scroll and usability

[Al Johnson]

On Tuesday 13 January 2009, Pietro Abate wrote:
> Hello everybody,
> I just want to put forward a couple of usability suggestions.
>
> [Snip first suggestion about scrolling]
>
> Another small suggestion is about the keyboard (in general, any
> keyboard). Why do have by default the smallest keyboard in the world,
> when we could have much bigger keys if we rotate the phone in landscape
> mode ?
>
> I'm thinking when I write an sms. The default should be landscape. Yes,
> maybe you might need to use to hands instead of one, but I don't believe
> you are able to type an sms with the current keyboard just using one
> hand anyway. Most of use use the stilo anyway...

The illume keyboard works for me one handed while walking for entering english 
text such as SMS. The correction capability is _very_ effective if the 
dictionary is good, and will learn as you enter more text.

> On the same note about the pin input. Why do I have to switch to the
> numeric keyboard (here I'm talking about om.200x) to input my pin, if
> the application already knows the I need the numeric keyboard ? And why
> should not be able to use directly the big numeric keyboard used in the
> call widget ?

The illume keyboard should respond to hinting by the app, and I believe the 
2008.x keyboard is supposed to do this too. If the app is missing a hint, or 
providing the wrong one, report it as a bug.

> All in all, I think there should be a number of different keyboard,
> specialized for a specific task (call(numeric), sms(landscape),
> terminal, sms(predictive), etc ) and each application should be able to
> select by default that would be more user friendly for its specific
> task.

See above for keyboard hints. Apps are free to rotate the screen, and if the 
provide the hinting then the appropriate keyboard should be used. Personally 
I do _not_ want the app second-guessing my choice of screen orientation, 
except possibly by using the accelerometers.

> I hope I'm not talking bullshit here. I've been following development
> for a while, but I might have missed something important. Like I never
> tried parioli...
>
> thanks for listing :)
> pp
>
>
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