PM UX: A Clear Impostor

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

In my original review of Clear, I noted that I really enjoyed its minimalistic gesture based function and how it makes task management simple, easy and even a little fun.

I am still a big fan of Clear and continue to use it today because of its unique approach to task management. If you recall, the simplified feature set and absence of conventional buttons or navigational menus, like back or home buttons, allow users to navigate through the various sections of the app using touch and multi-touch gestures, which is pretty fun.

But I digress, and I’m sure by now you’re wondering why I’m bringing up Clear again. The answer is an app I recently came across called Well Done. The image on the left is Well Done, and the image on the right is Clear. Is anyone else seeing double?

Mobile Cloning

I discovered Well Done a few days ago while doing some reading on Flipboard (my #1 go-to news app). As I was browsing, I saw an image of the above left app icon that instantly grabbed my attention because of its uncanny resemblance to Clear.

I was curious to know more, so I started reading. I quickly learned that Well Done was a Clear “copycat,” and that the two apps have much more in common than just similar icons.

At that point, I had to see the app for myself and I can only describe what I found as a hilariously blatant knockoff. In fact, absolutely no effort was put into trying to hide the fact that Well Done is a total rip-off of Clear. Everything, including the UI and the gesture controls, are exactly the same!

WELL DONE

CLEAR

WELL DONE

CLEAR

As you can see from these images, all the various navigational levels share extremely similar design elements. Even the colour-coding, which represents the importance of each individual item on the list, has been mimicked.

From the below screenshots, you can see how both apps allow users to check-off items on their lists by swiping to the right, and remove items by swiping to the left. Even the visual feedback cues given to users after performing those actions are very similar.

WELL DONE

CLEAR

WELL DONE

CLEAR

No Competition

Unfortunately, not only were the folks who created Well Done un-original, but they’re attempt just didn’t measure up. The Well Done experience feels a lot less polished and somewhat unrefined. There were a few things that I think could have been done (or at least copied) better.

First, Well Done only allows users to have one to-do list, while Clear users can create multiple lists. Not having the ability to create more than one list means having to combine different types of tasks and list. Personally, I’d rather not have work related tasks hidden between items in my grocery list.

I noticed another issue while creating new items in Well Done. The process felt slower and even more tedious when compared to that of Clear. This is because Clear users can just pull down on their list at any time to create new items, while Well Done users have the extra step of tapping a “done” button between typing in each item.

Last, I noticed that Well Done had a lot of non-English content for an app being sold in the Canadian App Store. It didn’t make for a good experience to not know what I was looking at. To see what I mean, try tapping Feedback, More or Share in the top-level navigation.

Bang for your Buck

Even though I wasn’t very impressed with Well Done, I should point out that it is selling at a third of Clear’s price, making it the cheaper alternative. Moreover, it offers a couple of additional features not found in Clear. Well Done users keep their to-do lists in the iCloud, allowing them to sync lists on multiple devices and/or retrieve lists after losing a device. The app also gives users the ability to set up reminders and receive notifications for time sensitive tasks or items on their to-do lists. Try out Well Done and let us know what you think @plasticmobile.

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This past week over 15 apps found their way onto my iPhone. Sadly, most of them were deleted just as fast they were downloaded with a sparse few allowed a place on my screen to crash for a couple of nights. Come Monday, though, only two of them now call my phone home for good.

The first app, Logos Quiz, did a great job keeping me entertained during a four-hour flight to Las Vegas. The other, TikTok, is a sexier alternative to the standard iOS clock app that delivers varied functionality to users.

1. Logos Quiz

Logos Quiz is a fun little game that has very simplistic UI. The game tests the user’s knowledge of brands in what is a surprisingly entertaining way given its basic presentation. The game asks the user to identify various logos, but is actually more challenging than it sounds because, with a few exceptions, users are only shown partial logos that are missing some of their identifiable elements.

I only had one small problem with Logos Quiz. Even though I enjoyed the fresh and different look of the keyboard, I found it to be very unforgiving and highly prone to fat-finger mistakes.

