Ergonomic Design – what it means for you

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

Ergonomic design, what does it mean to you?

Ergonomic design is one of those things that we all make use of every day without even realising it. It is one of those terms that we have all heard of, use and vaguely understand but when you try and define it it is much harder to do. If we look in a dictionary we find ergonomics defined as “ The technology concerned with the design, manufacture, and arrangement of products and environments to be safe, healthy, and comfortable for human beings.” If we search on the internet we find that most prizes for ergonomic design are given for chair design and monitor stands, but really the scope of ergonomic design is much broader than this.

If you use an object, you will instinctively know by the feel if it has succeeded in having a good ergonomic design. You will know that it feels right and comfortable to use. In contrast if an object feels wrong you will know and it will annoy you. Think of the car seat where you are not able to get comfortable and reach the pedals, it will niggle at you the entire journey. When thinking about ergonomics, think comfort of use.

In these days where lots of similar products co-exist ergonomics can make the difference between success and failure. Products may not be technically superior but if they are easy to use they will still outsell the competition. It is all about presentation and ease of use, people will like things that fit.

Lets have a look at some products that can be admired for good ergonomic design.

The clothes peg

This is something that most of us will use at some point in our lives but never really think about it. It fits snugly into the hand, is easy to grip and does the job of holding clothes on the line. The design is really simple, two bits of plastic or wood held together with a spring which allows you to open and close it easily. You don’t think about it, it works well, it is ergonomic.

The Mouse

Without a mouse it would be very difficult to use a computer, they are another item we take for granted in our everyday lives. They fit neatly into the hand and allow you to operate the computer easily. Think how difficult the task would be if these were not ergonomic, you would get a sore wrist after using them for a while, you may find the buttons difficult to press if they were not in the right place which would slow you down and leave you feeling frustrated.

Phone manufacturers today, like Samsung, place great importance on ergonomic design. When you think about it a mobile phone these days is a large part of peoples everyday life and is in continual use throughout the day. Whenever you are out and about you will always see people with a mobile phone in their hand, texting, calling, surfing the internet and many other things.

When you think about a mobile phone there are a lot of areas where a person needs to interface with it. For a start if it has buttons they need to be big enough to press but small enough to be handy. If this is wrong then you will be constantly dialling wrong numbers which will be annoying. If the phone has a touch screen interface then it needs to be responsive and easy to use. There is nothing worse than looking at a screen wondering what you need to press to make it do what you want. Other interfaces on the phone are the microphone, headphones and speaker. If you are not able to use the microphone or speaker you will not be able to make calls so having the phone will be pointless.

Ergonomics is also about comfort. Mobile phones are not very comfortable by definition but it is possible to make them easy to hold and fit into a pocket. If a phone is too large to hold and use comfortably then people will not use it. Finally a mobile phone is about efficiency. These days a mobile phone is so much more than a phone, it can be used to play music, surf the internet and many other things. These things should be easy to access and it should be possible to switch from one task to another easily. There is nothing worse than not being able to answer a phone call because you happen to be playing a game. It is interesting to see how ergonomics plays a part in the design of phones and how increasingly phones are improving due to it

Design a theme for your mobile

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

As you are aware I am a Samsung Mob!ler and my latest mission was to design a screen saver or theme for my mobile. The mobile I am currently using is a Samsung Galaxy Pro. I decided I wanted to change the background wallpaper as the current plain blue theme, while reasonable, is not very exciting. I decided I was going to use a photo I took while walking the dog, in the fields near the Rising Sun Country Park which is near where I live. This is the photo:

Once you have taken the photo you need to go into the Gallery to find it. You should find this with all the other apps on your mobile.

Once in the gallery you can browse to the picture you want and then click on it. You then get the options to “Share”, “Delete” or “More”.

At this point I chose “More” and from the menu that then appears I picked “Set As”. You now have the options to “Set picture as contact icon”, “Home Screen Wallpaper” or “Lock Screen Wallpaper”. I chose Home Screeen Wallpaper and saved my choice. Now I have the picture on my home background and it looks lovely.

The great thing is that you can change the theme to suit your mood, the weather, the time of year or whatever else takes your fancy. You are only limited by the photos you have available on your phone. You can really personalise your contacts by adding a picture to each contact in your list so you can see at a glance who they are. It is nice to make your mobile your own.

