Information Appliances and Beyond: Interaction Design for Consumer Products
As technology moves off the desktop and into our everyday lives, designers face tough challenges in creating practical user interfaces for pint-sized devices.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Information Appliances and Beyond: Interaction Design for Consumer Products
Chapter 5: The Interaction Design of Microsoft Windows CE
SARAH ZUBEREC
Productivity Appliance Division, Microsoft Corporation
5.1 Introduction
Interface design for the various Microsoft Windows CE products required the balancing of three variables: level of affinity with PC desktops and applications; degree of focus on user tasks; and range of product-operating environments and form factors. While some may argue that this UI is nothing more than the traditional desktop Microsoft Windows miniaturized to fit a smaller display, UI research has been carried out on each product to better identify and understand the users and the tasks they need to accomplish in the environments in which they work. An interaction design team comprised of designers, user interface program managers, and usability engineers were responsible for guiding the design process. This process led to the development of new form factors and input/output methods to support a range of tasks and environments. Each product was designed to be a desktop companion. To that end, consistency with desktop applications and operating system has played a significant role in defining the user interface for each product. The challenge facing Windows CE designers is to extend the traditional desktop Windows metaphors and designs to the broad spectrum of CE devices, while maintaining focus on task requirements of end users.
5.2 History
Windows CE is an operating system designed to run on computers that are considerably smaller than desktop PCs and laptop PCs. The first version of Windows CE was created to run on the Handheld PC 1.0, which shipped in 1996. While this chapter will...
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