I came across this really interesting article on mobile typography at the Ministry of Type blog. It spells out the difference between the iPhone and the average mobile phone.

It’s also the only phone that’s been advertised purely on its UI, because that’s what the whole thing is about. The adverts for the Samsung D840 showed you the hardware buttons and how the glossy front of the phone is so reflective it can be used as a mirror, but with no showing off of the UI. The Motorola RAZR had a similar set of ads - you’re invited to gawp at the thin, sleek hardware, but you’re not shown the UI. Same for most of the Nokia ads in fact. That’s because the default UI is at best workable, at worst, hideous.

Why is most mobile UI design unusable, unresponsive, and ugly? Here’s one theory: “If the UI of these other phones was usable, responsive and beautiful, there’d be little need for themes and a big source of revenue (from advertising on the theme sites alone) would disappear.”

I’m not sure if this is a serious theory, but there might be some truth in it. Desperate to upgrade their poor interface experiences to a superior one, users purchase a new theme, hoping it’ll solve their problems. Unfortunately, themes are superficial solutions to mobile interface problems. Anyway, I don’t think this theory works, though it does highlight a problematic approach to interface design.

Manufacturers need to address the deeper problems with interface design on the mobile phone. They must focus on making software and hardware more powerful in order to accommodate users’ needs, as the mobile phone becomes a web-browsing device as well as a phone. Manufacturers will, and are, shifting from seeing a mobile phone as a mobile phone, to seeing it as a mobile internet device as well. Nokia admitted in May that they’re now competing with Apple, Microsoft and Google.

Mobile’s restrictions are frustrating both for users and for designers. One of the most frustrating things for me right now, to use one example, is working with antialiased outlines on mobile phone graphics. For those unfamiliar with the term, antialias means, in plain English, the smoothing process between the object and the background, whether font or graphic element. (Here’s a simple illustration.)

Mobile interfaces, composed of typography and graphic elements, suffer because of this lack of support for alpha antialiasing across devices. When I say mobile interfaces “suffer”, I really mean users. Lack of wide support for alpha antialiasing is just one example of the inadequacies of mobile interfaces. However, inadequacies present new, interesting challenges, both for designers working with the imposed restrictions, as well as companies spotting opportunities for improvement.

I haven’t updated for a while — that is because I have had nothing to say. I’m learning a lot at Future Platforms. They recently presented at Over the Air conference, where they demoed OctoBastard (which won best overall prototype in the competition). You can see the presentation slides here, and there’s a great summary of the conference by Mark Ng here.

I can’t talk about projects I’m working on, but I can talk about process. I’ve always loved designing with a computer and the immediacy and power of Adobe CS. Something I’ve found myself doing at FP is actually working on paper. So, while I’ve had mixed feelings about working on paper, I’ve found going back to working out my ideas on paper a huge relief, and very helpful for working out complicated layouts and wireframes.

Designing for an application is also very different from designing a website or a book: both entail rules and styles, but an application has greater functionality and a wider range of options, which need to be accounted for. Oh, and I’d prefer working with paper and pen to Microsoft Visio any day (when it comes to cleaning up wireframes, this part is sadly unavoidable).

Here’s a great article I recently read about sketching wireframes (via Andy Budd). No HCI needed, just HPPI (human-pen-paper interaction):

High-fidelity, computer-generated deliverables can be a perfectly adequate way to present your ideas, but there is something liberating about being able to break out a pen and paper and clearly record creative ideas without the use of a computer.

I have just finished reading the story of boo.com, ‘Boo Hoo: $135 million, 18 months… a dot.com story from concept to catastrophe’, by Ernst Malmsten et al.

From any perspective, it’s quite a read, and I would recommend it to anyone based on its thrill factor (”reading [this] has the fascination of watching a high-speed car crash in slow motion”) and lucid, readable prose style.

Boo.com seemed to be a web 2.0 site before the world was ready for it. Tristan Louis argues this in a blog post (about two screens down the page, titled ‘Was boo.com the first web 2.0 company?’). If Boo.com had launched the same way in 2008 as it had in 2000, it would have stood a better chance — widespread broadband alone would have helped significantly with the website’s problems — but it’s hard to make excuses for the excessive spending of investors’ money. Frugality is quite topical right now: reading the story of boo.com side by side with the recent discussions about dollar-stretching in startups is quite a contrast.

It’s easy to see how boo lured interest from media and investors: the story is both romantic and convincing. Founders Kajsa Leander and Ernst Malmsten were friends from childhood, millionaires from their previous internet book e-tailing success bokus.com; and one founder was a former fashion model, the other, a poetry critic. Patrik Hedelin was the third founder, whose role was played largely out of the media spotlight.

One thing that really interests me is the level of thought that was given to the site philosophy and emphasis on “more than a brand — boo is a lifestyle”. The branding was carefully applied across the site, with visitors depositing items into their “boobag”, mixing with other shoppers at the “boo party” (encompassing a forum and chatroom), and reading their fashion and style magazine, Boom. The design of the site itself was ahead of its time: it used the rounded corners which feature as part of the standard branding of web 2.0, a rounded logo typeface, and bright colours.

Miss Boo, the character introducing visitors to the site, was anything but a one-dimensional cartoon: her personality, looks, history, and ‘voice’ were given careful consideration and thought. Unbelievable to me, they booked Eugene Soulemain, the world’s top hairstylist whose clients include Hollywood A-list actresses, Prada, and Louis Vuitton, to advise them on Miss Boo’s hair.

The depth of thought they gave Miss Boo is amazing to me, and perhaps symptomatic of the rather too-visionary nature of its founders (come on: booking the world’s top hairstylist for consultation on a website character? Is it a joke?). Focus on their business model, and being accessible to all users, would have been a better idea. Immediately after the site’s launch, there was a bug preventing Mac users from purchasing items. Unfortunately for boo, a lot of journalists used Macs, experienced this bug, and negative reviews flooded in.

It is intoxicating to learn how seriously boo took its brand, and how much money they managed to raise, and subsequently burn through, to build it. I felt a bit drained by the end of this book, and feel that as a model, the failure of boo at least leaves behind a lot of lessons.

View an archived copy of boo.com here

Another interesting read about boo

Boo on Wikipedia

An interesting article, ‘On Creativity‘ by Andy Rutledge, was just posted on A List Apart.

I’m at odds with the word “creative” being used to describe what I do. In fact, ‘Creative Designer’ is my current job title. At best, the creativity is bridled by company wishes, company branding, and other limitations.

In good design, form follows function. Creativity is bridled from the outset, as visual output is dictated by utility. In web design in particular, there are many conventions for what a good looking website looks like; and the code itself is dictated by standards and conventions.

Graphic design is ruled by convention, not creativity. This is especially true for typography and book design — people like to read words set in a typeface which doesn’t distract from the text, because the eye is accustomed to reading from certain letter and word shapes. The most readable text is set in a typeface that is familiar to us, in a line-length familiar to us, in a point size familiar to us.

Perhaps there is a less obvious sort of creativity at work in the design industry. A process of idea generation, and a process of exploring solutions. Real creativity in anything is a challenge, but I think a small variation on an established model can make a huge and meaningful difference.