When consumer products like cars first needed complex controls systems like central locking and power windows, electronics were in their infancy. Electro-mechanical relays were large, hot, loud, expensive, and unreliable. This was solved instead mostly by the use of "air logic." Compressed air (or sometimes vacuum) systems use miniature 3- and 4-way air valves to fulfil the needs of the logical components and, or, not, yes, and flip-flop as well as timers and delay mechanisms. Users turned dials or pushed buttons which fed data into the system via air instead of electricity, and the control system actuated power controls which caused air or electrically-driven accessory controls to function. Some even used these to control engine accessories, like air conditioning, fuel timing, and emissions controls.
While it continues to be used today, it's only really for specialized industrial uses. From the 1970s onward, the now cheap and reliable integrated circuit began replacing air logic and cars were really the vanguard of the all-electronic world we live in. When I encounter an air logic system, I often imagine a long-retired engineer with a shelf of industry awards and books; the father of air logic, now forgotten due to the march of technology.
This second edition of Designing Mobile Interfaces is about SEE BELOW. DISCUSS HOW THINGS SHOULD GO OUT OF DATE, AS MUCH AS I TRIED TO MAKE THIS UNIVERSAL.
Keep yourself educated, keep up to date with trends and technology, and never be so in love with a particular solution, or way of working that you lose sight of the changing world.
Keep this updated as I do changes. Write it in english prose, but for now it's a list:
- originally, was a very general book as none existed at this level; used by everyone from web designers to those designing OSs. That worked great, but today
- focus on mobile handsets and tablets; kiosks, telematics, TVs, wearables, and more that were touched on are not anymore as they are different enough topics, addressed by others or which should be separately discussed as we now know they are different enough in use to need their own design principles
- Still will be generalized, and use diagrams and words instead of screenshots, but will discuss the principles of iOS vs Android a fair bit. Windows Phone and BB10 are dying, Firefox OS and many others are dead. It's a two part ecosystem for the most part, but if that changes radically expect me to try to write a third edition.
- much, much more on touch, but many patterns still discuss scroll and select behaviors
- added explicit discussion of accessibility (TBD!!!)
- removed many appendices on various topics. some are integrated into the text, many are just gone. in the inter
- and reorganized it all to be a little more narrative, and to follow a design process of sorts, so hopefully you can sit down and read it straight through, or refer to it more easily as you design products...