Cell Phone Usability

July 10, 2008 at 8:52 pm · Filed under Usability

While everyone is busy talking about getting the new 3G iPhone, I’m happy to stick with my 4 year old off-contract Audiovox cell phone with no data plan. This is largely because I barely pay $30 per month for it including more minutes than I ever consume. On the other hand, it would be nice to have a new phone that didn’t suffer from some of the annoying quirks mine does.

A couple examples:

  • If I happen to receive a text message while typing one, the message I am writing is interrupted and lost.
  • Setting an alarm takes about twice as many clicks as it should. The interface for changing the date and time is terribly cumbersome.
  • If I press OK in my address book instead of send when trying to place a call, it reverts to the main screen. After 4 years, I still make this mistake because the OK button is located in the middle of the arrow keys used for scrolling through entries.
  • When my text message inbox/outbox fills up, the phone requires I delete all the messages. There is no way to make it automatically purge old messages as the mailbox fills up.
  • If I change the volume during a phone call, I have to wait nearly 3 seconds before I can push any other buttons on the phone. This is annoying if I’m calling a number that requires me to press ‘1′ for English, etc…, and my volume is too low. This seems to be linked with the way the phone handles modal dialogs (on a phone? that can’t be a good idea.). Whenever it raises one of these alerts, all other functions stop responding on the phone until it disappears and you can’t press a button to get rid of it sooner — it’s the longest 3 seconds of your life.

Despite all of this, I can’t justify the cost of the iPhone and Rogers call plans just yet. And knowing that there are very few really good phones on the market, I’m reluctant to replace it with something else.

I think it’s time cell phone manufacturers paid a visit to Alan Cooper.

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