In a November 13, 2007 press release headlined, “Direct Comparison of iPhone and Hard-Key QWERTY Phone Owners Indicates Higher Text Entry Error Rate for iPhones,” User Centric, Inc., a Chicago-based usability consultancy, states that they have finished a third and final study examining the user experience of Apple’s iPhone.
Our study involved data from 60 participants who were asked to enter specific text messages and complete several mobile device tasks. Twenty of these participants were iPhone owners who owned their phones for at least one month. Twenty more participants were owners of traditional hard-key QWERTY phones and another twenty were owners of numeric phones who used the “multi-tap” method of text entry.
MacDailyNews Take: Everything you are about to read from this point on from User Centric’s press release (in italics) is virtually meaningless and applies only to a miniscule sample of 20 people who have owned an iPhone for at least a month plus 40 other non-iPhone users. The likelihood of the sample size being too small to be useful to anyone outside this small group of 60 people is extremely high. We could pick another random 20 iPhone users and get completely different results. Were these 20 iPhone owners selected because they were heavy users of text messaging or did they get their iPhones primarily so they could browse the real Web or perhaps so they could have a multi-touch iPod or maybe they use email over SMS texting? How many, if any, of these iPhone users even use their iPhone regularly or at all for texting? What were the ages of these 20 iPhone owners? Was it a group of 35-year-old soccer moms who don’t know SMS from PMS or were they 16-year-olds who text in their sleep? By the way, how long were their fingernails? The questions are endless. Without such salient details being disclosed, the tiny sample size of 20 people becomes even more of an issue. This “study” is fatally flawed.
Participants were brought in for 75 minute one-on-one usability sessions with a moderator. Each participant entered six fixed-length text messages on their own phone. Non-iPhone owners also did six messages each on the iPhone and a phone of the “opposite” type. The opposite phone for numeric phone owners was a Blackberry and for hard-key QWERTY phone owners it was a numeric Samsung E300 phone.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, so iPhone users got to enter 6 messages on their iPhones, but not the other phones? However, the other 40 people who had never touched an iPhone got to enter 6 messages on the iPhones? Why? To inflate the number of “mistakes” made on the iPhones?
When compared to hard-key QWERTY phone owners using their personal phones, iPhone owners’ rate of text entry on the iPhone was equally rapid. However, iPhone owners made more errors during text entry and also left significantly more errors in the completed messages.
MacDailyNews Take: The full press release details the meaningless stats that this tiny, undefined sample of just 20 iPhone users generated.
Furthermore, when iPhone owners were asked to perform a text correction task during their sessions, 21% of iPhone owners were not aware of the magnifying glass correction feature although they had owned their iPhone for one month. Participants who did know about the feature clearly loved it, and participants who were new to it indicated that it would be useful in the future.
MacDailyNews Take: First of all, how do you get “21%” out of a sample of 20 iPhone owners? 4.2 of the iPhone owners didn’t know about the magnifying glass feature? What happened to the other 0.8 of that individual iPhone user? Maybe he thought he knew about it, but forgot? So, the sample size is too small and too undefined and now it’s flawed to boot: Tell all of the participants about the tools available or your study’s results are junk. The fact is that the magnifying glass tool is available and all users should have been informed and allowed to use it. This would have allowed the survey to gather meaningful results if, of course, they had used a reasonable sample size, which they didn’t. Did they also neglect to tell 21% of the hard-key keyboard users where the arrow keys were or how to use them?
Participants who had previously not used either a hard-key QWERTY phone or an iPhone were significantly faster at entering text messages on the hard-key QWERTY test phone than on the iPhone. These participants also made significantly fewer errors on the hard-key QWERTY than on the iPhone.