Right off the bat, I noticed that the keys were smaller than those of the standard iOS keyboard. However, only after comparing the keyboards side-by-side, did I realized how much smaller the keys actually were. Not to mention that the space between keys was also considerably more narrow.

If a real-estate shortage was the issue, I believe that reducing the size of the keyboard should not have even been considered as an option. Users interact with the keyboard more than any other single element in the interface. To me, that means that a good user experience here should have been top priority.

One possible alternative to a smaller keyboard could have been reducing the length of the “Check!” button. Not dramatically, but just enough to make room for the “hint” button to be placed directly to its right. That would allow for everything else to be higher up on the screen and ultimately could have increased the amount of real estate for the keyboard.

2. TikTok

TikTok is a clock app for users who are tired of the standard iOS clock app and want to shake up time telling and replace their bedside alarm clock.

It should be mentioned that it is not an app that can completely replace the IOS clock, as it lacks some features (world clock, stopwatch, timer). On the other hand, it does offer some cool features of its own and is an app that I would definitely recommend giving a try.

I really enjoyed the level of customization available to users. You can choose between digital or analog clock displays, then customize pretty much everything to your liking.

Some other cool features include: weather (displayed along with the time), sleep timer (allows users to select and play tracks from their iTunes library for a pre-determined amount of time), month and week calendars (displayed along with the time).

If you follow my blog posts, you’ll know by now just how much I apprecaite the use of gesture controls. This app was no exception. The above-mentioned features were great, but what impressed me the most about this app was its creative use of gesture controls and the iPhone’s gyroscope.

Users can swipe up or down to increase or decrease the screen’s brightness level. They can also toggle their flash on and off just by shaking the phone, which comes in handy for those 2am bathroom trips.

The only downside is that to fully benefit from all the features, users must leave the app running throughout the night and disable the screen lock. This means that they must also keep their phones plugged in so that they don’t wake up to a dead phone.

Are you playing Logos Quiz or using TikTok to find keep you on time? Tweet us with your thoughts @plasticmobile.

Plastic Mobile's Candy Shop Visits eTail!

Plastic Mobile and our infamous Candy Shop are sharing our sweet treats and mobile innovations at eTail this week. There to show attendees of the electronic retail conference how mobile is poised to change the face of the storefront, the Candy Shop team is handing out delish sweets and working on changing the way retailers connect wit their customers.

Melody Adhami is also there, chairing the conversation about the rapidly evolving retail space and what’s in store for the future of shopping.

Stay tuned for our follow up on highlights from the conference later this week.

Are you at eTail this week? Tweet us @plasticmobile and let us know what you’re finding interesting – and don’t forget to stop into the Candy Shop to say high and get some Blue Jellies and Berryliciousness!

We have always known that putting the user first is the cornerstone to any successful mobile solution. And we know that our clients have the utmost confidence in the quality work that we do. That being said, a little nod like being profiled as Forrester Research’s poster child for mobile UX/UI and design gives us that warm and fuzzy feeling all over.

But we won’t gloat too much – mostly because we are just really excited to see mobile UX getting its day in the sun. The international research giant put out their case study, “Pizza Pizza Cooks Up a Successful Mobile App” because they felt that “Firms new to mobile and even those that are planning second- or third-generation mobile offerings can learn from Pizza Pizza’s example.”

Plastic Mobile’s award-winning Pizza Pizza iPhone ordering app revolutionized the pizza ordering game by pairing down the ordering process to give the user what they want, faster and simpler. The app offers a complete and immersive m-commerce experience that allows customers to customize their pizza, repeat a previous order and save their favourite locations in just a few quick taps.

Reports such as this Forrester study really highlight the distinct gap in the market between mobile solutions that are approached with user TLC, and those that are built quickly and technically, without designing for the user.

Our president and COO, Melody Adhami, has been talking about these missed opportunities for a while and often says that as a result of approaching mobile from a technical perspective ”agencies are not putting enough focus on usability and design, and the end user is left unsatisfied – tech should help, not hinder, the user’s experience with mobile.”

The Forrester Research report details the challenges, best practice guidelines and some of the tremendous results of the mobile app. Read the entire report on our site, and learn more about the importance of designing for mobile UI and UX.

Our pals at Mashable.com are already looking to a post-mobile world, where these five trends will determine who succeeds and who gets left behind.

1. Augmented Reality - Look in the mirror and what do you see? Today’s weather? Your day’s appointments? Then you must have the latest mirror from Cybertecture, a Hong Kong firm that’s making tomorrow’s smart homes a reality today. We may not all have money to burn on a high-tech mirror, but brands are certainly looking at ways to capitalize on this technology and make it the norm.

For example, the wizards at Corning provided an inspiring look at how touch screens made of glass might soon be seamlessly integrated into our environments. Brands such as Starbucks are already seeing strong revenue from their mobile AR program.

2. The New Biotech - When I say biotech, I mean data comes from everywhere, including from within. Companies like FitBit andNike are finding new ways to record and utilize that data. For now, they seem to be focused on helping athletes (and wannabes) build better workouts, but it’s only a matter of time before brands begin to look more closely at how such data might be used to develop new customer relationships.

Nike has already opened its FuelBand API to allow music platforms to experiment with incorporating personal physical data. As these technologies gain traction and developers look at new ways to leverage information, one day soon we could see insurance companies providing discounts to individuals who share their device data. This would be the equivalent of auto insurers, such as Progressive, offering savings to drivers who share their driving behavior.

3. Consumer-controlled Media – One of the most interesting trends we’ve seen is the fragmentation of ownership. Technology has empowered the masses, and they’re leveraging that power in new ways. If brands want to remain relevant to their audiences, they’re going to have to engage in these contexts and in a media landscape where the traditional publishing model no longer exists. In this not-too-distant future we will watch all of our programming online in whatever form that takes. And we will engage with media that we create (not what the media “owners” create) or remix, re-purpose, and pass along.

4. Multi-platform Marketing - Consumers don’t think in silos, so neither should your company. Prepare your brand to work on multiple platforms. As you do that, consider what unique aspects of your offering, your history, and products will resonate with the consumer of the future?

Communicate your brand’s essence through new channels and devices, in an integrated, cohesive manner. But be aware of how and when they want to interact with brands, and the new possibilities to bring them value and not just marketing noise.

5. Innovation Without Borders - Brands and products are no longer geographically confined in the way they once were, and neither are marketing campaigns. Big brands are increasingly tapping into local talent and culture, testing new approaches in one market, and re-purposing them elsewhere.

Coca-Cola took the best of gamification, Shazam, and the second-screen experience and ran with it in China. Tesco is testing out interactive mobile shopping experiences in Seoul that the U.S. is not quite ready for, technologically or socially. It is clear that in the near future, brands will pitch locally but think globally

While all of the above insights offer a tremendous amont of food for thought for the future, it was the fifth point that struck us as the most interesting. Not only are brands and their marketing campaigns no longer geographically confined, but neither are their users. We can now shop in Japan and talk to friends down under straight from our mobile devices while picking up our morning copy.

What does it all mean, you might ask? A lot. While mobile has stealthily been infiltrating our lives over the past few years, it has also been evolving in ist own right. As experts start to look at future mobile trends, they are more and more recognizing how mobile is poised to transcend our actual devices and start to shape our worlds in other ways, through alternative channels.

Take m-commerce, for instance. Not only has mobile changed the way we are able to shop, allowing us to browse and buy from our smartphones, but it is now gearing up to change the actual brick and mortar shopping experience, with mobile devices powering NFCs so we can pay with a swipe and file our receipts in an app, as well empowering sales people to know more about the customers walking through the door by giving them devices that connect with our devices.

The future is mobile and we can’t wait! Can you? Tweet us @plasticmobile and let us know what you think about Mashable.com’s points, or taking mobile out of the phone and into other devices.

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

A couple of weeks ago, we covered the success story of the Instagram app, which allows users to snap photos, add various filters and share over a plethora of social networks – including one of its own.

As Instagram gained momentum, climbing the App Store ladder all the way to the top, I started to see the magnitude of its potential. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I saw similar apps for sharing video. What I didn’t expect, however, was the incredible speed at which this new style of app-only social network would fully catch on.

Enter Viddy, a multi-celeb backed, Instagram-style app for sharing video that climbed to #1 in the App Store’s Top Free list in no time flat.

Viddy! The new Instagram for video

How it Works

The entire process, as well as the interface is very similar to that of Instagram. Users can shoot a video (or import from their camera roll), add a filter and then share the video with their friends over a number of social networks. Also like Instagram, Viddy is its own social network. Users can follow friends’ videos as well as popular and trending ones from across the entire Viddy network.

Cool Features

Unlike Instagram, Viddy gives users the ability to adjust how heavily a filter is applied to a video. Also, users are not limited to the pre-loaded filters. They can download additional filters within the app for free.

Moreover, filters come with their own corresponding soundtracks and users are given the ability to adjust the balance between those soundtracks and the audio in their recordings (so cool!).

Super Cool.

15 Seconds of Fame

One downside to Viddy is that it limits the length of videos you can record to 15 seconds. Also, any imported video has to be trimmed using the in-app trimming tool.

Having to trim imported videos in Viddy reminds me of having to crop imported photos in Instagram. I can’t help but wonder if this is mainly done to minimize file size for quicker uploading, or to keep things more uniform and consistent?

Nobody likes to wait!

Users can watch their videos instantly before applying a filter, but have to wait for the filters to be applied. As users don’t like to wait, especially on a smartphone, wait times should be minimized. Failing to do so will negatively impact user experience.

SO, to make the wait a little less noticeable and annoying to its users, Viddy encodes the video in the background and allows users to navigate elsewhere by tapping the minimize button. Users can always keep track of the encoding progress, as it will be displayed in the iPhone’s status bar.

While being able to complete other tasks helped, I never truly forgot that I was still waiting for something.

Interface

Viddy’s interface is polished and aesthetically appealing, but can sometimes feel a bit cluttered – especially when compared to Instagram’s interface. Although very similar in layout, Instagram’s interface feels less cluttered and distracting.

We all know that a simple, uncluttered and intuitive interface is extremely important to providing an overall great user-experience, particularly for new users trying to explore and learn an app.

You Heard it From Plastic:

An Israeli based company has created an app called Mobli, which allows users to share a combination of photos and videos. Mobli is gaining popularity and is building a substantial user base at a rate of 10,000 new users daily. Look for Mobli to be one of the next up-and-comers in this space.

Mobile Shopping Spring Summit 2012

From our luxury press release on Tuesday in Toronto and New York City, to our presence and presentation at San Diego’s Mobile Shopping Spring Summit, this week has been a flurry of cross-continent activity for Plastic.

For the Mobile Shopping Spring Summit in San Diego this week, Plastic Mobile took our Candy Shop on the road to spread the word about retail’s new store front – mobile! For the second time since Dx3, the Candy Shop has been a success. Mobile Shopping Spring Summit attendees left the candy shop with an insightful message, and a serious sugar high. Attendee’s flew in from across the continent and a few of our fellow Canadians from Beyond the Rack, Montreal, and Central1CU, Vancouver, joined us in the not-so-sunny San Diego. Locals assured us their weather is normally more balmy, but at least bad weather is always a good ice breaker!

Also at the Summit, our president, Melody Adhami, spoke in an impact-full presentation on making mobile UX count. Read the article in Mobile Marketer.

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

Instagram has been around for over a year, and in that time has built up a substantial user base (over 40 million). However, with its recent release on the Andoid platform, and the current buzz surrounding this app, that user base is sure to grow.

That’s why I chose now to hop on the Instagram band wagon and try out this super app formyself.

The Gist of It
Simply put, Instagram is a social network for photo enthusiasts. Users can take photos, add filters, include geo tag captions and then have their photos posted for other Instagram users to like or comment on. They can also share their photos on other popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous and Foursquare. What makes Instagram so special is how easy and quick it makes the process of taking and sharing great pictures. In a matter of seconds, users can take a picture, add a filter and share that picture for all the world to see.

New User Experience
I found Instagram to be relatively friendly to new users, as the interface was simpleand uncluttered. Also, I liked how the app walks you through the process of getting started in five easy steps.

I used the app on my iPhone and found that the icons and UI elements felt very iOS-centric, making it fairly easy to navigate my way around the app. However, I felt that some icons could have been designed to be more intuitive.
After doing a little research, I found that the icons and UI elements had been different in previous versions of the app and while the newer icons were moreesthetically pleasing, the previous used icons were more intuitive and user-friendly because they included titles.

Take for example the feed icons from the above screen shots. The feed icon in the screenshot to the left (older version) would be very hard to misinterpret. However, the one on the right (newest version) can fairly easily be seen as a home screen of sorts.

Filters & Photo Quality
I was impressed with the quality of photos that can be produced with Instagram. Just by adding one of the 18 available filters, one can dramatically improve the quality of an average photo. The trick is to experiment and learn when to use which filter.
I enjoyed not having to wait until after taking a picture to apply a filter. I could see what the picture would look like before actually snapping a shot. On the downside, one thing I felt was missing was the ability to apply multiple filters to a photo as you can with other photography apps.

I liked the use of a carousel style pop-up menu for the filter options. It was a great way to pack 18 items into a list while minimizing real estate usage. I also appreciated how the icons for each of the filters gave me an idea of what that filter did. I didn’t have to go through each filter individually until I found the desired effect.

Share and Share Alike
Another thing I liked about Instagram was the ability to import pictures from the camera roll. Users that already have a favourite camera/photo-editing app can use their preferred app to capture and edit a photo, then import it into Instagram to share with the Instagram community or on other social networks. However, it should be noted that photos imported from users’ camera roll need to be cropped to match thestandard square (1:1) images produced by snapping picture using the Instagram app itself.

Android Version
Since Instagram was also just released in the Google Play Store, I also took some time to check it out on the Android platform. Right away, as expected, I noticed that all the UI was now appropriately Android-centric, but I also couldn’t help but think that the app wasn’t on par with its IOScounterpart and here’s why:

• Every image must be cropped (IOS version only requires cropping of images imported from camera roll).
• Android users have to wait until they have captured and cropped their images before they can apply a filter to the image (IOS version gives users a preview).
• Not all devices are supported.

Overall, Instagram on Android offers a noticeably less streamlined experience by lengthening the process of creating and sharing images. I must also include that the short comings of the Android version of Instagram are most likely a result of technical limitations due to the many variations of Android.

Are you loving Instagram on Android or iOS? Tell us about your photo-sharing love at @plasticmobile.

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

There are plenty of alternative keyboards available to Android users in the Play Store. However, only a select few of these keyboard apps offer a totally creative and different mobile typing experience.

One of these rare apps is called, “Siine Keyboard.” Siine adds several interesting twists to the conventional QWERTY keyboard, including shortcuts (siines) for times, dates and commonly used words and expressions.

PM UX: Plastic Mobile Reviews the Siine Keybord App from Plastic Mobile on Vimeo.

Check out our video (Vimeo) demonstration of the Siine Keyboard App available on Android’s Play Store. Watch as Plastic Mobile walks you through the good, the bad and the ugly of this Android app.

Practice Makes Perfect

Using the shortcuts in the Siine Keyboard allows users to type common messages like “hey, what’s up?” with only two taps and two swipes of a single finger. In theory, this should make typing messages easier and faster. However, as a first time user, I spent more time looking for the shortcuts than actually using them!

To mediate this, I found it was helpful to take time to edit and customize existing shortcuts or download new sets of shortcuts to match your texting repertoire and messaging style. Eventually, after a little time spent practicing, I became comfortable with this new way of typing and found it to be a refreshingly different experience.

Time & Date to a “T”

The time and date features in Siine are brilliant. They are highly intuitive and feel quite natural to use. Unlike the vocab shortcuts, they do not require any getting used to.

The time feature makes adding times to messages easy and fun. It is definitely one of the best features Siine has to offer, but – in my opinion – the date feature is the most innovative and useful because it allows the user to check and post dates in one easy step. No longer do we have to navigate to a calendar app to find out which day the 1^st of next month falls on.

