Seattle firm Artefact joined HTC on Touch Diamond: Designing the user experience

Attention to the “user experience” has become a fervid mantra since the iPhone reached market last year and in one recent case, a specialty firm has been involved in assisting a large client to bridge a gap for an even larger firm.
Translated, that refers to Seattle-based Artefact assisting HTC Corp. to develop the latter’s user interface for the Touch Diamond handset, which rides atop the somewhat ponderous Windows Mobile operating system from their Redmond, Wash., neighbors Microsoft Corp.
The use of a relatively small, third-party design house may well be unique at this stage, according to at least one analyst. Many proprietary OS companies perform this work in-house.
But in the case of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile – originally aimed at productivity applications in the enterprise – a move into the consumer space and a delay in the next iteration of that OS may have created fertile ground for Artefact.
“Microsoft sees the popularity of the iPhone and the Android G1 and the appeal of capacitive, touchscreen navigation,” said Kevin Burden, analyst at ABI Research. “Windows Mobile really was designed for a stylus-driven touchscreen or a five-way navigation button. So as operating systems have evolved and user interfaces have become more intuitive, Microsoft has begun to allow outside parties to make its OS’ most useful elements simpler and easier to use.”
Burden cited Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications’ work on the user interface for its new Xperia line of touchscreen smartphones, Velocity Mobile’s touchscreen smartphones and HTC Corp.’s work with its TouchFlo UI on a series of recent devices. All these products run Windows Mobile 6.1, precursor to a 7.0 iteration due next year – a long way off in the mobile technology timeframe.
In the latter case, Artefact – established by Microsoft veterans with ongoing, useful ties to their former employer – worked with HTC’s UI to improve its “user experience,” admittedly a somewhat malleable term.
“Our main goal is to align the UI with the user’s goals,” said Martijn Van Tilburg, senior design director at Artefact.
Though the visual icons on the Touch Diamond were created by HTC, Artefact’s work focused more on methods for the personalization of and navigation among various functions, according to Van Tilburg.
“With open platforms – the ‘democraticization’ of those platforms – features are less important than creating differentiation based on the user experience,” added Agnieszka Girling, director of product strategy at the Seattle company.
Thus Artefact is working with HTC, possibly the largest vendor of handsets based on Windows Mobile, as well as small Asian handset vendors to help create that differentiation. Artefact, established two years ago and privately held, also is working on a touch interface for next-gen laptops and “a completely new class of mobile device.” It is involved with Intel Corp. on software for mobile devices that cannot be discussed, Girling said. She acknowledged that industry discussion of laptops, WiMAX-enabled devices and mobile Internet devices touches upon possible future projects that Artefact and Intel are working on. Artefact is working with a number of mobile platforms beyond Windows Mobile, Girling said.
The “win” with HTC and Microsoft actually came from the Artefact principals’ long relationship with Microsoft and came about without competitive bidding, according to Girling.
Girling and Van Tilburg said their company’s work with HTC dovetailed well with the latter’s recent push to establish a brand name for itself -thus, the thirst for a differentiated user experience – as it emerges on the global stage. Other work by Artefact supports the notion that touchscreens for mobile and multi-touch for stationary kiosks, for instance, will continue to have major market impacts in the future.
To analyst Burden, Artefact’s work with HTC on the user experience atop the Windows Mobile OS reflects Microsoft’s interest in out-of-house innovation while it conjures Windows Mobile 7.0.
“It’s a departure from Microsoft’s original way of thinking,” Burden said. “As Microsoft has sought a piece of the consumer smartphone business, they’ve had to open up to outside innovation.”
Whether the development of open source OSs, such as Android and those produced by the LiMo Foundation, will mean more business for “user experience” design houses is an open question, he said.
“It’s not clear that Android, for instance, is focusing on a definable user experience,” Burden said. “That may be a negative by-product of open source OSs.”