May 11, 2010: Post updated with the video of my talk.

Dot Dot Dot “The Tablet”: Alexis Lloyd from MFA Interaction Design on Vimeo.

I’ve gotten some great feedback on my talk last week at SVA’s DotDotDot lecture series on designing for the iPad, so I thought I would take the time to write down some of the thoughts I shared there. This is not a comprehensive design guide for the iPad by any means, but a few key elements to consider when designing iPad apps:

The iPad as part of a device ecosystem

When we talk about the iPad, or any other new platform, we have a tendency to talk about it in isolation, as if it existed in a vacuum. However, we can’t really discuss any single platform without first acknowledging that we are currently in the midst of a Cambrian explosion of devices for consuming content and services. Up until quite recently, our end users were only using one or two computing devices — a desktop or laptop and maybe a mobile phone. But now, our users may be consuming content on laptops, netbooks, e-readers, mobile phones, TVs, and more new forms and types of devices that are being released all the time. As a result, we need to recognize that the iPad is only one facet of our users’ device ecosystems, and design accordingly.

What many designers tend to do when thinking about their content or application on multiple devices is to replicate the same experience for each device, scaling feature sets and interface elements appropriately according to the device’s capabilities. This isn’t a bad approach, per se, but we should be pushing ourselves to think more creatively about what it means to extend an experience across multiple devices. What kinds of tasks is each device best suited for? Are there ways that these devices can talk to one another? For example, if a user is sitting in his/her living room with a mobile phone, an iPad, and a television, what are some compelling ways that those devices can interact with one another? Can I send content from the iPad to the television? Can I use my phone as a rich remote control interface? Can each device become a separate limb of a single, coherent experience? We’ve been exploring some ideas around cross-device interaction in the New York Times R+D lab, and you can see an example in a demo of our Custom Times project from last year here and here. Also take a look at this demo from SXSW of some interesting cross-device interactions in a newsstand environment here.

Be aware of the user’s context

This device explosion is also having dramatic effects on user behaviors and expectations. One of the most profound shifts is that the consumption of content is becoming more mobile and thus more interstitial. In the past, content consumption was a scheduled and dedicated experience — you read your paper with your coffee in the morning, or watched your favorite show at a specified time. With the internet, content consumption is no longer scheduled, but it has still mostly been a dedicated experience. If I sit down in front of my laptop to read an article or watch a video, that is usually my primary activity in that moment. However, as we consume content on increasingly mobile and embedded devices, that consumption becomes more intertwined with all of the other activities of everyday life.

So, as designers, we have to be acutely aware of our users’ context. Where are they physically located? What other experiences might they be having in parallel to the one we’re designing? Investigate what your users currently do, and design your apps to support and enhance those existing behaviors.

Understand the inherent qualities of the device

As users use more devices, they also increasingly expect content to be seamlessly tailored to whichever device they are currently using. Again, this means more than simply scaling your interface to suit the device’s capabilities. It means having a deep understanding of the inherent qualities of the device, both from a functional and an emotional standpoint.

So let’s look at the iPad. Functionally, it sits squarely in between an iPhone and a laptop: it is larger and more functional than an iPhone, but smaller and easier to use than a laptop. But it also evokes a certain kind of emotional experience:

• (Semi) mobile
  The iPad is portable, but is it truly a mobile device? Will users have it everywhere, like an iPhone, or will it prove to be suited to particular kinds of locations, like the living room, the subway, the coffee shop? We need to look carefully at how the iPad gets used and consider where our users will be. How does this affect their state of mind or expectations?
• Tactile
  The iPad is a highly tactile device with a multi-touch interface. As designers, we need to take full advantage of this tangibility. This means not just using a finger in place of a mouse, but truly enhancing the sense of touchability, making the user feel that they can physically manipulate on-screen objects. This can be achieved through visual design (although be careful not to stray too far into UI realism…a topic for another post), as well as through creative and compelling use of multi-touch gestures and interactions.
• Intimate
  The iPad is an intimate device. It is personal. We hold it close to our bodies. We touch it. We need to create interfaces that reflect this quality — interfaces that are human and that encourage emotional connection. This kind of connection can be encouraged through the use of language, through visual presentation, and through modes of interaction. Minimize the amount of time that your users spend navigating menus and dialog boxes and enable interactions that feel more organic.

A few notes on the iPad as a reading device

Craig Mod recently wrote a very comprehensive article on “Books in the Age of the iPad“, which articulates many of my thoughts about reading on the iPad. I won’t reiterate all of those ideas here, but I want to make one or two points.

The iPad, more than any digital device before it, has inspired quite a bit of excitement at the Times, as well as among publishers in general. I believe the primary reason for this is because there is a sense that the form factor and interaction modes of the iPad make it possible to emulate some of the best qualities of the print reading experience. You can hold it appropriately, you can touch it, and you can present content beautifully in a way that e-readers have not allowed. The lack of multi-tasking means that the user can enter a modal experience in which a story can be experienced without (as many) distractions. I will quote Craig briefly here, as I think this excerpt illustrates the kind of emotional experience that many publishers, authors, and readers are hoping to capture on the iPad:

“It’s no wonder we love our printed books — we physically cradle them close to our heart. Unlike computer screens, the experience of reading on a Kindle or iPhone (or iPad, one can assume) mimics this familiar maternal embrace. And the seemingly insignificant fact that we touch the text actually plays a very key role in furthering the intimacy of the experience.

However, we also need to be careful not to falsely assume the constraints of print when we design for the iPad. Even the very idea of a “page” is something that is tied up in the physical production process and doesn’t necessarily make sense in these new contexts. Let’s try to reimagine what a book, a newspaper, or a magazine could be. How would you browse and interact with it? How do you preserve it? Share it? Remix it? What does it mean to own it? And how does the experience get extended in all these ways while still preserving the qualities of the print experience that are truly valuable?

Further Reading

I’ve outlined a few of my own thoughts here, and I hope they’re useful, but I’d also encourage you to take a look at some of these resources:

- The iPad Human Interface Guidelines (duh)
- Chris Fahey has some interesting insights on making interfaces more human.
- Timo Arnall talks about designing for the web in the world. He mostly works with non-screen based physical objects, but there are some good thoughts here about designing for a user’s context.
- Craig Mod, “Books in the Age of the iPad”

And here’s my original slide deck: