A company called Zi Corp has an application called
Qix [via
WindowsForDevices]
that puts a new twist on navigating a Windows Mobile phone. If you've used an HTC or O2 Windows Mobile smartphone/pocket pc phone, or some of the newer Symbian-based phones, you'd know that it has a T9 multi-match search functionality when it comes to looking up phone numbers. For example, punch in 7-2-6 on your phone, and all entries matching the letters PQRS-ABC-MNO will come up, e.g. all entries with sam, ran, pam, sco and more will appear.
Well Qix takes this further. Not only do matching contacts come up, but also matching applications, settings, bookmarks among others. Below is an example from their Symbian version after punching in 9-3:
Picture from
WindowsForDevicesIt's extending a very good concept (its a wonder why other phone manufacturers haven't adopted it for searching through contacts), but
I reckon its taken the concept too far. Sure its logical for us to search for contacts on our phone using the keypad as it is a phone after all, and its main functionality is to call people who have phone numbers. But to open the 'web browser'? What if its called 'Internet browser' instead? Ok, maybe they can include both variations, but could they do that for all the various options for a phone (let alone a full-featured PDA), and accurately predict how people think?
One of the problems is that people don't know where to start looking to get a task done. If they knew they needed the web browser, I'm sure in the time taken to push the 9-3 keys and scroll to the required option, they would've opened it via the Programs menu. They do contend that users don't like going through lots of menus to get to something, which is true, but a minor factor I reckon. The idea is useful to a certain extent, e.g. if I was looking for maps, I could type in 6-2-7 and get a Google Maps option, but that requires the user to either know that that option exists, or randomly try typing things in and see if it exists (unlikely). And that brings us back to the initial problem - knowing that a function exists.
I've got some ideas in my head for making this better, but they're staying there for the time being - who knows, I might create a revolutionary new phone with those ideas
