Comments on: A Word On User-Hostile Design: Press T to Focus

By: dgduris

dgduris — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:15:31 +0000

I had a Series 60 Phone a couple of years ago (E62 on ATT) after a P910a (UIQ)and 10+ years of experience with EPOC (from shence the Symbian OS sprang).

That S60 phone is the reason for my now using WinMob. Why? No documentation on the shortcuts. No comprehensive guide to be found on them (even on AllAboutSymbian). Nothing. I became totally frustrated – the fact that the E62 was far, far slower than the P910 it was replacing didn’t help. But, the Symbian guys have some work to do here to improve the UE (User Experience) for newbies.

By: Steve Litchfield

Steve Litchfield — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:50:13 +0000

In fairness to Nokia, the E71′s cam is a bit of an afterthought, in part forced by the un-camera-like form factor. Adding forced focus and capture to the d-pad would have been just as horrible (as on the HTC Touch Diamond, etc). And ‘t’ is used because it’s the closest key to the d-pad. BUT – I’ll agree that it would have taken a programmer all of 30 seconds to add a ‘press ‘t’ to focus’ pop-up reminder.

By: scott

scott — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:08:30 +0000

this is so brilliant an example that i think we should adopt 'press T to focus' as a description for any user experience oddity (via Mippin Mobile)

By: Ricky Cadden

Ricky Cadden — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:53:18 +0000

I’ve stated before that the camera on the E71 is completely useless, though not because of the quality it offers – because it’s incredibly inconvenient to *use*.

Rather than encroaching on Nseries territory (supposedly) and putting a freakin camera button on the thing, which would have allowed ONE button for all camera-related functions, Nokia left it off. Thus, from the home screen, you’re forced to activate a shortcut (let’s say, for sake of argument, the right softkey). Then you press the T button, then you press the center d-pad to actually take the picture.

Aside from the fact that most users, like you, don’t know that the T stands for ‘auTofocus’, E71 users must remember – and press – three DIFFERENT buttons, just to snap a picture! It’s obscene.

What’s worse is that I’m convinced that even if there *was* a camera button on the E71, it wouldn’t actually open the camera. How do I know this? Cause I’ve got an E90, and reviewed the E66 for MobileBurn already, and while both of those phones have a two-stage camera button (autofocus and shutter), neither of them allowed the button to actually OPEN the camera, which is completely silly.