as a designer, i’ve always valued symmetry and balance. however, i came across the tesla model x site on my ipad and it made me rethink some tablet best practices.

when i first got to the page i immediately noticed the ugly gutter on the right hand side of the page. i assumed it was a development oversight and the site hadn’t been optimized for a tablet device. but as i scrolled down the page, i realized this gutter had a purpose. a few of the modules on the page were interactive, and as i interacted with the modules, my touch inputs affected the interaction of the module, not the scrolling of the page.

tesla had designed a scroll gutter!

in hindsight, it seems like a no-brainer. but, this is one of the first sites that i’ve come across that has some really smooth touch interactions, coupled with a scrolling solution.

as i design for more interactive sites, i’m definitely going to start using this obvious solution as a ux best practice for tablet devices.

i write this not as a disgruntled fan of the game, but as a befuddled designer.

i play words with friends a couple times a week, half the time from my iPhone, the other half from my iPad. one thing that i’ve always liked about the game is it’s simplicity. it’s easy, it’s fun, and can even be a little competitive from time to time.

words with friends recently made an update to their iPad app…

(my open letter begins now)

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!

i understand that a lot of popular apps use a sliding container as a means of accessing navigation, but there is a time to use that functionality, AND A TIME TO NOT USE IT.

PROTIP: just because something is cool, or trendy, doesn’t mean you have to figure out a way to implement it.

why the hell would you have a container that slides left and right with swipe gestures when your entire game is based on swipe gestures in every direction?! do you take pleasure in frustrating your users with accidental gestures?

maybe you’ve done more user testing than i have on hand positioning when holding an iPad, but you have now moved all of the buttons to the most inconvenient part of the screen.

you’ve also made the letter blocks smaller. you do realize that the PRIMARY INTERACTION of your game is to move the letter blocks. why the shit would you make them smaller?!

lastly, the one thing that i’m willing to bet that most users do, when they’re not moving letter blocks, is switch between games, which you’ve decided will now be 2 taps instead of the previous 1 tap. ARE YOU KIDDING?! I realize that I’m bitching about 1 tap, but you couldn’t have had a simpler interaction, so instead, you decided to make it a little more complicated?

i’d love to know who decided all of this was acceptable, because they seem like an idiot. you’re building a game app, not a facebook app. OVERLAYS ARE JUST FINE. they work very well.

i’m sure there’s more, but i got so frustrated while playing that i decided to come write a stupid blog post about your stupid game.

don’t be dumb. fix it.

UPDATED:

i love social media.

so, apparently i wasn’t the only person that complained. i really respect companies that listen and respond to social media. i really appreciate companies that care about their users and listen to feedback.

i got the following push notification about 36 hours after i originally posted this blog entry, and since then, a new ipad version of words with friends has been released, addressing most of my concerns. i’m super impressed. and, i kinda feel like an asshole now.

the future is here, now. today, hulu released hulu plus, an application that allows you to watch every current season episode of shows on NBC, ABC and FOX. this comes just weeks after netflix released their netflix app, which allows you to watch movies and tv shows streaming from netflix. not to mention, the ABC app, which allows you to watch almost every show currently on ABC.

All of these applications have been released within just 3 months of the release of apple’s ipad.

the downside is that all of these things require wifi to work the way you want them to. well, at the moment.

the average internet speed being delivered to your home is roughly 3mbps. however, back in january, at&t began updating their network to HSPA 7.2 in 6 major markets. HSPA 7.2 delivers 7.2mbps, over twice the speed of your average home internet connection. eventually, the contract that apple has with at&t will run out, and when it does, devices like the iphone and ipad will be running on at&t, as well as other networks. verizon, also upgraded their network to HSPA 7.2 earlier this year.

but, what does the future hold?

upon further research i came across an article, which stated the following:

The future for all networks… is Long-Term Evolution (LTE), also known as 4G. It can hit speeds of as much as 100mbps downstream. Verizon Wireless plans to deploy it this year while AT&T and T-Mobile have said they will begin to deploy LTE in 2011 while maintaining their 3G networks.

100mbps! verizon will start deploying 4G network speeds this year, while at&t plans to have it running by next year. so, by 2011, we will have an internet connection, being delivered, over the air, 30 times faster than what we now have at home.

why own a television? everything you want will soon be delivered to a device that you can take with you everywhere. you’ll be able to download HD movies in minutes while driving in your car, or stream entire seasons of your favorite tv show, while sitting in a park.

i hate to say it, but the tv is dead. especially when the newest wave of television technology requires that i wear glasses. eff that.

i’m beginning to realize that i prefer a curated web-browsing experience.

i was once in school for architecture. the projects that i enjoyed the most were the ones in which i’d have to design within a very specific space or lot size. i had the most trouble working within a large area and having too much freedom within a given space.

i’ve recently realized i enjoy the same principle when applied to the internet. not only as a designer, but as a user.

i don’t own an ipad yet, but have had the opportunity to use one quite frequently. i’ve even done some web designs geared towards the ipad. i’ve realized that i much prefer designing for a 768x1024px screen. in web design, you always have to keep in mind that the end user could be using any number of web browsers or screen sizes, which, in my opinion, limits your creativity. one user may view a site one way, while another user may view it completely differently. this sometimes causes you to dumb down a design or layout. yet, having a specific space to design within, you know that no matter what you design, it will always look how it was designed to look. 

this form of curated computing could ultimately end up creating a more user-friendly web-browsing experience, for both the designer and the user.