ATHABASCA UNIVERSITY SMALL SCREEN; BIG PROBLEMS: THE CONTRIBUTIONS AND PROMISE (PAST, PRESENT, & FUTURE) OF HCI IN PROVIDING USABLE MOBILE INTERFACES BY STEVEN DEWOLFE An essay submitted in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in INFORMATION SYSTEMS Athabasca, Alberta March, 2011 © Steven DeWolfe, 2011 DEDICATION This essay is dedicated to my wife Jennifer whose support, encouragement, patience, and understanding has always been exemplary. Thank you for always believing in me. I love you. ii ABSTRACT Going mobile is the next logical step in the information era. In fact, today‟s typical smart phones are more like computers. However, though researchers have long known about the special constraints of small screens, initial interface research was largely focused on information visualization techniques such as Furnas‟ fisheye. The real problems with small screens began to surface when networks became increasingly data-capable, which led early researchers down an initial path to offer the web in a condensed format called the mobile internet. But unhappy consumers began to demand a better mobile experience which led Apple in 2007 to adopt and implement cutting edge multi-touch research via the iPhone. The iPhone unhinged the mobile market and created a second path for manufacturers with its advanced zooming, multi-touch and gesture-based interface – which even today every other competitor is trying to beat. After a comprehensive study of past, present, and future interface techniques, this essay finds that researchers are working within the overall context of mobile interaction to offer new interaction, interface, visualization, and device improvements. However, in contrast, this study also finds that today‟s phones (though very powerful computing tools) are not yet capable of becoming the new computational platform of the world – a monumental milestone the industry is progressing towards. While manufacturers are experimenting with simplistic device improvements, researchers are currently following a third path of future innovation that could offer the world the potential for a new form of personal computing. iii Replacing the personal computer with a mobile personal computer based on an already massive and saturated worldwide cell phone market has too many benefits to ignore. Continuing to address the small screen visualization issue will change the way we all inter-relate, work, and live; particularly for the estimated 35% of the world‟s workforce that will be mobile by 2013. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to my family and friends for your support and understanding during my time spent pursing my interests. Thank you to my parents. Dad, thank you for your consistent encouragement to do well, your support, and your love. Mom, thank you for every day and every lesson that made me who I am, for your support, and your love. Thank you to all of the dedicated professors and staff at Athabasca University for providing and facilitating the great learning opportunities in the MScIS program. The underlying message is that the field of information technology is both promising and filled with great opportunities for those willing to accept the challenge. Speaking of challenging, I would like to thank Dr. Maiga Chang for an illuminating and collaborative course in Mobility that will continue to fascinate me for years to come. Special thanks to Steve Leung who helped to forge a curiosity about the works and field of Human Computer Interaction. Thank you very much Dr. Xiaokun Zhang for your supervision of this essay where I was able to successfully merge these two interests. And, thank you to the late Dr. Peter Holt for proposing this fascinating research topic that challenges the computing industry to meet the rapid changes in today‟s information- based world. Knowledge truly is an insatiable commodity that provides more questions than answers. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I ..................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 THE PROBLEM WITH SMALL SCREENS ON EVOLVING MOBILE PHONES ..... 1 RESEARCH PROBLEM ......................................................................................... 6 LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY ............................................................................. 6 DEFINITION OF TERMS ........................................................................................ 8 ORGANIZATION OF THE REMAINING CHAPTERS ........................................... 10 CHAPTER II .................................................................................................................. 11 REVIEW OF HCI RESEARCH IN USER INTERFACE TECHNIQUES ..................... 11 RESEARCH METHOD ......................................................................................... 11 RELATED WORK ................................................................................................. 13 CONNECTION TO CURRENT RESEARCH ........................................................ 42 PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY ................................................................................ 43 CHAPTER III ................................................................................................................. 44 SURVEY OF THE MOBILE INDUSTRY, HARDWARE, AND SOFTWARE UI ......... 44 RESEARCH METHOD ......................................................................................... 44 SURVEY OF MOBILE INDUSTRY ....................................................................... 47 SURVEY OF PRESENT MOBILE HARDWARE INTERFACES ........................... 57 SURVEY OF PRESENT MOBILE SOFTWARE INTERFACES ............................ 68 vi CHAPTER IV ................................................................................................................. 74 MOBILE INTERFACE ISSUES, CHALLENGES, AND TRENDS .............................. 74 TRENDS ............................................................................................................... 74 ISSUES AND CHALLENGES ............................................................................... 79 CHAPTER V .................................................................................................................. 83 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ......................................................... 83 SUMMARY ........................................................................................................... 83 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ......................................... 85 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 86 APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................... 104 CONTEXT OF MOBILE INTERACTION RESEARCH MAPPING ........................... 104 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION THE PROBLEM WITH SMALL SCREENS ON EVOLVING MOBILE PHONES The cell phone is more like a computer now. And, because of this people expect a "desktop" in their pocket. However, the small screens on mobile devices are one of the biggest barriers to giving people what they want. The problem of display size is not new – it has been researched extensively since before the advent of the personal computer in the early 1980s. The “new smallness” (Baudisch & Holz, 2009) - or need to address the visualization problem on small screens - does present new and distinct challenges though. In particular, that much of the research that applied to PC user interface techniques is not directly transferrable to fixing the problems with small screens because of their unique constraints. This paper will show that it is the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) - a sub-field within the study of information systems - that has been, is currently, and will be addressing this problem ongoing. But, can this problem be fixed? Researchers have long recognized that devices must remain small to be truly mobile – and this core belief has led them down many paths. In the research presented, it will be argued that some ideological choices seem destined to fail, and that the changing face of the mobile market combined with 1 advancements in devices and infrastructure have led to a „re-alignment‟ of research directions. These new directions are both exciting and promising as the “new smallness” will forever alter the way we work, inter-relate, and live. The Large Problems with Small Screens Displaying information on devices is not a new challenge to the field of human computer interaction. Displaying information on small screen mobile devices is however, which means researchers must revisit an old and complex issue with new challenges. This makes sense when we realize that mobile phones are relatively new and device screens are rapidly evolving (see Chapter 3). Researchers generally agree that mobile devices must remain small to be usable and have formulated a long list of constraints presented by small screens in widely differing mobile devices. Paelke, Reimann, & Rosenbach (2003) highlighted mostly hardware related constraints. They viewed physical limitations on the screen such as resolution, size, available colors, and processing power, to be very limiting factors that must be overcome. A second set of limiting factors related to input and output involved the lack of standardization between devices,