MacDailyNews Take: So, had these participants used a hard-key QWERTY keyboard on something else like, say, a personal computer? Of course they had, and likely for many, many years. Certainly most people have vastly more experience with hard-key keyboards vs. users of iPhone keyboards with “at least a month” of experience. That experience gap would be accounted for in a real study. It is ignored here. All of the participants are naturally inclined to be more familiar with a hard QWERTY keyboard whether it be on a phone or not. It’s only logical. But, the last thing those who conducted this “study” want you to employ is logic; either that or they’re just incompetent.
Numeric phone owners made an average of 5.4 errors/message on the iPhone, 1.2 errors/message on the QWERTY test phone, and 1.4 errors/message on their own phone. “Not only was their performance better,” says Jen Allen, User Experience Specialist for User Centric, “their rankings and ratings of the phones indicated that they preferred a hard-key QWERTY phone for texting.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, so those familiar with QWERTY keyboards and wholly unfamiliar with iPhone’s keyboard performed better on a QWERTY hard-key keyboard and ranked it higher? Stunning finding there, Jen. One would also guess that there’s an 1879 “study” in a dusty file cabinet somewhere that found people preferred candles to electric light bulbs for reading. No doubt commissioned by the wax industry.
User Centric also conducted a “detailed analysis of text entry patterns” on 20 random people which came up with a bunch more meaningless numbers which are used to either obfuscate the appalling ridiculousness of the study’s useless sample size and methodology or, again, they’re just so incompetent that they think the numbers have meaning.
Compared to hard-key QWERTY devices, the iPhone may fall short for consumers who use on their mobile device heavily for email and text messaging.
MacDailyNews Take: Or iPhone may not fall short. The iPhone may be a heavy email and text messaging user’s godsend. We simply don’t know either way from this study. Among many other faults, the sample size is too small and too undefined and they didn’t let the iPhone users touch the other phones.
The iPhone was clearly associated with higher text entry error rates than a hard-key QWERTY phone.
MacDailyNews Take: Only in this particular “study” with its tiny sample size and flawed methodology: Letting non-iPhone users contribute mistakes to iPhones while keeping iPhone users off the other phones, thereby logically inflating the non-iPhones’ accuracy. Hard-key users, regardless of type of phone keyboard would naturally be more familiar with hard-key keyboards and therefore make fewer mistakes in use.
“The iPhone is a great switch from a numeric phone. But if you’re switching from a hard-key QWERTY phone, try the iPhone in the store first,” recommended Gavin Lew, User Centric’s Managing Director.
MacDailyNews Take: More garbage, which is a fitting end. Trying an iPhone in a store sounds like a great idea, but you need to use it for at least a few days to learn how it works and get used to it (and it to you). If you base your decision on how you typed on an iPhone in a store for a few minutes, most likely your conclusion will be exactly the wrong one – which conveniently seems to support the findings of this “study.” It’s no wonder Lew wants buyers to base their opinion of iPhone’s keyboard on laughably insufficient testing, as that’s exactly what his firm’s “study” does.
We encourage readers to read the full press release while employing logic and paying close attention to which users were allowed to use which device(s), how few people were involved, and what exactly was tested, here.
We also encourage readers to note any media outlets that dutifully report the “findings” of this “study” as fact.
MacDailyNews Note: On their website, User Centric lists their “clients over the last two quarters” which include: Verizon Wireless, Microsoft, LG, and Motorola.
owned
Actually this is one of the few functions of the iPhone that are an issue for me. Being a fanatic so to speak I love the iPhone of course but typing while driving sure can be a problem. I know I shouldn’t!
Also please come out with a copy and paste function!!!!!!
Oh yeah and a function to add a contact from the recent calls list that automatically carries the phone number over!
My question is who is paying for this study? I have my suspicions, and I am sure I am not alone in them.
Direct comparisons of eating iPhone glass and eating ice cream show clearly that the iPhone sucks.
For our next direct comparison, we will compare iPhone’s smooth surface to the Himalayas and Jessica Simpson’s face before Proactiv Solution.
How about a direct comparison between other all touch screen surfaces? Ugh.
