The iPhone: Changing behaviour

When I touched my first iPhone in September I felt happy. It made me smile; it seemed so simple, so obvious. Isn’t this the way all things should be?

We all know that its design is fundamental to its success as a product, but it’s the integration of the hardware and software, the way they work together that really makes the difference.

The screen is large 320 x 480, the interface is clear and simple to use and it feels like a complete product rather than a collection of disparate elements packaged together. So many other devices fail in this most fundamental of areas. It also wins hands down on the simplicity of initialising the handset and the way it integrates with iTunes. All these aspects have been designed to make it an enjoyable experience.

But the key thing to remember is that it’s a new type of device that is already redefining the market, a (usable) computer and phone, so people will use it differently. Friends are using their iPhones in and around the home and office instead of their laptops – the iPhone is making people act in different ways.

From a designers point of view this means that we need to adapt and change our designs, creating interfaces that work in new and appropriate ways. We need to look at different types of devices to appropriate our ideas from as essentially we are creating hardware like interfaces - in software. Yes, something we’ve been doing for years, but now the bar has been raised. With the iPhone there’s more screen real estate to play with and it’s being used in a fundamentally different way. 

The experience and desirability of the iPhone is so strong that people are willing to overlook potential problems: the £269 price tag; a contract with O2 in the UK; the fact that it's a closed device, and still buy them. Between 20,000 to 40,000 were sold in the first weekend according to the Telegraph. There’s definitely a market there, one that’s switched on to good design, but is that market big enough.

But to create such a product you need a visionary (or two) and you need an organisation that is prepared to use design in the way it should be used. This coupled with the fact that technology now allows such a device to be designed for a realistic price tag.

I couldn’t wait for the UK launch. I needed a new phone quickly and so plumped for the next best choice – the Nokia N95 on the 3 network (the only network with unlimited data usage at the time). The camera is good (albeit slow), the GPS great and the way it syncs with my Mac OK (comparatively). When I first started using it though I was disappointed, the interface was disappointing and downright crude in places. It’s good, but it didn’t make me smile.

My husband on the other hand was prepared to wait. I’m jealous. He’s smiling.