Taking Photos with a Samsung Galaxy Pro and Android Apps

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

I am a Samsung Mob!ler and my latest mission was to take a series of photographs using my Samsung phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy Pro which has a 3 Megapixel camera. It has Autofocus and a range of settings to play with including Single Shot, Beauty Shot, Panorama Shot, Action Shot and Smile Shot.

I took my phone on a walk though the local country park and decided to use both the phone and a range of apps to get a series of photos of my journey. I would normally use my phone when out and about like this, it is always handy to have a phone with a camera to snap those unexpected moments.

This is a scenic view across the country park. I love the way the camera captured the contrast in the clouds, even though I managed to snap a bit too much grass.

These are some shots of berries taken in different lighting conditions

I like the way it has dealt with the contrasts in colours and light and shade to make rather nice photos.The camera also allows you to change the effect from normal to black and white or sepia or a negative effect which is useful, but I decided to try some photography applications to get a range of different effects.

Photography Applications

The one good thing about Android is that if you browse the market place you will find plenty of applications and there are certainly a lot of photography applications out there. Some you have to pay for and some are free, I decided to have a look at some of the free applications out there and see what I could do with my camera.

1. Pudding Camera

This offers a range of different style cameras to choose from which give varying film settings. It is quite fun as its free and you can easily share the results. The app is easy to use and produces output in three different resolutions.

This is a picture taken using one of the vintage cameras. The output is a little dark but is has a definite spooky vintage effect. The same photo with a normal camera looks like this:

It is definitely worth playing with as the different cameras produce lots of fab effects.

2. Vignette Demo

This allows you to add film and camera effects to your photos. It has a range of 84 effects and 59 frames to choose from so there will definitely be something for you. These are some pictures I took in the woods using the Vignette camera.

I took the same photo from the same angle with slightly different effects and I really like the colours in the second one.

3. Picsay

This is a photo editiing tool that allows you to add effects and text after the photo has been taken. You can add text, speech bubbles, play around with colours and add different effects. This is a normal photo.

and this is the same photo after I added some distortion

4. Retro Camera

This allows you to take pictures using five different styles of old camera and gives scratching and other vintage effects. These are some photos I took using this camera.

As you can see it is great for vintage retro effects.

It is definitely worth taking your camera phone with you when you are out and about, as you can see you can get excellent photos and tweak them to get interesting effects.

Games on an Android phone

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

As you are aware I am a Samsung Mob!ler and my latest mission is to look at how to download games on an android phone and to choose five games that I would consider to be my top five free games. To complete this mission I am using a Samsung Galaxy Pro.

How to download games

It is very easy to download games on your android phone, just look for the market icon and click on it. Before you can access the market you need to have a google account set up. If you have not done this already you are given instructions on how to set one up. It is very quick and simple to do. Your application purchases are tied to your Google Account and so you can install them an unlimited amount of times on any device. Free applications are not saved in the same way, but as they are free this does not matter.

Once you are in the market you will find a games section. You can easily browse though the games, looking for the information about them, and when you find one you are interested in just hit the install button and it will install it for you. Once its installed, just hit the game icon to play.

My Top Five Free Games

There are a lot of games in the Android market, some good, some bad. It is very easy to feel lost in there and not know what to get. These are five of the games I tried and keep going back to over and over again. For simple addictive fun they are great.

1. Angry Birds

The birds are angry! The pigs have stolen the eggs out of their nest and the birds are going to get their own back. They launch themselves at the pigs fortress using a catapult in an attempt to defeat them. A simple concept, but the levels get harder and harder.

You need to use physics to work out the angles to fire the birds at, and with fabulous sound effects such as the birds cheering, going ow and the pigs chuckling in victory it is easy to get addicted. As you progress up the levels you will gain different coloured birds who have different attacking skills.

The game is free on android as it has adverts inbuilt, these are unobtrusive and do not distract you from the game play. With 270 levels to play this should keep you occupied for quite some time.

2. Jewels

I am sure that everyone is familiar with this type of game. You need to swap the jewels to get a row of three jewels the same colour. You can only swap jewels that are next to each other. When you get three in a row those three jewels disappear and the jewels fall from the top to take their place. A simple game that can keep you playing for ages.

3. Geared

This is another simple game that gets very complicated as you go up the levels. The premise is simple, you need to drop gear wheels onto the game board to link the cogs together and get them turning. It starts off deceptively simple but as you work your way though its 150 levels you find that the challenges get much harder to complete. It is an excellent and sometimes frustrating puzzle game.