The premise of this study is obvious to test the iPhone, not the other phones.
I could call it a real study if EACH user typed that same message on a different phone each day during the study (to prevent thumbs from getting tired).
THEN if they said the iPhone produced significant errors, I could believe it. As it is, this study is just plain BAKA! (Japanese: stupid)
I’m only a sample of one, but I love the touch keyboard – I furiously type without regard for accuracy – the predictive correction works wonderfully for me except for proper names (duh), where I have to slow down and eyeball the word. The newest feature of double spacing adding a period makes 99% of texting very easy too
Note also that iPhone users had their phones for “at least one month” (most may have been relatively new at it) while the hard-key phone users had their phones for an unstated period of time (very likely a much longer time.) So they may well be testing people with a ton of experience on hard-key phones against people who never used a phone keyboard of any kind before they bought an iPhone. We just can’t tell from the information provided. As a former ad agency guy who has witnessed decades of bogus testing masquerading as legitimate research, I can tell you — I smell something extremely fishy here.
This “study” sounds like the news from Reuters… total CROCK!
It really suck to read and article when Mac Daily News is stuffing their two cents worth in after every sentence. By the way, I didn’t read your take because we all know you are way to far up apple’s ass to accept that any apple product may have a shortcoming.
Let us read the article first then make your arguments.
“Oh yeah and a function to add a contact from the recent calls list that automatically carries the phone number over!”
You can do this on the iPhone. In your Recent Calls list, press the blue arrow beside the phone number, then press the ‘Create New Contact’ or ‘Add to Existing Contact’ as suits your fancy. Either way, the phone number automatically carries over, as you would expect.
One would also guess that there’s an 1879 “study” in a dusty file cabinet somewhere that found people preferred candles to electric light bulbs for reading. No doubt commissioned by the wax industry.
MDN = Brilliant bastards!
Typing on the iPhone is an absolute nightmare compared to every other PDA I have ever used. And I’ve used several (Treo 600, 650, 700, blackberries since the pager-lookin-ones, Visor).
Miskeys are frequent, the “predictive text” is wrong at least 50% of the time, typing in a moving vehicle (back seat of a taxi, not while driving) makes accuracy 3-4 times worse, can’t text while walking or talking to someone else, and no matter how carefully I try to proof, my messages ALWAYS go out with at least one mistake. I’ve recently changed my sig to “Typed on an iPhone. Please excuse typos.”
And while I’m at it, how come I can’t address an SMS to more than one person at a time? That’s just asinine.
Whew. I feel better. Anyone wanna buy a used iPhone?
Troy,
It sounds like your reading skills are being over taxed. Maybe you should just stick to your coloring books. You need to accept your limitations, little boy.
@ Don Jakubczak:
You can create a contact from the recent calls list without typing the phone number.
On the list of recent calls: Press the little blue arrow on the right side of the phone number, which will pull up a menu. Press create new contact.
Troy:
Just out of curiosity, if you don’t want MDN’s opinion, why do you read MDN? You could get your news in millions of other places . . .
@Piece of Crap Apologist
Funny your comments about predictive text being wrong 50% of the time–I find it gets things right at least 90% of the time. I’ve had my iPhone from Day 1, and I couldn’t be happier with it. I seriously doubt you’ve ever touched an iPhone, much less used it to type in a moving vehicle, etc.
Let’s see, what percentage of iPhone owners are satisfied with it? Oh, yeah, something like 90%.
Go suck on a beet!
“Numeric phone owners…preferred a hard-key QWERTY phone for texting”
That only suggests that the adjustment from a physical numerica keypad to a phyical (or “buttony”) QWERTY is more comfortable.
The vitural keypad is very different – the learning curve is different because it is not only transfering from numeric to QWERTY, but from buttons to a glass pad only.
“…try the iPhone in the store first,”
Great, except wasn’t the point of one of their earlier “studies” that it took a while to get used to the virtual keypad? How can trying it in a store be a useful indicator of whether one would like or dislike it?
