Besides using my iphone as a phone, I also use it to read emails, tweets, facebook status updates, yammer posts and TFLN (texts from last night). Most of the applications I use serve the same purpose—they provide content from various sources/ individuals, and they all have either an equivalent desktop application or websites. As I’ve become intimately familiar with these apps, I’ve begun to appreciate some of things that one or another does, and I’ve found it increasingly annoying that all of the apps aren’t following suit.

Let the User Know they have New Items
I have all of my notifications and alerts turned off on my phone—the ones that pop-up as messages and one that make a noise. I don’t want to hear a sound every time something new comes in especially since my I keep my phone in my bedroom with me at night. I do want to be able to look at my phone and quickly see if there are new items from any of my applications.

When I look at my phone, it is easy to see how many new emails and calls I have. Facebook also provides a notification, but I’ve found the new notifications from facebook to be very unreliable. It is unclear if I have new status updates, or if I have new personal messages. Tweetdeck, Yammer, and TFLN on the other hand don’t display badging*. I don’t know if these apps have any new items for me to view.

Image 1: My iphone home screen


Image 2: Second page of my iphone home screen

*The iPhone Human Interface Guidelines refer to these types of notifications as badging.

“Badging is the least intrusive way to tell users that there is new content they might be interested in. The badge is a small red oval that appears over the upper-right corner of your Home screen icon. You do not have any control over the appearance of the badge and it contains only numbers, not letters or punctuation.

Badging works well when you want to tell users how many items are waiting for their attention. For example, the number in a badge might indicate unread messages, newly assigned tasks, or how many remote players are currently playing a game.”

Once I am within Yammer or Tweetdeck it is easy to see that I have new updates.

Image 3: Yammer badging


Image 4: Tweetdeck badging

As well as providing badging on the iphone home page, facebook provides badging on the page shown below but does not provide the number of News Feed items which is what I really want to know. TFLN does not use badging at all.

Image 5: facebook badging


Image 6: TFLN tab bar (no badging)

If all of these apps used badging on the iphone home page, I would know which ones I needed to check and which ones I didn’t. Currently I have to open Yammer, Tweetdeck, facebook, and TFLN to determine if I have updates or not.

On a side note, though I turn off all alerts and notifications, I think the quiet hours setting in Yammer is a great feature that other apps should consider implementing. I keep my iPhone on my night stand in my bedroom when I sleep. If I did have alerts on, I would definitely want quiet hours set for the hours that I’m sleeping so I would not get continually woken up by a ding.

Image 7: Yammer push settings

Differentiate Comments from New Posts
When I open one of these apps, I want to be able to quickly identify what is new and what isn’t new. In all of these apps, new info is at the top and old info is at the bottom. That I get. What isn’t so clear in TFLN and in facebook is where the new posts end and the old posts start.

Image 8: New tweets have a light grey background


Image 9: New Yammer messages have a blue background


Image 10: TFLN – background color is the same for new and old posts


Image 11: facebook– background color is the same for new and old posts

Make Responses to Posts Clear
Facebook provides the number of comments to a status update and allows the user to click on comments to view the comments to a post. Yammer, on the other hand, has all of their updates and comments at the same level. It is very difficult to tell what post comments belong to.

Image 12: facebook comments


Image 13: Yammer posts and comments

On the Yammer web site, it is very easy to see what comments go with what post. The iphone Human Interface Guidelines state: “If you have an existing computer application, don’t just port it to iPhone OS. People use iPhone OS–based devices very differently than they use desktop and laptop computers, and they have different expectations for the user experience.” Yammer definitely looks different, but this ‘different’ results in confusion.

Image 14: Yammer website (comments and posts)

The Yammer app should associate comments with their posts so it is easy to identify comments go with what post.

Summary
In conclusion, apps such as the ones mentioned above can be improved by:

• Using badging on the home page and within apps to let the user know how many new items there are.
• Implementing a quiet hours feature for alerts.
• Highlighting new posts.
• Clearly indicating what post a comment belongs to.

Tags: Facebook, iPhone, Mobile, Social Media, twitter, User Experience