P1i user interface - is it any better?

I've finally had some time to spend it with SonyEricsson P1i, the avant-garde of "serious" SE smartphones. As I have previously confessed, their previous generation flagship product had been my device of choice for almost 3 years.
Must I say I had been quite excited and I had some expectations of increased usability, robustness and stability of the new runner-up P1i.
But it turned out, that the P1i device (again! after the lackluster P990i) is not up to pretty high usability/ergonomics standards that I had enjoyed on my trustworthy P910i.
And here's why.

1. First off, they left off the 5-way JogDial wheel.

This wheel alone is an "interface" on its own.
The whole menu structure in UIQ2.1 has been fully accessible with just your left thumb on jog dial!
You could open menus, close them, navigate within, select items, run them with only a thumb, single-handedly, even with the flip closed!



Now all that goodness is gone, since the P990...






2. They also left off the phone buttons.

P1i contains only qwerty keyboard, no "Answer"/"End Call" or other phone-related buttons.
What this means is that you have to use a mixed interface - you dial numbers on keyboard, then press on-screen "Call Button" (or press the jog dial inside). Switching from virtual keys for control, to physical buttons for numbers.

Sometimes the on-screen buttons are small and you need stylus... Needless to say - one hand/on-the-go operation becomes cumbersome. In P910i it was solved by a flip-closed mode, which beautifully shifted the complexity away, switching display sensors off while on-the-go. But here in P1i - another step back and dispersion of your attention.




3. The ubiquitous "More" button.

This is the most annoying and cumbersome feature of all UIQ3 user interface.
Whenever some application designers feel some "need of space" for all the menu features that don't fit into the 3 soft-buttons in the lower bar, they hide all the goodness into a single and impenetrable "More" button, behind which hell only knows how many useful (or completely not) features are hidden.
User often is compelled to press that button just to see what else that application can provide.

This is so inferior to the UIQ2 and MacOS paradigm of top-bar pull-down menus that I have nothing else to say. Just check the screenshots. This would have been OK for your dumb phones with buttons only, but on a touch-based smartphone! Duh.
How could hiding part of UI help user productivity and UI transparency I just can't imagine! I think we've been there already with Microsoft's "Personalized Menus".






4. The 3 ways of input.

User may interact with P1i using either:

-- keyboard,
-- side buttons and jog dial,
-- touchscreen+stylus,
-- touchscreen+fingers.

Having many options for control could sound as advantage, but those inputs methods are complementary throughout the UI, not replaceable!
For some features you HAVE to use on-screen soft-buttons, which are easiest and most conveniently pressed with just a finger; for others, such as very basic CLOSE button in the upper right, you better be holding a stylus since the button itself is quite small; for still others (CAMERA) there's no way but to press a side button.
This makes user experience tattered into pieces of using different input methods.
Especially funny when you see several "Close" buttons on the screen - one for the stylus (top right corner) and one for non-existing in P1i "three buttons row" (lower right)!

5. "Do you want 5, 15 or all of your apps?"

The paradigm of "More", "Even more" and "All" continues in the application strip at the bottom of the Home screen.








With touch screen, there could have been a better solution - a scrollable "infinite" ribbon of icons, with "inertia", like a wheel that would roll for some time after you clicked and dragged it. Such ribbon would effectively allow to do away with the application menu and the 12-icon mode. Customization would be accomodated by re-arranging icons order on the launch ribbon.
Instead, user sees 5 icons, by clicking on a divider a user can see 15 icons (with peculiar diamonds replacing empty spaces!) or, finally, the whole application menu.
Now what if I want space just for 7 or 19 icons? :)

6. The Ulimate Goal.

So what it is, the ultimate goal of such conformist UIQ3 UI design?

Compatibility with buttons-only phones.

And while I can agree that it serves them well (take MOTO RIZR Z8 for example), at the same time it denies the usability achievements of the past platform, UIQ2.1.
Such situation derails old-time users from UIQ and drives them in hordes to Windows Mobile in search of 'new cool' stuff and 'powerfull specs' stuff.
I have seen this situation en-masse in a well-known Russian online forum which used to be alive with the joyful sounds of P910i users, but not anymore. Most people left, only occasional newbies ask for a solution and some old-timers file their report on migration to Windows Mobile world. Some also express intent to migrate there since they did not like what they saw in UIQ3 devices from SonyEricsson either.

Would it not have been possible to create a separate, simpler version of UIQ, like Nokia S60's cousin, Series40?

'One size fits all' strategy failed, at least in the usability plane. And that means a lot nowadays.

What's most annoying is that SonyEricsson had 3 years since the P910i launch to improve and polish the highly valued hardware ergonomics and interface before iPhone hit the shelves! This very strategic blunder seems oh so familiar...

They were the closest shot to the "simplest stuff", the bread and butter of Apple Inc.
This may be also testified by the fact that Apple went as far to help SonyEricsson to write UIQ-based "iSync agent" for P910i, which installs on the phone the first time you try to sync it with a Mac. The sync support is full, up to the contacts pictures.

And yet SonyEricsson pursued some other goals [comments are welcome] and basically slipped down on the software, while mucking the hardware with a non-optional keyboard, and a shorter screen.
Yes, 3G, yes, WiFi, but why go away from marvels of past technology? Would you buy a PC with a faster WiFi but smaller screen and less convenient (and non-removable) keyboard and mouse?
I loved P910i and seeing SonyEricsson fall was a pain.

Such is my completely personal and biased old-timer SonyEricsson hardcore smartphone user opinion.

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