Nokia N900 and Maemo OS: Excellent Design

The Nokia N900 mobile computer brings together the best in hardware and software, and presents it in a very user-friendly package. The N900, together with the Maemo OS, is one of the best examples of design I've seen. This is due to its excellent incorporation of user feedback in both software and hardware, in my opinion.

Let's start with the software. The N900 user interface (screen) always shows which actions are possible, in a very subtle and eye-catching way. For example, the active part of the phone will be clear and in the front, while the inactive part will be greyed out. If you want to go back or exit the active view, just click on the inactive part which is in the background. This was my default reaction when trying to exit. Features like these, in design terminology, shorten the gulf of execution: the user always knows what actions are possible with the interface.

Second, status notifications and the status area are both well designed, providing appropriate and alluring indicators about the current state of the device (screenshot below). The status notifications show up as yellow strips on top of the desktop with a pleasing sound, making them immediately noticeable. The status area has important indicators, like the type of mobile network connection (3G), battery level, active Bluetooth connection etc. They can help conserve battery, by turning the active connections off when not required. The two vertical bars below the Bluetooth icon are my CPU and memory usage respectively, obtained after installing the excellent cpumem-applet. This lets me know whether an application is working in the background, just like on a PC. There are also other status indicators shown here, which pop up upon tapping the status area once.

The hardware also includes great design decisions on feedback: the phone vibrates when the screen is touched, informing the user the touch has been registered. While this is a small feature, it has tremendous implications on usability. I've been able to use this phone and its excellent MicroB internet browser better due to this handy feature.

And I absolutely love the N900 resistive screen, and I prefer it over capacitive ones. I don't need to take my gloves off in order to operate it, which at a temperature of -5° outside is a life saver. Plus the 800x480 screen resolution is absolutely amazing, allowing me to configure my desktop as I want it. The desktop above has my office calendar and some shortcuts.



Overall, Nokia and the Maemo community have succeeded in creating a powerful piece of technology in a very user-friendly package, and a stunning example of industrial design. They set out with the goal of creating a computer which also had phone capabilities, instead of the other way round. In my opinion they've succeeded.