You always feel a little smarter when you find a flaw in design or in a product/software. However, we sometimes have to humble ourselves and take a second to question whether that current model we find error in, was designed that way by accident or on purpose.
I’ve recently experienced one of these moments in Apple’s iPhone operating system; iOS. I was driving a long distance and needed to conserve my phone’s battery. I didn’t have a car charger at the time. I was using a maps service to help me navigate and found my self not needing to have location services on the entire time. There were points when I would drive for miles and miles before needing another direction. However, location services was was running the entire time and started to drain my battery quickly. To avoid this problem, I would turn location services on and off to conserve battery. This was an inconvenience, however, it could have been easier…
In iOS, to enable or disable location services, one has to go through a long process from unlocking the phone, to clicking through multiple pages in the settings app. I had to go through all of this, and keep my eyes on the road. I found myself wondering why there wasn’t an easier way to enable and disable this simple function. It needed to be quick, and simple. It shouldn’t take time or energy away from the user.
This whole experience provoked me to start looking at how others used location services and other functions. I came across people who had their location services on, and didn’t even realize. Others didn’t know where in settings to even find location services.
In iOS, there is something called “control center.” With a simple swipe upward of a finger, on any screen, will bring up a transparent screen holding key function control such as airplane mode, bluetooth, wifi, volume, brightness and more. It also displays basic apps such as the calculator and the camera. Needless to say, the whole point of this screen is to bring the user quick and easy access to basic functions. That being said, location services, personal hotspot, and cellular data are missing from this menu.
I began to imagine a control center with these newly added functions. How great would it be to swipe upward at any time on your phone, and have access to location services. I would probably use location services more often since it wouldn’t be such a hassle to access. I started making prototypes and brainstormed about how these newly added functions would be added to this screen. I realized scrolling to the right to an abrupt end of list, would not enhance the experience at all. It just felt awkward. The idea was eventually had to have a continuous looped scrolling effect. When a user scrolled over to the right, they could keep scrolling forever just to see a continuous cycle of all of the key functions. It felt fun, and felt exactly right for iOS. The scrolling effect of this interaction inspired me to name this project "iOS infinite loop.“ It’s no secret that this term is very familiar to Apple.
The real question is, did Apple design the current system this way on accident, or was this purposeful?…
https://www.behance.net/gallery/25794475/iOS-9-Concept-User-Experience
