To begin, I was bored. Could he have been any more monotone? I almost fell asleep and the video is pretty short. Aside from the terrible delivery of the review, I found his examination fairly interesting.
Tufte repeated the phrase “computer administrative debris” many times during his critique of the original iphone interface, which to point out of the obvious was one of the most innovative aspects of the interface design. Why clutter the screen when we can create our own interface interaction conventions. To scroll just use your finger as you might to slide a paper across a table. It seems like such a simple idea that you begin to think, why didn’t I think of that?
Creating design that involves the use of less visual clutter but still delivers the same message is what design is all about; doing more with less. And the iPhone interface certainly achieves this goal.
With a screen at 1080p why put icons and buttons in the way if you can simply swipe with your finger. Not only does it free the screen for maximum content viewing, but it also provides for a much easier navigating experience that requires less accuracy as the user needs simply to swipe their finger across the screen.
This is something I need to consider in making my own iPhone interface. I plan to use the previously determined conventions, maximize content area, and make full use of the high resolution screen with clean and sharp image design.
Hopefully when it comes to my presentation of the iPhone app I design I’ll be a little more charismatic than Mr. Tufte, because as a certain professor says, “People often get away with mediocre design by presenting it really well”. And I have no plan to design something mediocre, but it never hurts to dress things up a bit in the presentation!