPhone 3GS's screen (Mine) and my cousins iPhone 4, tried to show this as best I can but it's much better in person, the resolution difference should be most apparent: (Hope this works lol)

3GS

iPhone 4:

@Ifanboy
One year ago as Iphone 3gs introduced, i say to my brother (who is also an Iphone user): Look at the Screen Resolution it is lower then Nokia 5800 and other Symbian Devices. His answer was: Don't count to the spec sheets, IPhone 3gs display is far better then anything else.
Now Iphone 4 is released and you say: Look at the screen resolution. 😊))))
PS: Sorry of my english.

Well that didn't work, hopefully this link will work for the iPhone 4 image:

<http://profile.imageshack.us/user/IainsTheName/images/detail/#697/imageqwl.jpg>

UnregAli wrote:@Ifanboy
One year ago as Iphone 3gs introduced, i say to my brother (who is also an Iphone user): Look at the Screen Resolution it is lower then Nokia 5800 and other Symbian Devices. His answer was: Don't count to the spec sheets, IPhone 3gs display is far better then anything else.
Now Iphone 4 is released and you say: Look at the screen resolution. 😊))))
PS: Sorry of my english.

I bet your English is a lot better than my version of the language you speak 😊

However, you go on to say that something your brother said, was something I said? I've never said the 3GS has a better screen than the 5800 Ali 😉. However I will say that whilst the 5800 has a sharper image, the 3GS does have better colours, outdoor readability and use case for me thanks to the tech it uses and it's capacitive screen 😊.

However I will go on record and state that the iPhone 4 has the best damn screen I have ever seen on a mobile device to date, and I hope other Manufacturers start to copy, as that'll only make Apple innovate quicker 😊

UI is not only about "how it looks" but also about "how it feels". And by this, I mean that 600Mhz Omnia HD (S60v5) takes 1-2 seconds after each letter to filter contacts in my address book (ca.1000 contacts). C'mon people, use RAM caching for christ's sake, make device fly. SPB can do it, time for Symbian to get rid of such abrupt stops in the UI ride.

iFanboy wrote:. . . the apps are CLEARLY better. There is literally (To use the phrase) an app for everything. And don't even get me started on games, does ANY Symbian phone have a FULLY 3D MMO for thier phone? The APPS are 100 times better than anything Symbian has to offer.

But seriously, Symbian is catching up with the iPhone on the app / interphase front. I've just downloaded Rotary Dialer to my i8910 from OviStore. The ultimate dialling interphase - it should be standard on all mobile phones. I'm sure the iPhone had it first but as I said, Symbian's catching up fast.

@IFanboy I just give my brother as an example. Many Apple fans dont count on specs if the IPhone is not better in tihs sepfication. If IPhone in a Statistic or in a Spefication (like screen resolution) any better all fanboys screams that out.

I came to S60 after a run of Palm devices (Pilot, m500, Tungsten|T2 and Tungsten|E2) when the hardware reliability issues, and charging on the E2 in particular, became too much to bear.

I went for the E61i and was struck by how little information was on that 2.8" screen compared to the Palm devices.

Once Palm added the D-pad they became very versatile devices that could be operated purely as touch screen or almost totally one-handedly with the D-pad: really the best of both worlds.

Symbian needs someone to take charge of the UI in the way that Palm had a "tap Nazi" whose job was to enforce a way of doing each operation with the least number of taps on screen and find a way cough* copy cough* Palm's PIM apps to get more on each screen.

Failing that just get Janole to extend Gravity to run the whole phone and have done with it!

Good article Ewan, I think you're spot on with Symbian needing a focus on the UI consistency but I would also add that it needs some tweaks in areas like the notifications system, etc... (maybe this will be addressed in S^3 or S^4) and also attention on the design aesthetics of the UI (icons, fonts, button desin, etc...).

Apple and Google are much better at this aesthetic and understand the value for marketing their devices, I just don't think Nokia understands this.

