Tilting and Bumping Interfaces for Bible Readers
One of the new aspects of play that I have had with mobile devices lately has come through the Nokia N95 and a piece of hardware/software called the accelerometer. The Accelerometer is basically a sensor within the device that senses when it has changed positions on the X, Y, and Z-axis and then orients the screen accordingly.
Those of you with the iPhone will know this feature as being the same thing as when you hold the device in its normal portrait mode, but then tilt to landscape for web or email viewing. The N95 also has this feature, and its something that when I unlocked it with a few applications, it got me thinking again about mobile Bible readers.
One of the common issues I hear with mobile bible readers is the screen resolution. For many people, the text is too small to read, but just right to look up a phone number (go figure). For some others, the buttons are designed for quick presses and therefore are uncomfortable for a reading mode.
Some browsers have seen this issue and have adopted a pan and zoom feature. For example, Opera Mini, Nokia's S60 Web Browser and Apple's Safari Mobile have this feature where you can view the whole of a web page as it would look on a desktop, but then zoom in to a section that you'd like to read.
The benefits of this is that you get some of the feel of the large page, but the compactness of the content fitting the screen that you are looking at. Now, what if that same idea, plus the accelerometer were applied to a mobile bible reader.
Let's give a usage case and then hear some thoughts from you:
- Open the Bible Reader and you are presented with two panes: last read verses and recent bookmarks
- Clicking on Last Read Verses you are taken to a zoomed out page with the focus square (the area that you can zoom into) on the verse that you chose
- The view is a nearly traditional four column, 42-line view (mimicing the page view that many are familiar with)
- Zoom in and the content is reflowed to fit the mobile screen for that specific verse with a line from the previous verse and a line from the next verse if the screen permits
- To scroll one tilts the device up or down, moving the Bible a verse up or down (an optional setting to allow it to move an entire screen, multiple verses, or off)
- For added fun, tapping the camera will indicate that a bookmark is to be made for that verse and a new screen pops up with that specific dialogue
Again, this is just a thought after having played with the programs FlipSlient and RockNScroll on my N95. What do you think of immersing the electronic bible reading experience with a few subtle actions such as described above?
Post created with alpha version of WordPy for Internet Tablets (please excuse any formatting issues)
Those of you with the iPhone will know this feature as being the same thing as when you hold the device in its normal portrait mode, but then tilt to landscape for web or email viewing. The N95 also has this feature, and its something that when I unlocked it with a few applications, it got me thinking again about mobile Bible readers.
One of the common issues I hear with mobile bible readers is the screen resolution. For many people, the text is too small to read, but just right to look up a phone number (go figure). For some others, the buttons are designed for quick presses and therefore are uncomfortable for a reading mode.
Some browsers have seen this issue and have adopted a pan and zoom feature. For example, Opera Mini, Nokia's S60 Web Browser and Apple's Safari Mobile have this feature where you can view the whole of a web page as it would look on a desktop, but then zoom in to a section that you'd like to read.
The benefits of this is that you get some of the feel of the large page, but the compactness of the content fitting the screen that you are looking at. Now, what if that same idea, plus the accelerometer were applied to a mobile bible reader.
Let's give a usage case and then hear some thoughts from you:
- Open the Bible Reader and you are presented with two panes: last read verses and recent bookmarks
- Clicking on Last Read Verses you are taken to a zoomed out page with the focus square (the area that you can zoom into) on the verse that you chose
- The view is a nearly traditional four column, 42-line view (mimicing the page view that many are familiar with)
- Zoom in and the content is reflowed to fit the mobile screen for that specific verse with a line from the previous verse and a line from the next verse if the screen permits
- To scroll one tilts the device up or down, moving the Bible a verse up or down (an optional setting to allow it to move an entire screen, multiple verses, or off)
- For added fun, tapping the camera will indicate that a bookmark is to be made for that verse and a new screen pops up with that specific dialogue
Again, this is just a thought after having played with the programs FlipSlient and RockNScroll on my N95. What do you think of immersing the electronic bible reading experience with a few subtle actions such as described above?
Post created with alpha version of WordPy for Internet Tablets (please excuse any formatting issues)
Labels: Bible, iPhone, iPod Touch, N95, seminary, software, UI
posted by Antoine @ 9/04/2008 10:00:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Tilt scrolling for Bible readers is something I've just been thinking about the last couple of days, so hopefully developers will take note of this post!
Not exactly sure why you're suggesting applying the limitations of print to a scalable screen, but tilt scrolling continuous single columns would be very handy, especially if angle controls speed (you're own teleprompter!)
An example of tilt scrolling text on the iPhone (and a demonstration video) can be found at http://instapaper.com/iPhone#tiltscroll
I've been playing with a program called RockNScroll and its pretty much giving me this ability. I wrote about my experiences today with it on my personal blog, and its really close to something that just might make sense.
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