The real question, neither asked nor answered here, is whether one can become as proficient at typing with a virtual keypad as with a physical one. The answer is very likely yes. People are very good at adapting, esp with something that is not very difficult and with enforced daily practice.
Troy,
While other outlets dutifully report the finding of this “study” as gospel, MacDailyNews obliterates the study and it’s “findings” with exquisite logic.
I’ll take my “news” from MDN over the others any damn day of the week.
MDN has the truth on their side.
MDN may be right about study flaws (did they really count non-iPhone users in iPhone errors but not count iPhone users for other device errors?). Certainly the comment about “try the iPhone in the store first” is an idiot comment from the researches, because someone in the store will obviously not have gained expertise and won’t be inclined to like it on that basis.
Nevertheless, the sample size of 20 is NOT obviously too small a sample. MDN, you are being unfair or you don’t know your statistics. You can’t evaluate the adequacy of their sample size unless you know the variance they found or the p-values in their significance testing. With the large difference in error rates they found, in my experience a sample size of 20 is likely to have been more than adequate.
Don’t criticize aspects where you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Amateur
For a usability study, 20 people is actually a lot of people. The mystery about this story is why was a usability consultancy studying only keyboarding, which I’m not so sure really falls into the category of usability anyway, rather than the overall usability of the iPhone compared to the other phones? I think it’s pretty clear how the iPhone rates in overall usabiity since most iPhone owners can use virtually every function of the phone without reading a manual while studies reportedly show that most functions of traditional cell phones , smart or not, go unused due to the complexity of using them.
Our study involved data from 60 participants who were asked to enter specific text messages
That phraseology immediately rings alarm bells and I did not see anything to diffuse my suspicion. The word that appears to shed light but actually causes confusion is ‘specific’, specific to what I would ask. It could mean that the messages were specific to each kind of phone.
The report further adds to suspicions by the survey’s methodology, The order of phones and text messages were counterbalanced across participants to prevent ordering effects. No, to prevent ordering effects all participants should have followed the same order. The methodology introduced ordering effects.
<i>They also typed two pangrams – a sentence that includes every letter in the English language at least once – and one corpus – a set of characters that represents the exact letter frequencies of the English language. These tasks were included to ensure that participants experienced the various phone keyboards in a thorough manner.<i> These sentences serve to appear to confirm fairness and equality but in fact do no such thing.
Given the obviously flawed nature of the methodology and the doublespeak used in the report it seems suspiciously like the test was designed to fail the selected model. How it could be done whilst fitting the stated methodology:
Give iPhone users more often misspelled words
Give iPhone users longer text messages first and shorter later
Give iPhone users messages where the reach between consecutive letters is on average greater.
Give iPhone users pangrams with more x,y,z etc
&etc;The message I receive from reading the report is not that the survey was flawed but that it was fraud.
This study just has to be bought and paid for by rival handset maker(s) and carrier(s) who do not have iPhone.
Follow the money.
MDN is right. Everything about the study is wrong.
My question is, who funded the study?
I don’t have an iPhone but I do have an iPod touch.
Typing on my iPod touch is the better than typing on any phone I’ve ever owned.
Although I don’t own one yet, I’ve used an iPhone a few times and my typing has been fast and accurate. I used two thumbs from the very first time I picked it up.
A few years from now people will say, “remember when smart phones had plastic keyboards”. The argument is already old and pointless.
Client list !
http://www.usercentric.com/experience.asp?menu=1&sub=0
@Jeff
My first guess would be a company or trade group that use(s) Windows Mobile or whatever it is called and got the promise of some ‘help’ with their ‘marketing’ (budget) or etc. This would be small beer for Microsoft, they’ve done it thousands of times before, they have learned how to do it well. They’ve got away with it too, so often that they do it with apparent impunity.