I understand the the iPhone 4 has a very high res display, and I've looked at one and its very nice, but I can't see any benefit of the higher resolution over the old iPhones. I can read everything on the old one. What's the advantage? Can't see tiny pixels? Great, but so what?

Emperors new clothes. Again. These phone makers (all of them) should put their efforts into real useful enhancements instead of chasing high spec numbers to seduce increasingly gullible and stupid consumers.

This is a very well written article that points out exactly what needs doing (On the UI front) if Symbian is to "come back from the dead".

I think it speaks volumes that I've 2 Symbian devices over the last 2 and a half year (s60v3 and s60v5) and I've only just discovered the organise feature to make the menu system work how I want it to. Why was the organise icon not present in the settings menu item where I'd expect it to be?
If these features were better advertised or a little easier to get to I'd have realised that it's possible for me to have a logical icon based user interface on my s60v5 device much earlier than a year into usage!

I honestly believe that with some under the hood work on Symbian to improve it's memory print, fluidity and speed, Symbian would be very competitive, there are only a few tweaks needed to the UI to make it consistent the whole way through.

I could bore you all with all the smartphones and pda's i've owned but surffice to say i've been buying them since the xda, p800 etc and the Htc Desire is truly a amazing device there is nothing on symbian that comes close and i've seen nothing in the N8 so far to make me think different.

Now thats not to says the Desire is perfect, battery life is mediocre and the PIMS are dreadfull.

Forget fancy icons symbian 3 & 4 need to just make it easy to set the device up in the first place s60 was way too complicated. ( though not as bad as UIQ what a shambles)

All i'd like to say is, thanks! I love this post and all the comparisons you made. Never realised it before.

Consistency is really key. I own a E71 workhorse and administer my wife's 5800. This are some expamples of consistency issues.

App folders: My E71 came with a system of folders for the apps. Quite intuitive. I saw it and made some samll changes to my liking. Then I was quite gobsmacked finding that all apps in the 5800 are were just thrown in there. No organisation whatsoever! My wife, being new to smartphones (although coming as me from Palms in the past as well as able SEs) just hated the amount of effort to find anything. And because there was no folder system to begin with, it was difficult to think it could exist. Then I created folders similar to my E71: Comms, GPS, Social, Tools. My wife really appreciated it and was very happy... and disappointed when we needed to upgrade the OS and the organisation got lost.

Cut&Paste. I feel sad with all the battering iPhone got received becasue not having C&P. I do not consider Symbian has it because it is so inconsistent that most of the time is useless. And for God's sake, this is soooo basic that anyone with a PC experience and Palm experience (I mean 15 year old Palms) would expect this. Now I have a "Smartphone" that is not capable of receiving an email with a tel number, copy it and paste into a contact file. E71 has a marvellous Copy (Ftn Ctr C) and Paste (Ftn Ctr V) that does not work in several areas - does no twork at all or one need to go though an obscure lethany of menus. Also, contact telephone numbers should accept commonly used separation symbols, i.e.: (),.- to enable better C&P.

Exit
The rule in Symbian is that apps are closed by either the red button or menu/down-to-last-line/exit. Can you use it in Nokia Maps? No. Can you use it in Nokia Messaging? No. Can you use it in opera Mobile?No.
Several Nokia apps

Consistency throughout the Ui is the reason why people are happy with Blackberrys - they don't have many of the bells and whistles of an iPhone, Droid or, say, N8 but the UI is ruthless in its implementation: figure out how to do something in one place, and you can do it in another.

Of course, how you do something usually isn't elegant or enjoyable but it is consistent and that really is more important to the user.

That being said, my Corporate Bold gives way to my iPhone the moment I'm out of the office! I see some comments here stating that the iPhone doesn't offer a better user experience than Symbian^3 or even "60 5th but that's just nonsense - usually I try to respect other views but that really is just not true.

For those of us who are used to using Symbian (I go back to the Psion era myself, up to and including the E71) devices then it may be useable but it si not enjopyable - hasn't been for years. That someone with 10 years experience on the platform or its forebears should still have to think twice about where a main option is, is just unforgiveable.

