3 Comments
User's avatar
Michael Magoon's avatar

Interesting. I worked at Microsoft as a UX Designer a few years before the IPhone was released. They were working on a new mobile phone interface with a physical keyboard. I suggested that they could make the screen much bigger if they used an in-screen keyboard.

The usability testers said (and I quote): “We tested that and the users hated it.”

No, they tested a poor implementation of a digital keyboard and users hated it. When customers got their hands on a good implementation, they loved it.

Expand full comment
Adrian Galilea's avatar

While I applaud your vision, and it is true that an in-screen keyboard won. I still hate every single in-screen keyboards :v

Expand full comment
Mark Heyer's avatar

I was at the introduction of the Macintosh at the Boston Computer Society, sitting right behind Woz. Jobs pulled the cover off the Macintosh, and it spelled Hello on the screen in script. The audience melted. In the Q&A, a critic ranted about how Apple could possibly ship a 3 1/2" plastic cased floppy disk instead of the "industry standard" 5 1/2" disk. Jobs pulled the securely packaged floppy out of the Mac and flung it into the audience like a Frisbee. His answer: "That's why!"

Expand full comment