This is the same no-name outfit that did the bogus study on the iPhone back in July, about how hard it was to learn to use the iPhone. See their four press releases in July and August. http://www.usercentric.com/company.asp?menu=2&sub=1
Having clients named Microsoft, Verizon, LG, and Motorola over the last two quarters (that would be May to Oct) surely will lead to questions about impartiality.
From the bottom of the press release: “Client satisfaction is our #1 measure of success: 95% of our revenue comes from repeat business.”
Not truth, but client satisfaction, repeat business. Aah, we get it.
W. David Gardner reports the bogus findings for InformationWeek here:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=203100059
His email address posted on his article is: wdavidg@earthlink.net
MDN MW: “doubt”
When I first used the iPhone, it was difficult to type. But once I realized that the letter is actually “struck” when you release the “key”, it becomes much much easier.
My 11-year old daughter was busy typing away on it with ease after about 10 minutes at the Apple Store. So my daughter and I make 2 who could use the iPhone with few errors. If we could find another 18 people with that experience, we could round them up and report on it!
The Register’s Tony Smith reports it as if it were gospel:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/11/14/iphone_vs_blackberry/
I’m in the usability field. Some thoughts:
60 users/20 per scenario is not a bad sample size. You may not be able to generate statistics from that sample size, but you can pull reasonably sound summative data. *If* the tasks were consistent across phones and the phone handsets were counterbalanced, it’s a legit study design.
Disclaimers: I don’t work for this group. I am an iPhone user. I switched from a Cingular 8125 and I adore my iPhone. I do have 10 years’ experience in User Experience, which includes usability.
Typing is probably the most problematic issue for me on my iPhone, such that I changed my little email footer to read “sent from my iPhone, probably while typing one handed, so please forgive typos.” I find typos come in two types – one is an error that I make (I hit the wrong key) and one is an error that the phone introduces through the less-than-accurate autocorrection algorithm. My error rates and misspellings, I have noticed, are far higher when I’m typing with one hand than when I’m typing with both.
I think the biggest part of the problem may be in the lack of tactile feedback. Because it’s a touch screen, I can’t feel the shape of the keys with my fingers. The auditory feedback helps, but doesn’t solve the problem and I don’t always want the sounds turned on.
I guess we should not blast the study even though we might disagree with it. Look at it this way – if they have the client list that they do, they need to know what they’re doing. That client list would not take a couple of guys working in their garage and hire them to do usability studies.
Ben Worthen also blogs this for The Wall Street Journal as if it were gospel:
http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2007/11/14/sorryy-im-tyipng-on-my-iphonw/
ATL gadget grrl,
Microsoft and/or whichever else co. funded this study got exactly what they paid for – an iPhone hit piece that will be picked up and repeated by willing and/or ignorant media accomplices worldwide.
It’s not about a legitimate study. It’s either FUD, funded by Apple’s competitors, or a totally botched “study” that MDN has shown to be fatally flawed on many levels.
Ballmer: What we need is a “study” about the damn thing’s touch keyboard.
Zander: Yup, I agree. You do it this time, I did the last one.
Ballmer: Okay, so it’s agreed: we hit the #1 talking point: touch virtual keyboard vs. physical. I’ll give Gavin a call over at User Centric.
Zander: Ha, User Centric! Perfect!
Ballmer: I’ll hit the keyboard issue later today in a CNBC interview, too.
Zander: Great!
Once again any hint that all things Apple aren’t perfect is met with the typical fanboy response. The iPhone is a wonderful device that has a ton of features that will soon be copied by other vendors. However, is it really necessary to blindly lash out at EVERYTHING even the least bit critical of an Apple product? One of the biggest areas that people have an issue with on this phone is the keyboard. Some don’t mind it, and some hate it. It’s not the end of the world if it isn’t as accurate as other devices (and since I own a Touch I do have experience with the keyboard and I personally do not find it the most accurate thing in the world).
