A review of
The Mobile Frontier:
A Guide for Designing Mobile Experiences
by Rachel Hinman
Rosenfeld Media, 2012
The Mobile Frontier is at times thought-provoking, practical, useful, and entertaining. It is also a book without a particular identity, and reads as the work of a passionate practitioner produced during downtime. The title of the book belies its conflicted nature: Is it an inspirational work surveying the unexplored mobile frontier? Or is it a field manual for designing great mobile experiences? The book will nudge you in both directions, but does not fully develop either.
It is difficult to determine the ideal audience for The Mobile Frontier. If you’re an established UX practitioner with an upcoming mobile project, you’ll find pages of industry boilerplate and wandering pontification laced with nuggets of helpful guidance. If you’re a mobile veteran, these buried treasures will likely be familiar.
Likewise, if you are a serious experience researcher or designer expecting documented best practices, or even a single citation for boldly stated claims (such as the poor learnability of voice recognition UIs), you may be disappointed. This book is probably best suited to those who have not given mobility much thought and/or have yet to build mobile experiences.
The first section of the book is a spirited but murky exploration of the mobile design space. Hinman writes at length about the distinguishing characteristics of mobile UIs, but upon reflection, the reader will be hard-pressed to articulate the key points delivered. Is a mobile UI somehow not a graphical interface? Are the UI advancements that have stemmed from smartphones not extensible to larger screens and different devices? These are conceptual questions that the book struggles with throughout its length, frequently asserting that our mobile screens are irreconcilably different from other types of screens without convincingly articulating why.
Hinman states that she believes a computing paradigm shift is underway, but does not offer a vision of where this shift might lead us. Instead, the book focuses on mobile web pages and apps. This agnostic approach is understandable given the rapidly evolving pace of mobile technology, but the reader can’t help but feel somewhat let down. Maybe the visionary component of The Mobile Frontier is premature.
The book flirts heavily with the idea of “natural” user interfaces (NUIs), the next generation in the evolution of UIs superseding graphical user interfaces (GUIs), the distinguishing features of which, per the author’s examples, appear to be the lack of a mouse cursor and the presence of touch gestures. Hinman also states that we are in a GUI-to-NUI chasm or transition phase, but she does not provide specifics on what a future-state NUI would look like; the book provides general design guidance only.
Many of the illustrative examples of NUIs would work on a modern desktop or hybrid device, such as Microsoft Surface, which undermines the argument that a NUI is more than a contemporary GUI. On several occasions, Hinman refers to the “magic” of NUIs, but does not articulate what this actually means.
The Mobile Frontier also neglects to discuss mobile design for productivity. While many of the concepts explored may be extensible to work-related design, Hinman makes claims such as “Mobile isn’t a great platform for performing tasks” (tasks here being defined as linear start-stop journeys towards accomplishing a goal), and “The pleasure [of using NUIs] comes from the interaction, not the accomplishment.” Can’t it be both? Enterprise designers may find themselves puzzled by this stance.
Criticism aside, The Mobile Frontier contains some practical and useful information. Generally, the mobile design principles conveyed by the book feel sound, even if their descriptions are not always explicit. Chapter 4, “Shapeshifting,” focuses on multi-device/ecosystem experiences and presents interesting models of multi-screen interactivity borrowed from the German studio Precious Design. Chapter 5, “Mobile UX Patterns,” contains an edifying breakdown of app types that have emerged over the past few years. The book also delivers some useful prototyping guidance, especially around sketching, stenciling, and paper prototyping.
Chapter 7, “Motion and Animation,” does an exceptional job of introducing animation principles—borrowed from The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation by Thomas and Johnson—and intelligently extends these principles to mobile UI design. In addition, pages 222–225 contain a fantastic library of touch gestures and their currently accepted uses.
To close the book, Chapter 9, “New Mobile Forms,” is well-written and rousing, alluding to future considerations for the mobile space, including wearable computers, biological measurement, and applications for emerging markets.
Hinman concludes with an inspirational encouragement for the reader to go forth and work to define the mobile frontier—a fitting message from a passionate mobile champion. However, after striding through 250 pages of filler like “What breathes life into nouns is their relationship to other nouns in the world,” “GPS enables users to locate themselves in space and time,” and “The Internet allowed users to focus and fall in love with content,” the reader may wish that the rest of the material in The Mobile Frontier carried as much weight as the author’s final words.
