Simple mobile UI falls flat

A MOBILE UI which in theory should have made surfing the mobile web a piece of cake falls seriously flat when you try to use it.

Ironically, Squace from the Swedish company of the same name, does achieve the objective for which it is striving. Namely, that it enables mobile surfers to reach content with absolutely no keypad input involved.

Unfortunately, the content you reach is absolutely arbitrary. It makes complete nonsense of the company's claims that you can find content with 88 per cent fewer clicks in nine out of ten instances. Those that can do this must have photographic memories.

As the name implies, Squace divides the entire handset's screen space into tiny little squares. Then, when you pass the cursor over an individual square, a pop-up box appears to inform you what's behind the square.

On paper it sounds a good, idea, especially as the INQ used this technique to quickly jump to the BBC's WAP site.

The catch is trying to remember exactly which of the tiny squares you used to achieve this particular content access. Even remembering which row the square resides in would help. The INQ found the Beeb site by accident.

The problem for anyone trying out Squace right now is that the squares provide a complete random approach to content discovery. For example, shouldn't you at least be able to set the language in which you'd like to view content?

Apparently not, as on the test handset provided by Squace – a Sony Ericsson W910i – there were plenty of squares hosting content in Swedish – the native language of its designers.

Squace would probably argue that users would customise the squares on their own home page – My Stuff – so that they can easily get to their own favourite content.

But what's the point of that? If you need to discover your favourite content sites in the first place, why use Squace?

Actually, the INQ thinks that Squace has already been beaten to this approach with a system called Celltop from Aricent. Celltop uses squares like Squace but at least you can immediately gauge what's behind them.

So it's very definitely back to the drawing board for Squace's designers. µ

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