I love typing on my iPhone–much easier for me than those QWERTY phones. Since you don’t have to “press” a key, I find it is fastest to use my index finger and middle finger while holding the iphone with the other hand.
I had asked my wife (who owns an iphone) her opinion on this. She says she goes much faster than the Treo she previously used. Her iphone has “learned” many of her frequently used words. And I have watched her message. My son has an iphone too, and neither complains. They seem to be happy, well-adjusted persons. The iphone has not made them crazy apple fanatics.
There’s one thing that escapes this study ..sex. Maybe, you techno-academics need to slip into something comfortable and have a glass of wine …get intimate with your nerve endings and forget about the troll you once regretably made love with. It was probably your first time and you were vulnerable ..but things have changed ..you’re a grownup …the little qwerty studies were just your way to masturbate. The iPhones keypad is one step on a techno-erotic stairway to your very own climax. I don’t know what I just said but those studies of yours aren’t turning anyone on.
iPhone all the way
My first post after years (or at least many months) of reading. I want to stick up for Troy. I like that MDN is an Apple cheerleader. (Microsoft has so many.) I usually skim my way through MDN’s “take” to the link to the source, read it, then go back and reread the “take” and perhaps read some of the fans’ reactions here.
Troy’s right on this one: too much “take” backed up by too little thought. My patience strained as I waited for the link to the source, which should have been posted higher up. Also, tom is right to assert that 20 samples is adequate to justify the study’s qualitative summary judgments. There’s no end to the ways that this study could have been faked or biased, but MDN’s irritatingly lengthy arguments don’t prove anything, except perhaps that they are desperate to dilute this story with FUD.
People who type slowly on an iPhone are probably too stupid to understand its level of sophistication. I can break 50 words per minute with almost no errors after just 3 weeks of use.
They posted answers to some of the questions, as well as the data itself, in response to this article.
I think you are being too hard on the study. Basically, it looks like these guys were curious about the usability of the iPhone and threw together a test to see how it fares. Nor can I say that I am surprised at the result. If the QWERTY keyboard is the same size as a touch screen keypad, I would expect the keyboard to deliver slightly better results just because it gives another dimension of feedback. That, said, I have never used either, so mark me as unknowledgeable.
Otherwise, the study seems to have been decently done. I would have liked to know what the learning curve is on the iPhone keys; one month may be too short of a time. But I do not know what studies are on speed to proficiency. In any event, in any real life, users will have more experience on a QWERTY system, so it is hardly a relevant objection.
The criticisms I have of the study are minor. The iPhone users are a self-selected group and are not likely to be the same type of users as the other phones. It is possible that this affects the amount of experience the users have in texting or the amount of texting they do in a day. Their data might address this last point, if you look at the actual numbers, but it wouldn’t cover any selection bias of iPhone users.
They also asked the iPhone users to go through a more extensive battery of tests than the other users. They do not explain why they did this.
Unless otherwise informed, I would assume that the rest of their testing and analysis procedures meet standards.
I will slam them for poor usability in presenting results. Rates and errors for all three phone types should be presented in a clean table format on their website. That is the minimum I would expect from a usability company.
Too many typos in that last posting, maybe I need error-correction in my computer.
In any event, I think they deserve kudos for doing a study and for publishing results publicly. Too often this kind of fun stuff is buried behind corporate confidentiality.
It took me 2 weeks to get used to the keyboard. I type much faster on the iPhone than I ever did on the Treo. That study is stupid.
MDN: Apple is just a tech-producer not a religion !
@ Troy
“It really suck to read and article when Mac Daily News is stuffing their two cents worth in after every sentence.”
@Siding with Troy
“My patience strained as I waited for the link to the source, which should have been posted higher up”
Has the beastly MDN, been mean to Troy and his little playmate? do they want their mommy’s to come and look after them?
Just read the link, take control … or maybe, just maybe don’t drop by here, if it’s all too much of a struggle n’ all.
