iPhone, the Apple' s answer to Natural Interaction has of course some glitches with regards to Interactive Design. One such problem that comes into notice is the contrasting Interaction techniques resulting due to bad design of UI when the user has to deal with a call (the most important aspect of a Phone!!).
Problem 1:
There are generally two versions the user interface for answering/rejecting a call:
- UI for Locked State
- UI for Unlocked State
When the Phone is Locked and the user gets a call, the user has to slide from left to right to answer the call (as indicated in Figure 1) However, in case where the phone is not locked, there are two buttons presented 'Reject' on Left and 'Answer' on Right (again, figure 1).
Most of the calls received are when the phone is locked, generally the user gets used to touching the left portion of the phone to answer a call and it develops into a natural tendency; but if the phone is in the unlocked state by chance, and the user gets a call, he would have accidentally rejected the call if he touches towards the left of the phone going by his natural tendency.
Problem 2:
The other problem arising due to this is the function of hard button on top of the phone becoming redundant. When the user gets a call in the unlocked state, there is one more redundant way of rejecting the call. This is not a result of design intelligence but by accident. One single task of rejecting a call, now has two ways of achieving it, out of which one is in contrast with the natural tendency and the other just arising out of hmm, how shall I call it, stupidity...
Figure 1
Solutions:
There could be several ways of solving this. One simple way is to exchange the position of the Answer-Reject buttons in Unlocked State. This however would only solve the natural tendency problem. The redundancy problem of the functionality of rejecting a call cannot be addressed with this solution. (Refer figure 2)
As an alternative, the Reject button on the touch interface can be eliminated and the Answer button can be stretched to the complete width of the screen. This would directly address both the issues and a better alternative to the current situation. (Refer figure 2)
Figure 2
This is a mistake that has probably gone unnoticed by Apple or, it may be that Apple has developed a ploy to curb the natural tendencies of people and keep them on their toes while answering a call on their iPhone.
Hmm, thats a thought for another time!
