Brainstorm: Brainstorms, category User Experience

Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience

texrat@ovi.com (Randall Arnold) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:21:11 +0000

Some have complained that the N900 cell capability feels like an afterthought, and is missing features expected on advanced communications devices.

While the N900 may be a mobile computer first, there is no reason to accept phone shortcomings if improvements make sense and can be reasonably incorporated.

If you have ideas for UI and/or usability improvements to the cell or even VoIP functionality, add them here!

Discussion thread: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=33830

57 solutions for this brainstorm.

Undelayed bugfix releases for Nokia (open source) packages.

vilre@cs.tut.fi (Ville Reijonen) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:49:08 +0000

Nokia has few applications under open source licence such as Modest and application manager. Now, as case with Modest by the time of creation of this text, there are a few critical bugs/issues which affect a large amount of people. The fix is available in the source code but updated version of the package is not released until Nokia releases a full update. The lead time could be couple of months and the release times are never annouced beforehand.

Due to the delay, many active people notice the same bugs and go to bugzilla. Sometimes they do notice the existing report and write their own - this causes many duplicated bug reports to appear. Sometimes the bug is already fixed internally. A lot of effort is wasted thereby with the delayed bugfix release and redundant work. Delays and redundant work creates frustration. Additionally, the software may be unusable for many months when it could be fixed now. Talented individual frustrated enough might roll up their own update, but if 10 people do it for themselves this is clearly again a lot more wasted effort and time.

Delay is therefore bad for user experience and can make the whole device look bad in the eye of frustrated people. This is definitely a lost position for marketing efforts when fast bugfix releases would be a positive element for consumer mind.

Discussion on Talk: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=35793

5 solutions for this brainstorm.

Modest: Navigating folders that contain a lot of emails is difficult

tim@samoff.com (Tim Samoff) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:49:55 +0000

Currently, the only way to navigate through the Inbox (and additional folders) in Modest is to scroll down the list. The introduction of kinetic scrolling in Maemo 5 makes this easier, but the job can still be tedious if there are lots of emails in the folder.

9 solutions for this brainstorm.

Profile and IM Status scheduler using Calendar

sascha.makela@gmail.com (Sascha Makela) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:29:38 +0000

Talk link

Sometimes it's really annoying and/or embarrassing to have your phone ring loudly in a meeting, theatre or something like that, because you have forgotten to change your Profile to silent. Similarly it's annoying to hear from your friends/colleges complaints of why you didn't reply to your IM when you forgot to change the status to busy. Since often these events are repeating or entered in your Calendar it would beneficial to be able to somehow combine these so that it would do it automatically for you.

EDIT: Made the problem more simple to understand as requested by Qgil. Well, I tried at least... ;)

7 solutions for this brainstorm.

Enabling fast access to 2nd screen of Apps in Apps Menu

philipdean@optusnet.com.au (Philip Dean) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:39:22 +0000

Currently, to get to Apps on the 2nd screen of the Application Menu, you first need to press the Application Menu icon on the top left of your desktop and then hit the "More" icon on the bottom right of the first screen in the Apps Menu.

It might only be two clicks, but it seems hugely unnecessary to have to click in one corner of the screen and then move to click in the other corner of the screen to bring up the list of apps you have installed.

Talk Brainstorm thread: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=37370

6 solutions for this brainstorm.

Another way to lock/unlock the device

felipe@zimmerle.org (Felipe Zimmerle) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:59:52 +0000

Since people are increasingly using their mobile devices as personal computers, using email, storing corporate and confidential data, the security of these information became a high priority requirement.

However, there is a trade-off between security and usability. It is very easy to protect the (touch) screen to prevent the system to do some undesirable action. But adding a security layer to this mechanism (to avoid curious ppl) sometimes is not a good experience for the user.

I think the Maemo could give to the user the flexibility to choose the way of how to lock or unlock his device. Currently he can use a registered 'pin' number, but for many people, make a gesture on the screen would be faster, easier to decorate and more friendly.

Note: lock screen != lock device
lock screen -> to prevent undesirable actions (touches) on the screen.
lock device -> to prevent malicious or curious people to access the device data.

Discussion thread: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=354985

6 solutions for this brainstorm.

Camera cover app activation choice

S.G.Pickering@bath.ac.uk (Simon Pickering) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:16:43 +0000

Currently the Camera application is automatically started when the camera cover is slid open, users may want their own choice of camera handling application to open instead.

4 solutions for this brainstorm.

Routing visitors to useful resources

texrat@ovi.com (Randall Arnold) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:23:41 +0000

A recurring theme in Talk that won't go away is quickly getting visitors, particularly newcomers, to resources they require. Too often the questions are misplaced and interrupt the regular flow. This is especially frustrating when the same questions recur at high frequency.

I believe we need to look at not only the conventional ideas but also the unconventional.

Talk link: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=32835

6 solutions for this brainstorm.

Spinning Zoom as universal Maemo gesture

sergey.vlsv@gmail.com (Sergey Vlasov) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:42:02 +0000

Would be great to use the same gesture in maps app, image viewer, where it is feasible. Developpers shouln't be bothered to implement it, this gesture should be transparent for applications.

Disscuss here:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=419695

2 solutions for this brainstorm.

conversation integration with calendar

maemo@oculex.fi (thomas p) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:04:52 +0000

The calendar could be much improved. one crucial point of the calendar is that 'right now' it tells me what should i do, and what's going to happen next. it gives me the relevant information at the right time, but this is often just basic information about who, when and where. how could the calendar be developed to even better give you the relevant information at the right time

brainstorm discussion takes place here.

4 solutions for this brainstorm.