Don,
How, or why would you type and drive. What the hell is so important. Hi honey, just leting you know i’m on my way home. Duh. Your risking death. Sad thing is you’ll probably take someone with you.
Boy look at the venom spewed by MDN, shesh I didn’t even read it all.
No iPhone for my big fat fingers, but I’ll take a mini-tablet/PDA/iPhone/laptop/GPS thing from Apple.
Pete,
What “venom?” Read what MDN wrote before attempting to characterize it.
MDN simply refuted the so-called study and showed it to be flawed in various aspects.
nice client list. coincidence… i think not!
BTW – We accept your apology. LOL
MDN – “looked” How many people had to look apologist up?
i use a qwert keybspsdf all hte tiemnever any peoblems. tose tinybuttons work al osr all ,the time unless they stick or soimetig
I used the iPod Touch for the first time today; what a delightful product! I had no problems at all typing accurately on it.
Fred… It was a joke. I only type and drive when at a red light. Oh yeah and thanks to the others for letting me know how to add a contact from recent calls.
Can anyone tell me if there is a cut/copy/paste?
Dopey indeed.
You could have stopped at the 21% part. Obviously the results are faked and no further analysis is needed.
The amount of crying here is ridiculous. A study show that the iPhone isn’t as good for text entry as other phones and the study must therefore be flawed despite the iPhone having nearly double the error rate of the other units used.
Yeah, must be fixed.
LOL fanboys!
The 21% stat is most likely the result of “some participants did additional tasks as time allowed.” Not all participants perfomed all tasks, nor can studies ethically hold people if they don’t wish to continue. How about 19? Four participants is 21% and change of 19.
Not telling participants how to use the features on the iPhone does not make the study “junk.” Telling them would; it preserves the entire point of the study. If the researchers told all iPhone users about the magnifying glass feature, and then took statistics on which ones knew about the feature, they’d get 100%. Needless to say, telling them would be ridiculous. It would also be falsification.
On the company’s “client’s over the last two quarters” page, there is a very prominent (and very ignored) “updated 03-08-06” notification in the bottom right-hand corner. A 20 month-old page is not evidence of conspiracy.
And as others have said, 20 participants is sound. But the study had *60* participants, 20 for each condition of phone-ownership. That’s actually pretty solid. Also, random selection is essential to just about any research conducted in any person-centered field. It’s no flaw.
And now you know why political poles are worthless.
Don’t tell me the 1033 people you just questioned can even come close to representing what the country is actually thinking.
And let’s not even get started on sample bias…
The nice thing about doing a study is that soon you will be paid to repeat it again to prove it was right the first time.
The main take out of the study should be is how many mistakes a NEW user makes in using the iPhone compared to a 30 day early adopter who has used it extensively – and then test people after 90 days and 180 of daily use of sending messages.
If they had done a study with people who always use a QUERTY keyboard and make them use a Dvorak keyboard the results would likely be the same – more mistakes using an unfamiliar system.The most important take out of this is that the magnifying feature was unknown to everyday users – not unexpected since almost NO ONE reads a manual that explains everything and how to get to all the features (who has read the complete MAC help manual?)
This only proves that doing something different requires people a longer time to adapt and learn the new method compared to an evolutionary update of an existing item.
Think of it like prop planes and jets. Both work on the same principles but going from a 1945 prop to a 1945 jet you had to learn to do things very differently. Course with prop to jet flying conversion if you made a mistake you were dead – with iPhone you just look like a lousy speller.
Tom Philo
http://www.taphilo.com
In my own experience, as a qwerty hard-key phone user, I have found the iPhone to be totally inferior in accuracy, and because I use my phone so much for notes and email, this is the single reason why I have so far refused to buy one.
I would say the results of this study are spot on from what I have found, and the comments of friends of mine that have iPhones.
If you don’t text or email much, you probably don’t care, but people who blindly extol the virtues of Apple’s produts when there are definite flaws really irritate me.