Spin User Interface for Sharp
A great interview with the company who provided UI with touch & spin functions for the latest Sharp handsets.
Attention has gathered in new user interface (UI) with the touch panel after “iPhone” of Apple. All current UI is dragged and the reformative one is none at all equal though a Japanese manufacturer also has turned on various touch UI up to now.
Terminal “940SH” “941SH” made by Sharp that had appeared as a model in the winter of 2009 of in such and mobile Softbank adopted UI new as for externals that were called “Spin menu”. Game production company Camelot where “Mario tennis” and “Mario golf”, etc. were handled is deeply related to the development of this UI.
– Sense that operates game
In spin menu, it is the situation to date and a greatly different point that the function icon is arranged like the spiral. The smooth movement is near not the cellular phone but the sense to operate the character of the game. It is UI that can be thought to be “It is happy” even if it sees or it touches.. finished.
President Hiroyuki Takahashi in Camelot
It thought how the cellular phone in the future was going first. It aimed for the entertainment to exist, and to make it to existence like the frame ‘Mate’ of the attachment. President Hiroyuki Takahashi in Camelot talks about the aim of development.
Spin menu is able not only to be used pleasantly but also there is a feature also in the point with fresh discoveries and the surprise when using it. It ..nature.. does can find an inconsiderate up to now function by turning round and round, and pushing by way of experiment.
In addition, beginning of changing the order of displaying the function icon according to the belt of the function to often use and the duration and day of the week was given according to artificial intelligence (AI). Today’s schedule is displayed by priority, and music player comes out from the earphone in the main body between commuting hours if spin menu is seen in the morning. If the party is scheduled at after 5, the infrared date communication comes to be found at once.
AI be “Such a function is used”, too, if the function not so used is provided. It is new, that there is not a point that the more the user uses it, the more evolves to an easy-to-use further way by AI in current UI either.
– Intuitive, happy UI is consistently pursued.
It goes back that Sharp met Camelot two years or more ago. The idea “UI rushed into in a new age” was corresponding, and the joint development started. However, it is said first that it always confuses it for Sharp on the side where the terminal is actually made.
It was developed by there was only AB button in the game machine and Camelot developed the Mario tennis that devised the manner of operation so that the smash and topspin were put only by the two buttons in a natural age.
President Takahashi explains, “Mother who ended not doing though it had yearned tennis to have made the Mario tennis a target in old times”. The Mario tennis is said, “Happiness and pleasure were felt in the place where everyone was able to operate the controller easily” though the rally ended in the tennis game till then in the beginner momentarily.
In the controller of the game machine, the number of buttons increases afterwards, and a virtual controller like “Wii” also appears now. Meanwhile, Camelot has been consistently pursuing UI that can be operated intuitively and happily when game software is developed. President Takahashi says, “We research, and have developed the game for various controllers”.
– Developer who doesn’t engage mutually
Camelot made the best use of the accumulated experience in the game when spin menu was developed, and threw the conception in current portable UI without at all. It is an order “It wants you to move to be alive” that the Camelot side put out to Sharp.
However, developer’s meeting did not engage first. In Sharp, there was common sense of giving the user the stress in UI that was not able to be operated tightly, and UI was made in the world of 1 or 0. Therefore, it started first from the inquiry of coordinates when the function icon was displayed on the Camelot side.
However, smooth movement to live cannot be achieved by the method of putting the icon on coordinates. Then, the Camelot side is said, “It was insisted it was not absolutely good if it did not arrange by coordinates but the operation processing was done and it did not draw”.
It is said that it thoroughly sticks to work to harden the concept when the game is developed in Camelot. The blur goes out by all means during production if the concept is not decided. It is transmitted to the user, and, after all, it becomes a game not fun.
The difference of the conception of the one-making of such a portable manufacturer and the game company was printed and the matched work continued with the length. Finally, actual development is considerably said, that used AI was not made until one week ago by taking a risk though it came to be able to attempt the will communication.
AI seeming had had haste least for Camelot in the field alone in which it was skillful most. The role-playing game might be handled, and it has the knowhow of the AI engine considerably originally. It was feeling ‘Please leave there’.
In the role-playing game, the AI engine is used so that the monster may attack the player. Production that it is likely to fail if it is occasionally strong and to be defeated at the easy player. The knowhow was introduced into the cellular phone. It includes by not UI perfectly answered but AI for between the people, and frame UI of the attachment is said doing.
– To the partner with good global expansion
i-mode that appeared ten years ago influenced UI of the cellular phone that had started from the address book for the voice call, and various functions were piled now. As for the all aspects change, past UI is in fact impossible because it leads to the complaint from the user when past operativeness is excluded.
However, UI of the company of not one’s specialty not caught in iPhone past bonds there had come out, and the user who had been requesting the novelty jumped at a dash.
In the manufacturer in Japan caught in the stereotype and the conception of the career, the UI reform might already be difficult. However, the cellular phone of Japan will become a happier tool in the future if the enterprise that finishes up to the entertainment possession, and the operation of a quite different cut like Camelot enters further.
It is adopted only in a superficial part under the present situation, and if it uses each function, spin menu becomes conventional UI However, Camelot takes charge of UI to the camera part etc. I want to expect to evolve to epoch-making UI that can be wholly treated by “Spin” though it is said, “To develop the mail surroundings etc. , become equivalent heavy work”.
The company like Camelot is good at making the game accepted in the world. It is likely to be sure to become a good partner for the global expansion of a Japanese manufacturer.