Businesspeople's fingers too thick for the iPhone, survey says
Their fingers are too big and they prefer the feel of real keys, according to User Centric's survey of businesspeople who do a lot of texting and are used to a QWERTY keyboard.
Of 20 participants who took one-on-one usability sessions with a moderator — all of whom sent text messages at least 15 times per week — ten owned a phone with a QWERTY keypad while the others owned a phone with a numeric keypad, and used 'tap' data entry rather than predictive text.
Each person entered six messages using their own phone, and six on the iPhone, based on 12 standard messages of between 104-106 characters in length, created for the study.
Each person was given one minute to familiarise themselves with the iPhone's keyboard - hardly fair, given that any new product takes time to get used to, and Apple has repeatedly said that it takes time to get used to typing on the iPhone's screen keyboard.
In any case, fair or not, it took most "QWERTY" keypad users twice as long to enter text messages on the iPhone as it did on their regular (familiar) phone. However, there wasn't much difference between "multitappers" data entry on their own phone, and the iPhone, but then again tapping on a keypad takes about twice as long as QWERTY data entry anyway.
Shock, horror... participants also made more mistakes on the iPhone - 11 per message on average compared to 3 on their own phone. They also had trouble using the Q, W, O, and P keys on the iPhone.
Qualitative results suggested that most participants thought that their fingertips were too large for the iPhone touchscreen keyboard.
Most who were used to a QWERTY keyboard began by typing with both thumbs, but ended up tapping out with one index finger.
Over half of the participants stated that they would have preferred the feel of an actual key to the iPhone's touch keypad.
Most participants noticed that there was no tactile feedback on the iPhone keypad.
Some mentioned that the feel of the key on conventional phones helps them locate the desired key without having to focus on the actual keypad.
The survey also said that many did not find some of the advanced features of the iPhone's text entry system, such as predictive text correction, and the magnifying glass, but again that's hardly surprising after 60 seconds acquaintance with the iPhone.
The idiocy of American law comes through yet again with the statement: "Specifically, participants did not think they could text message on the iPhone safely while driving." DON'T DO IT THEN!
It's a shame that the survey, though interesting, reflects badly on the iPhone because none of the users were familiar with it. Perhaps it could be rerun with participants typing on three unfamiliar phones — an iPhone, one with a QWERTY keyboard, and one with a numeric keypad.
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Note also that it was none-other than Motorola who commissioned this shoddy piece of "research". 1 minute to familiarise themselves with the iPhone vs years of familiarity with QWERTY or multi-tap keypads does not make for a legitimate comparison.
Pretty sad much of the general press has been suckered in by this fairly poor attempt to try and derail the iPhone juggernaut.
-Mart
Posted by: Martin Hill | August 18, 2007 1:41 AM