When I realised that I wasn't absolutely certain where the option to change a ringtone could be located on my E71, I went and got an iPhone and never had that problem again.

N8 may win me back. I hope it does as I have a huge respect for Nokia's hardware and radio tech.

But I'm not holding my breath having seen the iPhone4.

There's no doubt that a laser-like focus on consistency - in both look *and feel* - is an important aspect of a quality UI/UX, along with visual design (although I do think eye-candy for its own sake gets too much praise/attention).

What often seems to be overlooked or marginalised is that a third aspect - efficiency - is equally important (as jonquirk referred to above).

To take just one example: given the ever increasing amount of infomation stored on / accessed through today's smartphones, protecting access to the device with a PIN (or equivalent) must increasingly become the norm - at the moment, however, this comes at a large cost in usability.

One of the most important use cases for a (smart)phone is to quickly capture some information; whether in a brief text note, as a voice recording or with the camera. With PIN protection, however, simply getting to the point where you can begin such info capture probably takes longer than actually capturing it!

Leaving aside hardware solutions, such as the fingerprint-reader-D-pad of the WinMo LG Expo device (how I'd dearly love such things to catch on!), there seems to be little attention paid in the software to streamlining this scenario... take the E52 - so S60v3 - I've been using recently:

1. Having pressed left-then-right soft-keys to unlock the keypad (~1 sec), and then entered the PIN and pressed OK (~1-2 secs), I then have to stare at a "code accepted" message for almost 4 seconds!! (3.8 when I timed it) before I'm actually able to do anything.

There should be absolutely no need for this message to even exist, let alone waste 4 seconds every single time the phone is accessed. I would assume success anyway (confirmed by then gaining access), unless I actually get a "incorrect pin, please try again" message - and if it needs a further 4 secs CPU time on top of the ~2-3 secs elapsed between starting the keypad unlock and confirming the correct pin entry in order to prepare the screen to be displayed then I'd suggest there's something very wrong in the way the OS is written! At the very least there's a huge area for improvement there.

2. If the device is both pin-locked and keypad-locked is it absolutely necessary to go through a two-stage unlock process or could they be combined somehow?

Obviously you need to prevent accidental key-presses "using up" invalid pin # attempts, but could it be enough to use only the pin-unlock with the following rules (or similar):
- only certain keys activate the unlock process (& screen), e.g. only the D-pad/send/end/soft-keys but none of the alphanumerics.
- the OK key/option to enter the pin isn't available until at least 1 (or 4 if that's the minimum pin length?) potentially-valid characters have been entered.
- once intiated, the unlock process is automatically cancelled if a pin attempt hasn't been submitted within X secs (anything entered is not tested and it doesn't count as a failed attempt)
- after a failed pin-unlock attempt the keypad-unlock process could be required before another pin can be attempted

3. Why can't the OS allow certain functions to be accessed without unlocking the device? (Preferably with at least a little ability for users for choose which functions are so blessed.)

This would be useful for some apps in their entirety (e.g. a torch app), and "data capture" apps - e.g. at least text notes, voice recording and camera - should have a "secure mode" accessible without unlocking the device whereby a new item (note/recording/photo) can be created but existing items cannot be seen/modified/deleted (trying to do so would require the pin to be entered). Then, for example, when I'm walking down the street and think of something I could simply hold down the hardware 'voice' key and and record it - total time a few seconds, or probably less than half the time currently required, and not requiring the attention on the screen/keyboard required to enter a pin.

Just off the top of my head, these would be 3 significant improvements to the efficiency/fluidity of the user experience. There may well be reasons I've not thought of that'd make them impracticable, but the sad thing is there doesn't seem to be much evidence of real consideration being given to any of these sorts of concerns!

[Note: Symbian isn't alone in this, barring minor differences the situation doesn't seem to be different on any of the other platforms from all that I've seen/read.]

Sorry for the long-ish rant!
-SteveB