A review of
The Mobile Frontier:
A Guide for Designing Mobile Experiences
by Rachel Hinman
Rosenfeld Media, 2012
对 Rachel Hinman 所著《The Mobile Frontier》（移动前沿）的评论。为开始设计移动体验的新手提供指导。
《The Mobile Frontier》这本书探讨了移动设计领域的发展趋势，并提供了精选的实用建议。书中的一些想法发人深省而且很实用，但有时文笔飘忽不定。这本设计指南对开发现代应用程序和响应式网站的 UX 从业者最为有用，但并未超出已有知识的界限；因为移动领域发展如此迅速，所以《The Mobile Frontier》最终避开了对移动前沿的讨论。
A review of
The Mobile Frontier:
A Guide for Designing Mobile Experiences
by Rachel Hinman
Rosenfeld Media, 2012
Rachel Hinman의 The Mobile Frontier 논평. 모바일 경험 설계를 시작하는 사람을 위한 지침.
The Mobile Frontier는 모바일 설계의 개발 동향에 대해 다루고 있으며 실제적 조언을 제공합니다. 또한 고무적이고 유용한 것으로 평가 받았지만 본문은 표류하는 느낌입니다. 이 디자인 지침은 UX 실무자가 현대식 앱과 응답식 웹 사이트를 개발하는 데 가장 유용하지만 모바일 공간은 너무 신속하게 진화하기 때문에 The Mobile Frontier는 모바일 프론티어에 대한 토론을 피하고 그 경계를 유지합니다.
A review of
The Mobile Frontier:
A Guide for Designing Mobile Experiences
by Rachel Hinman
Rosenfeld Media, 2012
Uma análise de The Mobile Frontier [A Fronteira Móvel] de Rachel Hinman. Um guia para pessoas que estão iniciando o projeto de experiências móveis.
The Mobile Frontier é um livro que explora o desenvolvimento de tendências em design móvel e oferece uma seleção de conselhos práticos. Ele às vezes instiga o pensamento e é útil, mas o texto contém divagações. O guia de design é mais útil para profissionais de experiência do usuário que desenvolvem aplicativos modernos e sites responsivos, mas não ultrapassa as barreiras do que já é conhecido; como o espaço móvel está evoluindo tão rapidamente, The Mobile Frontier no fim evita discutir a fronteira móvel.
O artigo completo está disponível somente em inglês.
A review of
The Mobile Frontier:
A Guide for Designing Mobile Experiences
by Rachel Hinman
Rosenfeld Media, 2012
Rachel Hinman著『The Mobile Frontier』（モバイルの最前線）の書評。モバイル体験のデザインを始める人のためのガイド。
『The Mobile Frontier』はモバイルのデザイン開発に見られる傾向について探求し、精選された実践的助言の選択肢を提供している。本書は、示唆に富み、有益な部分もあるが、文章はばらついている。デザインのガイダンスは、最新のアプリと反応のいいウェブサイトを開発中のUX実行者に最も有益であるが、モバイル分野の変化があまりにも早いため、既知の領域を超えることはない。結局のところ、『The Mobile Frontier』は、最前線のモバイルに関する討議を避けている。
A review of
The Mobile Frontier:
A Guide for Designing Mobile Experiences
by Rachel Hinman
Rosenfeld Media, 2012
Una reseña de The Mobile Frontier de Rachel Hinman. Una guía para las personas que se inician en el diseño de experiencias móviles.
The Mobile Frontier es un libro que explora las tendencias en desarrollo en el diseño móvil, y ofrece una selección de consejos prácticos. De momentos invita a la reflexión y resulta útil, pero el texto divaga. Los consejos de diseño son muy útiles para los profesionales de la experiencia de usuario que desarrollan aplicaciones modernas y sitios web responsivos, pero no supera los límites de lo conocido. Debido a que el espacio móvil está evolucionando tan rápidamente, The Mobile Frontier básicamente evita analizar el límite móvil.
La versión completa de este artículo está sólo disponible en inglés.
