Sony Ericsson T68i Evaluation comment
HCI evaluation of the Sony Ericsson T68i Mobile Phone. Published in the International Herald Tribunes TribTech sections message board Saturday/Sunday March 15016 2003.
I read with slight pleasure your article on new cell phones. Finally a a view without the blind wow which seems to accompany any new gadget these days.
The Sony-Ericsson T68i is a particularly striking example of non-innovation. I have carried out a Human Computer Interface evaluation of the phone. Some highlights include:
Flawed button use.
The key press sequence to unlock the keyboard is identical to the sequence used to delete a contact. This means that if the user thought the keyboard was locked but it was not and a contact is on the screen, that contact then gets deleted.The key combination to lock the keyboard is not the same as the one which unlocks it.The 'Options' key followed by 'Yes' locks the keyboard. 'C' ' followed by 'Yes' unlocks the keyboard. And deletes entries if an entry is on the screen at the time.
Cumbersome SMS menu navigation.
The T68i requires 5 key presses including one change off direction (right click nav button twice, then 3 straight clicks) to get to the 'New SMS Message' location. The Nokia 5210 requires 3 clicks all of which are the same buttons in the same way, requiring the user to simple learn, 'click this button rapidly 3 times and I can SMS.'Sending SMS messages are even worse. Sending an SMS requires often 7 clicks with 2 changes of direction. The Nokia needs 5 clicks, but all are straight through apart from choosing the name of the recipient in the phone list.
The phones stores outgoing SMS messages automatically (user cannot disable this) and it stores it in the smallest memory (phone memory, the user cannot change this either).
Speed.
This phone is so slow users sometimes have to click the answer button twice as it takes the phone too long to switch over to answering a call (over 1 second), resulting on the call being put on hold.
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