Trash it Fast

Siine gives users three options for deleting text. Tapping the delete button will delete one character at a time. Holding the delete button will also delete one character at a time, but it’s slightly quicker and doesn’t require multiple taps.

The best option for trashing large chunks of text is the quick delete function. I like to describe it as a “delete button on steroids.” Basically, users can hold the delete button then swipe their finger back and forth across their smartphone screen to delete text. The faster they swipe, the faster the app deletes the text. It’s deleting with muscle!

I found that the quick delete function felt very natural to use and was surprisingly fun. It reminded me of using rubber erasers in art class.

Thumbs Up:

• Very innovative keyboard
• Well-designed User Interface
• Variety of FREE extra downloadable sets
• The time & date features are great
• Fun and different alternative mundane keyboards
• Also functions like standard QWERTY keyboards
• Fun quick erase function

Thumbs Down:

• Requires some practice in order to fully benefit from the functionality
• Buttons are quite small in portrait mode

• The quick word shortcuts have potential, but require some setup to be truly effective

Do you have the Siine app? tweet us @plasticmobile and give us your review!

The Smashing Cartoons by Smashing Magazine

Draw Something is currently one of the hottest games to play on your Android or iOS device – and we know because it has invaded our office, resulting in all kinds of hilarious images and sudden burst of “ohhhh… I see it now!”

Best described as a combination of Words with Friends and the classic game, Pictionary, the game is incredibly fun and highly addictive. In fact, after three weeks of use, I am considering checking myself into anti-gaming rehab.

How it works

1. You start a game with friends by connecting the app to Facebook or by using their email address or Draw Something username. You can play multiple games with different friends simultaneously. You can also play with random Draw Something users if you find you don’t have enough friends to sufficiently support your habit to the addictive game.

2. Once you have selected a friend to play with, you choose one of three words that vary in difficulty from easy, medium or hard. You then draw a picture of your chosen word and send it to your friend. They then have to try to figure out what you’ve drawn using a subset of the letters shown on the screen. Based on the fact that few of us are anything remotely close to artists, this is the fun part.

3. If your friend guesses the correct word, you are both awarded coins that you can use to purchase more colours or bombs. The number of coins you receive depends on the difficulty of the word your drew. You get one coin for easy, two for medium and three for the hardest word.

4. It’s then your friend turn to draw and your turn to guess. This cycle continues indefinitely, even if either person fails to guess correctly.

Plastic Mobile User Experience Draw Something App Review from Plastic Mobile on Vimeo.

Despite the addictive nature of the game, and how much the Plastic Mobile team seems to love it, we decided to take an objective look at its overall usability.

Usability Issues

I encountered one minor usability issue while using this app. I found that while trying to guess words, the bottom portions of some drawings were obstructed by the semi-transparent overlay showing the number of letters in the word.

Only after repeatedly becoming frustrated with this, I realized that I could pull up the image and uncover the bottom portion.

A possible solution for this issue could be a “hide” button that would toggle the visibility of the overlay, or a more evident and intuitive scrolling option.

Pros

• Play with friends or random players
• Seeing replays of your friends guessing and drawing (so hilarious at times!)
• Easy to pick up and play
• Simple interface
• Highly entertaining and interactive

Cons

• Limited dictionary (words are repeated among different players)
• You can write instead of drawing (takes the fun out of playing)
• Obstructed view of some drawings

Suggestions for Improvement

• Give users the ability to pause and navigate away from a game that is in progress. Right now, in order to leave a game with one friend and move to the next, users must finish guessing and drawing. The only other option available to users is shutting down and re-launching the app.

• Provide users with an option that would allow them to undo their last action while drawing. This would save users from having to erase parts or all of their drawings in order to correct any mistakes.

Side Note: Back to the Stylus…

Here at Plastic Mobile, we are in the midst of an ongoing debate regarding the use of the stylus. We generally believe that the introduction of the touch screen should have been the ultimate demise of the stylus. We agree with Steve Jobs’ belief that we are born with 10 of the best pointing devices in the world.

However, after playing Draw Something, I could see why sometimes a stylus could be useful.

Are you as addicted to Draw Something as the Plastic Mobile team? Tweet us @plasticmobile.