Discovering the hidden functions of our phones' applications

It's hard for applications' graphical interfaces to reveal their full functionality, even less so on telephones where menus are reduced to their simplest expression.

INRIA's ANR Discovery project is looking into this issue and advancing knowledge towards better "discoverability" practices and increased user skills.

For example, an animated button is much less used because it is considered "foreign" or independent of the current activity. Buttons based on practices learned in other applications are much more effective.

This kind of interaction data is difficult to obtain, as experimentation quickly "burns out" the subjects. In addition, it's difficult to know whether a participant is really discovering something new, or whether he or she already knew it.

Nevertheless, some 15 theses and research reports have already been published, and further research under the Loki and Knowdgets projects continues to advance the field.

For the full article: Discovering the hidden functions of our smartphones

Illustration: From the Knowdgets website
From left to right: - default representation of a Signifidget;
- representation with click or tap support;
- representation with double-click or double-tap support;
- representation with long-click or long-tap support.

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