[Upgrading, Modifying and Unlocking] quicksite:
There's a lot of development at XDA, but often hard to get a snapshot of what is happening all over the site. Since this topic covers multiple phones, and is about modifying the whole user interface of the phones, it seems right to post it here. I would like to see more energy put into User Experience design -- and general usability -- as opposed to just replicating what's out there.

For me, all the effort that's been spent on replicating the Windows 6.5 interface is such an un-leveraged, fairly wasteful use of time and energy -- other than for decoration purposes so someone can say "I've got the invisible honeycomb look!". ( Microsoft's CEO Ballmer himself, as most industry analysts, have seen it as a lame band-aid for Microsoft to APPEAR to be innovating after apple kicked its ass. This is why what should have been a HUGE marketing & branding campaign, heralding WINDOWS PHONE as the new brand for Windows Mobile as instead been fairly low-key. Because the phones are all out there already from HTC, etc, but they're running the ugly, left-in-the-dust 6.5 interface. Ballmer acknowleged WindowsMobile 7.0 should be out -- and THAT could be a game changer. It will for sure have elements of the Zune HD interface, which is following the interface "family" (or eco-system -- new word of the year) of Windows 7.0 desktop user experience )

I'd like to see what user interface designers think about all of this.

It seems to me that the world of touchscreen phones has, essentially, four navigation schemes:

(1) Apple iphone is a grid-based icon system, which "sells" the idea of specialty apps -- as replacements for 90% of them which could be web pages displaying through a decent mobile browser.

(2) Palm's Web OS, which essentially uses a full screen version of Apple's own "coverflow" display system -- providing a context-view of what else is nearby the main window you're working with.

(3) Android's widget-based system -- which I view as enabling unrestricted usage of the entire screen, to be adapted into custom navigation schemes and display systems for applets & widgets.

(4) WM's old-fashioned pull-down menu, click-through to tiny-type interface screens, all inconsistent from one another, forming a hodge-podge stick and glue user experience. It just barely gets you where you need to go.

(I know all of these can be, and should be, disputed. But it's just to set the stage for: what can we do on HTC phones that provides flexible and rapid-access interfaces for the functions people use most).

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So here are some examples:

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This is the interface for a new WindowsXP phone made in China. I saw this today on GIZMODO:

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The above XP phone interface is not for Windows Mobile, but for fully functional Windows XP OS. So we see more convergence of platforms and devices. But there are some resemblances to some other schemes emerging, some of which we see at XDA:

For example:

1. FEWidgets Ultimate 1.0b12 , screenshots below:

It's nice to see some original thinking going on here, vs just accepting TouchFlo 3 as a great interface just because it's shipping on so many phones.

2. HTC's Hero theme transformed people's view of the possibilities for Android OS ...

To me, android's initial round of wallpaper schemes made the whole UI appear lifeless and ugly, like some bad imitation Salvador Dali painting. But HTC's Hero showed how some simple graphical elements could transform the overall appearance of Android -- which I am sure made Android's makers very happy, since they built something with an open architecture. (I want to save Sense UI for separate discussion)

3. ANDROKKID (from XDA's iFonz developer)

Written in dot net, this is the newest interface scheme from "simo" of simosoftprojects.com. He developed about 4 iterations of the iFonz interface over a two-year period before putting it to bed earlier this year in favor of the more Android-like "Anrokkid". Once simo moved away from ifonz (icon grid) and towards androkkid, the "radical change" was making the whole screen addressable in terms of navigation and display elements, and open-source widgets.

Now that we see the Hero Theme for Androkkid, to me this look also demonstrates the greater power available to revamp the entire look of Androkkid... more than just dragging around some widgets on a phone desktop.

Some emerging examples:

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Would love to get some comments -- and some posts of other current interface schemes being developed here at XDA. thanks!

(Mods -- if this thread belongs elsewhere, would you please move it and PM me so that I understand where and why. thank you)