4. Mousetrap

You must remember those sliding block games you used to get as a child, the ones where the picture was printed on tiles that slide and you needed to slide them about to put the picture back in the right place. This is a variation on that game. Instead of having to slide the tiles about to complete a picture you need to slide the tiles to enable the mouse to get out of the maze. The mouse needs a straight route to reach the green arrow to escape from the trap. This is a game with varying levels of difficulty that will keep you sliding blocks for ages.

5. Yoo Ninja

This is a simple fast paced arcade game which leads you into a strange world where gravity can be defied. You need to guide your ninja though the world, avoiding traps, darts, spears and other ninja weapons and certain destruction. It’s good fun and really simple to play.

There are plenty of other games in there and I would be interested in know what your top games choices are. Do comment and let me know.

Other articles you may be interested in:

Samsung Galaxy Pro Review

Comparison of Android and RIM

Samsung Mob!lers First Mission – Compare Android to RIM

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

I have received my first mission as a Samsung Mob!ler and it is to compare Android and RIM. These are two different systems in use by mobile phones. Android is a combination of operating systems, middleware and applications that is used in a large number of phones (such as the Samsung Galaxy Pro). RIM stands for Research in Motion which is the company that makes Blackberry. These use the Blackberry OS which is now in version 6. Not having used either platform as yet this article will be based on research, although I am looking forward to bringing you a review of the Samsung Galaxy Pro soon. Before I started researching this I had the impression that the Blackberry is a phone used by the high end business user, for emailing and working on the go. Android is aimed more at the multimedia and social user who likes to use applications on their phone.

Generally speaking technology users like to standardise on one platform which becomes dominant and gains a larger market share. As more people who use it it becomes more interesting developers jump on the bandwagon and start developing for it. This makes it more attractive and hence more dominant. This is good for whichever company is leading, making it harder for the other companies to compete in the market. But which is the best? In order to work this out we need to look at the common activities that people use their phones for, apart from the obvious one, making phone calls. Other common users are texting, browsing the internet, running applications, using social networks, playing games, listening to music and photography. Both Android and Blackberry do all this, but there are differences between the way they do them.

Emails and Messaging

Blackberry is a platform that is know for having a great email and instant messaging service. Blackberry email uses push services like Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) and Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) which allows seamless integration with your Exchange Server. Android uses gmail. If you use another mail like yahoo you can set up gmail as a push server to get your email. This works really well and allows you to organise your in-box really effectively.

Blackberry messenger is an instant chat service that uses your Blackberry pin to allow you to chat instantly to your colleagues. It only works if you are contacting other people who have Blackberries however. Android offers a range of chat based apps including google talk. This makes it a lot more flexible allowing you to talk to users on other platforms.

Media and Internet

You can browse the internet on both the Blackberry and Android phones. By all accounts the browsing experience on the Blackberry is somewhat slower. For me the main drawback of the Blackberry is that it does not support Flash. Android on the other hand does. A lot of websites use Flash these days and for a more full browsing experience this is definitely required.

For media Android appears to have more video codecs available which means that it has more versatility when it comes to playing videos. The music experience appears to be richer with an inbuilt music player and a range of music apps to broaden the experience. Although the Blackberry does this as well it does not appear to do it as well, or have as many options to play with.

For the social networking side of things, Android also appears to make this a lot more accessible. You can view your twitter and facebook feeds from the home screen for many of the phones making it easy to keep in touch with what is going on. Although you can use social networking in the Blackberry world, the range of apps is not as large.

App Store

Android is an OpenSource platform which is based on the Linux kernel. On the other hand the Blackberry OS is a proprietary middleware sytem. As a result Android has a lot more applications avaialable in the App Store. There are currently over 200, 000 applications available for android in the marketplace and you can also download apps from third party websites. While this makes for good choice it can sometimes be difficult to know which apps are worth downloading. Android Apps are tied to your google account, whereas with Blackberry they are tied to a pin. This means that if you move to a new device you can easily obtain the apps again. With Blackberry this is a bit more difficult.

In summary, if you are looking for a good multimedia phone that gives you access to apps, games and social networking then the Android platform could be the choice for you. If you are looking for a work horse that is good for emails and writing documents then the Blackberry could be for you. I suspect most users are going to be in the first category and Android as a whole will win out. I look forward to investigating the features of the Samsung Galaxy Pro to see if this theory is true.

You may also be interested in reading about the Samsung Mobilers here