[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] gabibbo:
I enjoyed reading your comments as these were exactly some of our concerns while designing/developing Face Contact.

As for some of the suggestions you and other people posted, believe it or not, these were all things we considered doing (or considered providing as "options").

For example, it was clear to us that it looks much nicer when the photos are displayed on the plugin background, rather then on the solid color of the selection. And we even considered providing an option to always have the plugin background displayed.

The same applies to hiding the caption below the photo. We thought that some people may want the plugin to use as little screen estate as possible, and, as long as contacts are kept sorted, even if you don't see the name or the index-tracking indicator while scrolling, it is pretty obvious where you are in the list.

So, why didn't we include such options in this first release?

Very simply, we liked the idea of having the various options/settings screens showing the Face Contact control at the top, so you can easily experiment with it while changing settings. This implies that on each options screen the space that remains available for actual options and controls is somehow limited (for compatibility with square screen devices).

We didn't want to use tabbed options screen (which subtracts further screen space), and we thought that at this stage, having 4 different options/settings screens (actions, display, motion and photo) was already enough.

So, those you mentioned (background mode and caption display) ended up being among the things we removed from the list of actual options for this first release. If interested, here's the rationale for this omissions.

Background mode: we thought that, as nice as the transparent mode is, some kind of the clue of the plugin selection had to be provided (for example, the Start Call key will only call the selected contact if Face Contact is the active plugin... so some kind of indication of the plugin "active" status should be provided). That's why we ended up removing "background mode" from the options.

Caption display: we thought that always displaying the caption (and the index-tracking indicator while scrolling) helped usability. Even if all contacts have no picture, and show the default icon, as long as you see the contact name, or the index tracking indicator, Face Contact is nearly as usable as any text-based contact application, because you always know where you are in the list. We felt this was important, so once again, the option of hiding entirely the caption was removed from our list.

Having said this, I hope it is clear that both options can be provided easily. We already have a transparent display mode (when the plugin is inactive) and we already hide the caption (when the plugin is inactive), so it is just a matter of exposing such behaviors as "options". We'll see. We may end up adding another "options" screen, or maybe we will try to think an entirely different mechanism/interface to expose these and other options (someone mentioned that the menu/bar SIP display should also be optional).

BTW: the idea of displaying the name/caption above, instead than below, is also something we gave some thought, but showing it below the picture allowed to use the same space to display the reflection effect. And if you move the caption above, during interaction you end up covering the pictures with your finger...

Which brings me to a final comment, which is not specific to Face Contact, and regards the general ergonomic of interaction, whatever the system and application.

Touchscreen/finger interaction is definitely the most intuitive way to control an application.

Not only it is "COOL": it is intuitive!

On the other hand, it implies that while you are "interacting" your finger is exactly between your eyes and the screen, which is not very effective to see what you are actually doing and what's happening...

This may clarify why, a couple of years ago, when Windows Mobile 5 was launched, Microsoft decided to switch to 2-softkeys approach for "single-handed" interaction on the Pocket PC, even if this had an entire touchscreen to interact with.

Somehow, they felt that "single-handed" interaction had to be achieved with keys, not stylus or finger.

And I think this decision had probably something to do with the drawback I just mentioned. Interacting with a touchscreen implies covering the screen while interacting. As intuitive and cool as it appears, somehow, from a rational stand-point, it is also counter-intuitive.

Anyway, thanks everybody for your feedback.

This is all very interesting and gives us lot of things to think about.